Marin Academy

A forward-looking school, Marin Academy develops the tools, as well as the critical and creative thinking necessary for students to chart their course in the world. We empower students by putting them at the center of their education, and requiring them to play an active role in their quest for meaning and purpose. The curriculum focuses on problems, projects, and questions because we value thinking deeply about issues. All good schools value critical thinking, as do we. Great schools, however, value teaching creative thinking and problem solving. Scholars, athletes, and artists demonstrate our commitment to collaboration as they both learn and understand the value of working with others and grow their appetite to pursue their own passions, questions, and paths. Diverse perspectives are encouraged and respected as we value innovative thought and action, intellectual curiosity and individual difference. We also pride ourselves on being a community whose members appreciate how difficult it is to navigate adolescence and high school and display empathy toward each other through the ups and downs.

Marin Academy traditions extend our values of innovation and inquiry. Our Conference on Democracy brings national experts to campus to explore perspectives on political, social, environmental, and economic issues. Minicourse, a week spent outside of the classroom, provides the opportunity for experiential learning, such as hiking and caving in Zion National Park or teaching children in Northern Mexico. Literary Festival gets our students working with internationally acclaimed writers representing many different genres, and finding new ways to make meaning with language.

Marin Academy is a co-educational high school committed to scholarship and personal development. We see the high school years as a critically important time when students are discovering who they are, what they value, what they enjoy, and where they are headed. We want our students to develop the skills and knowledge that will serve them well now and in the future.

At Marin Academy, we are committed to experiential education. We provide our students with a solid foundation in traditional academic subjects in a college-preparatory program, and we believe healthy, challenging experiences both inside and outside the classroom are essential for taking adolescents to and beyond intellectual and theoretical knowledge. Throughout, we promote critical thinking — informed, independent, collaborative and creative — as the hallmark of the Marin Academy experience. We expect participation and reflection to be active, inspired and sustained.

We ask each individual to recognize our shared responsibility to inspire and foster a purposefully diverse, equitable and just community, where students and adults of varied backgrounds, beliefs, attributes and abilities relate to one another as individuals worthy of respect. Further, we embrace our responsibility to promote, within and beyond the boundaries of Marin Academy, the values inherent in a democratic society. Marin Academy asks every individual to think, question, and create in an environment of encouragement and compassion, and challenges each person to accept the responsibilities posed by education in a democratic society.

"MA’s culture and community are defined by progressive thought and action, intellectual curiosity, respect for individual differences, styles, and contributions, close relationships among educators and students, and the encouragement of professional development for adults. We are deeply committed to multiculturalism, which is inextricably linked to a diversity of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, thought, socio-economic circumstances, learning styles, and religious belief. We believe that Marin Academy is part of a larger community, beginning with our neighbors and expanding to include the global community. Strong relationships that endure beyond a student’s time at MA are critical to the School’s mission and sustainability as an institution."

At MA, we believe educational excellence should push the boundaries of what is known today in order to prepare students for a world we can’t even imagine tomorrow. As a result, MA graduates are as well-prepared as they are well-rounded, and are uniquely qualified to embrace and solve the problems of the 21st century. And because many voices are welcomed and encouraged at MA, our students cultivate the tools they need to live their lives fully, and the inspiration to contribute as compassionate citizens to our world.

Our classrooms are the starting point for a journey of learning, not the end. MA students are empowered to reflect deeply in order to make meaning of what’s been learned, a philosophy reinforced in the way we structure our day and in our practice of ensuring that instruction and assessments emphasize deep understanding as the true pinnacle of achievement—not just getting the answer right on a test. One of the benefits of being able to think deeply about their subjects is that our students develop critical thinking sensibilities—our curriculum allows students to look at problems from multiple perspectives, to analyze, and to synthesize until solutions are in view.

Finally, at MA, we believe school should be joyful. Our formula for a joyous high school experience is to create a perfect blend of intellectualism, creativity, athleticism, compassion, and fun. Our graduates tell us time and time again the joy they found in their MA experience stemmed from the mix of all of those things together, and from the knowledge that supportive arms were around them on their journeys.