In addition to teaching within the disciplines, Mount Vernon makes use an interdisciplinary approach that involves close collaboration among faculty members so that students become involved in a dynamic exchange of ideas across academic disciplines.
Aligning instruction across multiple disciplines propels our students to academic excellence as these new exchanges 
challenge habits of compartmentalized thinking, break down the intellectual barriers to cross-disciplinary epiphanies that are often snuffed out by rigidly divided curricula, and ultimately develop students who are better equipped to address the complex interactions that exist between the natural and social systems of our world.
The Upper School is home to three innovative crossdisciplinary iniatitives:
1. Language Arts & Social Studies – Careful coordination of the language arts and social studies curricula helps students address broad questions as well as see the relationship between the disciplines.
2. The Arts Integration Project – Our Upper School art teachers work to meaningfully integrate the arts into the core discplines via curricular connections and arts-enriched assessments.
3. Design Thinking – As Mount Vernon educators increasingly apply the process of product design – Understand, Observe, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test – to their instruction, they loosen traditional learning frameworks, tap into students’ deep wells of creativity, and make critical thinking essential to solving problems.
In each instance of multidisciplinary instruction, students participate in a debate that is larger than the boundaries of a single field of academic inquiry and, in doing so, become a 
part of a larger intellectual community. More importantly, such exchanges help students understand that skills are transferable across an array of disciplines.
For example, while studying the French Revolution in history, the students in English may be reading Les Miserables, and in art class, they may be looking at the Romantic painters of the 1830s. In 2010, students worked on a months-long interdisciplinary project restoring a graveyard. They created historical fiction based on extensive research, engaged in primary research with the local historical society, created maps and graphed the layout, and provided the local church community with a service.
Another example occurred throughout the Spring of 2011 when the Theatre and Art departments chose to bring to life The Tempest, a piece studied in English classes. Interdisciplinary studies at Mount Vernon provide exciting multiple opportunities for engaged learning.
