Class Twelve

This challenging Main Lesson offers an introduction not only to this monumental tragedy, but also to the life and work of one of the most prolific thinkers of the post-Renaissance era. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe spent nearly his entire adult life working on Faust. In it he describes the learned one who has thorough knowledge of all scientific areas but is distraught because he is not a master of what is essential. In order to find his way out of this inner crisis, Faust makes a choice to cooperate with Mephistopheles. In the hopes of gaining Faust’s soul, Mephistopheles offers different forms of pleasure. Though it is set in Medieval Europe, the themes are becoming ever more pertinent and a thorough understanding of Faust gives ways of understanding current events with greater awareness. In studying Faust, the class examined Goethe’s unique treatment of the themes of knowledge and evil, which run throughout the play, and related the contents of Faust to contemporary issues.

The Philosophy Main Lesson provides a forum for the active sharpening and exercising of the intellect. Through the consideration of the work of diverse philosophers, Class XII began to seek answers to three fundamental questions: What is the human being? What is the world? What is the human-being-in-the-world? During this Main Lesson, the study of Logic, Epistemology, Metaphysics and Ethics began to lead to some possible answers; as the students considered key theories, analysed and reproduced arguments, developed their own arguments and classified concepts, they learned to become philosophers themselves and to handle ideas with skill.

The unit intends to explore and develop an understanding for the development of human housing and settlement from prehistoric times to present. Overall intended objectives of the unit: 1. to understand and recognise the the various architectural styles and their development over time. Hereby we look at the outer appearance: shape and form, technical construction and the space generated by the buildings and their users. Another aspect is the social function and the use of the buildings. 2. to understand the political and social context and how that influences and affects the development and production of architecture and space. 3. to understand how the evolution of architecture mirrors the evolution of human consciousness 4. to gain access to the reflection on and experience of architecture through personal engagement with architecture and built space (through exercises with "studium and punctum")

The Main Lesson this year takes the students through developments and changes in artistic attitudes after WW2. Through practical application they have the opportunity to experience the diversity of ideas present in the creative approaches of Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Land, Conceptual, Performance or Body art and the Neo Expressionists. They meet the individualism of artists like Francis Bacon, Judy Chicago and Joseph Beuys and attention is drawn to feminism and artists of colour in art. The lesson includes a visit to the Tate Modern and a social art action involving the school community.

A study of key biochemical molecules and their polymer and chemical behaviour. Sugars, amino acids and proteins and lipids.

This Main Lesson is an exploration of the evolution of science itself from early concepts and attempts to explain the nature of the universe through our relationship with it, through to the division from science and religion to the deductive reasoning and aims of the ancient Greeks, the Novum Organum and rationalisation to the development of 'Big science', 'Popular science' and the leaps of science fiction into the unknown future.

This Main Lesson focuses on the story of animal evolution on Earth with the particular aim of exploring the shared ancestry and morphological commonality between the animal kingdom. Starting with the potential of cell formation and looking at early cell colonies as the beginnings of multicellular life, the subject progressed through the various branches of animal evolution including sponges, various worms, molluscs, arthropods and finally the vertebrates, from lancelets and sea-squirts to the mammals.

Politics and Economics

This Main Lesson takes the form of a wide-ranging introduction to contemporary political and economic issues and their underlying causes. We consider the important role of the media in forming public opinion in a democracy and go on to consider the economic systems of capitalism, communism and socialism, with emphasis on contemporary capitalism. This gives rise to many questions which are explored as time allowed. We also consider the structure and purpose of government in different types of democracy and international issues of conflict from the Cold War through the demise of the USSR to the so-called War on Terror, including issues of the Middle East, South Africa and recently Ukraine. All of these studies are placed in the context of the idea of the threefold cultural, political and economic nature of human society.

This Main Lesson intends to open a route into the sphere of politics by studying the book Who Rules the World? by Noam Chomsky. By focussing on parts of the book, it allows the class to have discussions about what principles exercise control over government decision-making and how such actions are influenced by the “masters of mankind.”

The Main Lesson includes a research project which enables students to carry out an in-depth investigation about a chosen period of history or a specific event.

To understand the significance of the questions around gender, race and class, the differences, generally, underlying the value systems of western thought, we study chapters of Gerda Lerner’s “Creation of Patriarchy”. Her argument for Women’s History in our investigation brings to consciousness the central position of women’s subordination over millennia in the making of history, namely and mainly the exclusion of the female experience. 

Arising from the reasoning that differences offer the foundation to hierarchical value systems and embed customs in societies elevated to natural status, the exploration afford the pupils to evaluate the position of African Americans through slavery and racial discrimination; to gain insight into the origins of gender and its codification and legitimisation into tradition and the law systems of western states and to question the validity of any racially induced grading of peoples.