Global
Citizenship

At Nueva, every student learns to make choices that benefit the world.

Through our emphasis on global citizenship, one of the foundational pillars of the Nueva experience, we encourage students to engage with cultures and practices very different than their own. In our increasingly interconnected world, it is imperative for us to cultivate diverse perspectives. When they venture into the world, Nueva students lead with empathy, are civically astute, and use their unique voices to address the issues that matter to them.

Global Citizenship Is Woven into the Academic Curriculum

From PreK to 12, starting with exposure to and celebration of diverse perspectives, we prepare students to understand, communicate, and solve problems in this interconnected world.

In and out of the classroom, students develop self-awareness, understanding their own cultural identities and seeing other cultural perspectives, building authentic empathy. Our focus on Global Citizenship begins in lower school, where students see themselves as contributing members in classrooms and collaborative teams while they practice community building and service. In middle school, through studies that allow them to discover the complexities of human history and interdependence, they deepen their understanding of the world, and their experience in it, as an interconnected whole. When they enter the Upper School, students are awakened to the history, politics, economies, values, and beliefs of different cultures for deep insight into what makes people who they are. Across all divisions, they grapple with thorny global issues and are challenged to use Design Thinking to identify, initiate, and implement solutions.

IN THIS SECTION

In This Section

A Nueva education fosters good citizenship, community, and democracy in the classroom. As students practice global citizenship, they draw upon their SEL skills, gained through the rigor and richness of the SEL program. In stepping into the role of community stewardship, they develop awareness of their needs and their impacts on others.

The Trips Program

Since its founding, Nueva has believed in the power of learning outside the walls of our campuses. Each year, students and faculty travel the country and the globe to live our mission—of enabling our students to make choices that benefit the world—by seeing the world. Trips include a first-grade overnight on campus, local camping trips in the upper elementary grades, a visit to our nation’s capital in sixth grade, international language trips in eighth grade, and weeklong domestic and international trips in the Upper School. Nueva trips have for many years provided capstone experiences.

Lower School

Lower school trips provide students with opportunities to develop their increasing self-reliance, problem-solving skills, new friendships, and scientific knowledge of the beautiful Bay Area.

The trips sequence begins with the first-grade on-campus sleepover in the mansion ballroom. Students work in teams to prepare and clean up after meals.

Second through fourth graders go on increasingly longer camping trips: second grade for two days, third grade for three days, and fourth grade for four days. Students gain hands-on experience working together to build camp, prep meals, and experience the beauty of the Bay Area. They spend time with naturalists to extend their classroom learning to the nature around them, as they discover old-growth redwoods, water conservation streams, and environmental ecology. Past campsites have included the Santa Cruz mountains, Pescadero, and Sonoma County.

Middle School

Middle school students participate in local field trips throughout the school year in preparation for their grade-level trips in the spring. These include exploring tide pools near Half Moon Bay, visiting Japantown, Chinatown, and the Mission District in San Francisco, and venturing to museums such as the Oakland Museum and the California Academy of Sciences.

Grade 5
Fifth graders spend five days in the Monterey area, kayaking at Elkhorn Slough, visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and investigating the local history of the region. Students engage in the scientific study of the ecological systems, as well as learning more about the ways that humans interact with the coastal environment.

Grade 6
Sixth graders go to Washington, DC, a culminating experience of their curricular focus on American history and understanding their role as citizens in a democracy. They delve deeply into the history of our country, from understanding colonial life to visiting government buildings, learn how we honor our past with monuments and museums, and engage with the lawmaking process by meeting with Congressional representatives.

Grade 7
Seventh graders travel to Crow Canyon Archeological Center in Colorado for a deep dive into the history and archeology of the American Southwest. They explore cultures that have lived in the area for centuries and examine the archeological record to piece together an understanding of how human populations have interacted with the high desert climate and the geological region over an extended period of time.

Grade 8
Eighth graders journey overseas to a country whose residents speak the language they've studied in Middle School—Spanish, Japanese, or Mandarin. The international trips include a week-long homestay with host families and attending a local school. During the second week, students bring their classroom studies of Spain, Japan, and Singapore to life as they take day trips to historical and culturally meaningful sites.

Upper School

Each fall, every grade travels to a different place in the California wilderness for an overnight retreat surrounded by nature. Students spend time in advisory groups, get to know their teachers and fellow classmates, and bond as a community.

Later in the year, students take part in Trips Week, where students spend five to seven days exploring new regions and communities:

Freshmen
A bonding experience through immersive learning and shared memory making in the powerful natural and cultural landscape of the Pacific Northwest.

Sophomores
An immersive experience to explore what it means to sustain, ecologically and culturally, in Hawai’i, supported with curricular ties in the Foundations of Science and English 10 courses to set a biological and post-colonial framework.

Juniors
A deep-dive learning about the American experience, with multiple small trips to locations such as Washington DC, Montana, and New York to explore the diversity of experience in our United States. Students’ US history classes provide the thematic frameworks for these trips.

Seniors
A variety of international trips, including language-specific options to Taiwan, Japan, and Argentina. Student choice is at the center of this program; students give input into the venues they wish to travel to and have the opportunity to act as student trip leads. These trips allow students to immerse themselves in another culture and become informed global citizens.

Nueva's Global Citizenship Task Force

"Nueva students relish different cultural perspectives. They immerse themselves in world cultures while suspending their own judgments and beliefs to understand and appreciate new views and values. This enables them to forge unique paths as coalition builders, healers, and diplomats with a broad worldview as context."