Current topics of seminar discussions...

   The art of discussion
   College applications and admissions
   Aesthetics--What is art?
   Aesthetics--What is beauty?
   Aesthetics--What is love? Hate? Joy?
   Aesthetics--field trip to the National Gallery of Art
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GEMS (Gifted Education Multidiscipline Seminar) is designed to be a capstone experience for students who are identified as gifted in Prince William County Schools.  It is a seniors-only, one credit course that uses a seminar setting to explore the strengths and limits of each academic discipline, allowing students to examine interrelationships among differing concepts of knowledge.  The course’s overall structure is based on its nature as an introduction to philosophy and philosophical thinking.  Throughout the year, the course explores important issues and implications from the various branches of philosophy:

Metaphysics – concerning the ultimate nature of existence, reality and experience

            Epistemology – concerning the origin, nature and limits of knowledge

            Aesthetics – concerning the nature of and relationship between art and beauty

            Ethics – concerning morality and the impact of beliefs on human conduct

            This elective course is a mixture of readings, activities, discussions, research and writing.  The course requires a high level of intellectual commitment on the part of the students as well as the instructor.  The contributions of students in this course play an enormous roll in determining the value of this educational experience.  The ultimate goal of the course is to promote critical philosophical thinking and this will occur with a serious engagement of the material by the class, both as individual students and as a group.