Some of the most meaningful learning happens in the spaces between subjects.
At Franklin Academy, we believe traditional academic structures provide an important foundation for learning, but they should not become boundaries around how students think, explore, and apply what they know. Our approach has always been to provide traditional academics through nontraditional means- to know our students as individuals, recognize their strengths and interests, and create pathways that allow them to be both supported and challenged.
The launch of our Interdisciplinary Studies Department is a natural extension of that philosophy.
Interdisciplinary learning gives students opportunities to connect knowledge across subjects, apply what they are learning to authentic problems, and pursue questions that genuinely matter to them. More importantly, it creates opportunities for students to practice the skills they need across settings- not just demonstrate them in a single class or single assignment.
Learning That Connects
In real life, rarely do problems arrive labeled “science”, “English”, “history”, or “art”. They require us to draw on multiple perspectives and skills at once.
What happens when we stop asking students to think only in terms of subjects and instead ask, “What do you want to understand? What problem do you want to solve? What do you want to create?”
Those questions can lead in unexpected directions.
At Franklin, students might explore areas such as innovation, media and communication, the arts, entrepreneurship, design, agriculture, or community engagement. They might conduct research, develop a business idea, create a production, work with a community partner, or pursue a question with the guidance of a faculty mentor. The important part is not simply what students produce at the end- a theater performance, a painting done with a goat, a business certificate. It is what they practice along the way: researching, communicating, collaborating, managing a project, solving problems, making decisions, and responding when something doesn’t go as planned.
These are the same skills that we work to develop throughout a student’s Franklin experience. The interdisciplinary classroom provides another setting in which students can apply and generalize those skills.
Using Strengths to Reach Higher
For our neurodivergent students, interests can be powerful entry points into rigorous learning. We don’t want to simply remediate areas of difficulty or limit students to what comes easily. We want to understand each student well enough to identify strengths and interests and use them as pathways towards greater challenge, deeper learning, and increased independence.
The goal isn’t to lower the academic bar because a student is interested in something. The goal is to use that interest to help students reach higher.
A student’s interest in animals, for example, might become an opportunity to explore biology and research through our Farm Science course. An interest in the arts might lead to work in production, design, and leadership in the Technical Theater course. The interest is the entry point; the learning extends far beyond it.
This is an important part of how we think about supporting neurodivergent learners at Franklin. Individualization does not mean narrowing a student’s experience. It means finding meaningful ways into challenging learning.
Learning Beyond the Classroom
Interdisciplinary learning also allows us to expand where and how learning happens. Independent research, mentorships, internships, workshops, and travel-based experiences can all become meaningful parts of a student’s educational journey.
These experiences give students opportunities to apply academic and student-life skills in settings that are less predictable and more authentic. A student may need to communicate with an unfamiliar adult, manage a timeline, solve an unexpected problem, advocate for what they need, or adapt when a plan changes.
Those moments matter.
At Franklin, we are increasingly intentional about helping students develop skills that transfer across settings. We want a student to recognize that the organizational skills practiced during structured study time can help them manage an internship. That communication skills developed in their English class can help them navigate a community partnership. That problem-solving strategies practiced in science class can be applied when something unexpected happens in another.
The Interdisciplinary Studies Department gives us another opportunity to make those connections visible and meaningful.
Preparing Students for What Comes Next
As students move into college, careers, and adult life, they will encounter fewer nearly divided subjects and more complex questions that require them to make connections, collaborate, adapt, and figure things out.
We cannot predict exactly what our students’ futures will look like, but we can help them develop the confidence and skills to navigate those futures.
That means giving students opportunities to not only learn content but to use what they know. Not only to complete a project, but to manage a process. Not only to demonstrate a skill for a teacher, but to recognize when and where that skill is useful in their own lives.
That is the larger purpose of the Interdisciplinary Studies Department.
We want students to leave Franklin with more than a collection of academic credits. We want them to understand how they learn, what they care about, what they can contribute, and how they can continue learning when there isn’t a clear answer or prescribed path.
At its heart, interdisciplinary learning is about making room for the “what if?”
What if these subjects connect?
What if there is another way to approach this problem?
What if I pursued this idea a little further?
What if something I’m genuinely interested in could become something I create, contribute, or change?
Those questions are at the heart of curiosity. At Franklin, they are also part of how we help students belong, grow, and succeed- both here and in the world beyond our campus.
