Social Studies

In teaching and learning history, a fundamental tension exists between covering facts and developing historical habits of mind. Our program emphasizes analysis and reflection; we guide young people toward interpretation rather than present them with facts. Like professional scholars, our students work for the most part with primary sources—documents ranging from political manifestos to magazine advertisements, Renaissance sculpture to household tools. They combine their study of these artifacts with readings from secondary sources, including written texts, tables, charts, and maps. The first provide vivid, tangible examples from the past, and the latter offer context. Students learn to question the content of all sources, examining the possible agendas of their creators and biases of their intended audiences.

Skills acquired in this discipline, including the ability to assess evidence and to judge the merits of conflicting accounts and interpretations, are applicable in many fields of study and work. They are especially relevant to students’ future responsibilities as citizens of a republic. Thus we regularly make connections to contemporary political debates and conflicts—formally through current events sessions and more spontaneously as events in the news complement our historical study.

The department takes a thematic approach to the study of the past, setting those themes in a broadly chronological framework. Students begin with the ancient and medieval worlds in ninth grade, move on to modern Europe in the tenth, and then the United States in their junior year. All seniors take a semester course on the history of modern Israel and also choose from among several other classes offered in history and its allied disciplines. These courses have included, but are not limited to: Economics, History of Art in the Twentieth Century, Modern Jewish Intellectual History, and Documenting the Holocaust, along with courses exploring Muslim-Jewish relations, mediation techniques, and interfaith dialogue.