Course Descriptions
Freshman Seminar
Freshman Seminar is conceived as the most practical, useful and broadly applicable academic experience of your upper school career. It is positioned as an entry and transition into upper school, and will help you think about other courses, high school and possibly your entire life in new ways. In order to imagine how this might happen, consider the course as a powerful zoom lens that will assist you in shifting the focus of your own self-reflective capabilities. It is an exercise in metacognition, or the practice of thinking about your own thinking. Recognizing that life in the upper school is complicated, and that a major goal of this course is to un-complicate it, we will meet only once per cycle during your study hall, and half of each class meeting will be set aside for either one-on-one assistance from me if you need it, or time to dive into your studies in other classes.
Freshman Seminar is conceived as the most practical, useful and broadly applicable academic experience of your upper school career. It is positioned as an entry and transition into upper school, and will help you think about other courses, high school and possibly your entire life in new ways. In order to imagine how this might happen, consider the course as a powerful zoom lens that will assist you in shifting the focus of your own self-reflective capabilities. It is an exercise in metacognition, or the practice of thinking about your own thinking. Recognizing that life in the upper school is complicated, and that a major goal of this course is to un-complicate it, we will meet only once per cycle during your study hall, and half of each class meeting will be set aside for either one-on-one assistance from me if you need it, or time to dive into your studies in other classes.
Global Citizenship in the 21st Century _syllabus_
In the twenty-first century, networks of trade, information and migration crisscross the globe. As a result, people make choices in their everyday lives that stem from (and impact) the lives of many others in distant territories. Although national states remain the official forum for making political decisions, globalization has politicized a whole host of choices that stretch beyond the geographic and political boundaries of the nation-state. Awareness of those realities has led some scholars to argue that we are entering a post-national era in which non-state actors and organizations are becoming more powerful and important to the global order. This course examines the roles and responsibilities of the average person as a citizen of the world in the twenty-first century. Students will learn to inform themselves about global issues by using a variety of traditional and non-traditional media. We will examine select topics that highlight the limits of national politics, such as environmental activism, natural disaster relief efforts and diaspora communities.
In the twenty-first century, networks of trade, information and migration crisscross the globe. As a result, people make choices in their everyday lives that stem from (and impact) the lives of many others in distant territories. Although national states remain the official forum for making political decisions, globalization has politicized a whole host of choices that stretch beyond the geographic and political boundaries of the nation-state. Awareness of those realities has led some scholars to argue that we are entering a post-national era in which non-state actors and organizations are becoming more powerful and important to the global order. This course examines the roles and responsibilities of the average person as a citizen of the world in the twenty-first century. Students will learn to inform themselves about global issues by using a variety of traditional and non-traditional media. We will examine select topics that highlight the limits of national politics, such as environmental activism, natural disaster relief efforts and diaspora communities.
A Connective History of Modern Latin America
The idea of Latin America as a distinctive region originated in response to North American migration and commerce across the isthmus of Panama in the mid-nineteenth century. Since that time, observers have identified a host of commonalities that arguably provide a framework for understanding the complex history of twenty sovereign national states. This course examines several of those commonalities by tracing the movement of select ideas and actors across national boundaries. For example, to understand the appeal of Marxist revolution in the mid-twentieth century, we will follow Che Guevara as he rides a motorcycle from his native Argentina over the Andes and throughout the region. We will see how those experiences informed the socialist revolution in Cuba and other guerrilla movements across the region. Other topics will include: race and citizenship, North American imperialism, populism and political violence.
The idea of Latin America as a distinctive region originated in response to North American migration and commerce across the isthmus of Panama in the mid-nineteenth century. Since that time, observers have identified a host of commonalities that arguably provide a framework for understanding the complex history of twenty sovereign national states. This course examines several of those commonalities by tracing the movement of select ideas and actors across national boundaries. For example, to understand the appeal of Marxist revolution in the mid-twentieth century, we will follow Che Guevara as he rides a motorcycle from his native Argentina over the Andes and throughout the region. We will see how those experiences informed the socialist revolution in Cuba and other guerrilla movements across the region. Other topics will include: race and citizenship, North American imperialism, populism and political violence.