(NOVEMBER 2025) - The Portrait of a Graduate was created in 2023 by the New Canaan Public Schools community, including educators, students, Board of Education members, and families, to define the essential competencies our graduates need to thrive in today’s world. The five competencies in our Portrait of a Graduate - adaptability, communication, critical thinking, curiosity, and empathy - are foundational to the teaching and learning across all grade levels.
The Portrait of a Graduate is more than academic standards; it embeds life skills and transferable competencies into every student’s experience. As society and workplaces become increasingly dynamic, our graduates must be equipped not just with knowledge, but also with the flexibility to think critically, work collaboratively, and continue learning throughout their lives. Our work with students aims to strengthen each students’ proficiency with our 5 competencies through classroom instruction and authentic learning experiences while providing meaningful feedback to students - ensuring transparent progress toward mastery.
This district-wide initiative prepares students to be thoughtful, skillful, and adaptable citizens, ready for whatever the future brings - at college, career, and beyond. The Portrait of a Graduate represents a shared commitment by the entire New Canaan Public Schools community to ensure that every student can build both academic knowledge and the transferable skills needed for lifelong success.
This month we encourage families to focus on Curiosity.
Curiosity is the intrinsic motivation to explore, inquire, and pursue understanding across disciplines and contexts. It reflects a learner’s mindset characterized by intellectual risk-taking, creative thinking, and the application of knowledge to new and meaningful challenges. When demonstrating curiosity, our students actively seek new knowledge, ideas, and understanding, embrace intellectual risks and learn from mistakes, and engage with new experiences and ideas.
Student curiosity is regularly on display in classrooms at NCHS. In our many art courses for example, curiosity is at the core of creation. Printmaking is an adventure in curiosity as an investigative art of 'process' - mark-making, color mixing, wiping/inking/printing. Students dive in without knowing the outcome, but through creative curiosity and process, they find their answers.
Students who work in clay remain curious as the medium is demanding and requires that they try again and again to be in control. Being curious is fundamental to the creative process which is an everyday activity in an art studio.
Driven by curiosity, students explore ideas, questions, and connections to shape their AP art investigations.
In our science courses, student curiosity drives learning. In Geophysical Science, for example, students begin each unit by observing a natural phenomenon and posing questions that guide their investigations. Throughout the year, they refine their questioning skills and use their curiosity as a tool for building deeper understanding.
Our American Studies students, curious about the experiences of Henry David Thoreau, explore the local trails in an effort to better understand the writer's experiences
Parents can help nurture curiosity by asking their student what new topic excites them or how they've embraced new experiences, both inside and outside the classroom.