Ninth-grade history marks the beginning of a three-year examination of world history in a global context. The overarching narrative of the course will take us from the late medieval period through the Early Modern period and will focus on several geographic locations and peoples.  Although some of the areas under study may seem dissimilar at first, common themes unify our investigation and afford us the opportunity to compare the histories and practices of a range of different cultural groups. We will do so through a number of analytical lenses. We will historicize the past with a yearlong introduction to the varieties of historical approaches by examining the religious, social, cultural, political, and intellectual aspects of each society under investigation. Overall, we help students develop historical skills such as analysis of documents and objects and images, construction of historical arguments, critical thinking and class discussion. To this end, both primary and secondary sources will be employed, and we expect students to prepare for class by reading and assessing the daily assignments. Students will also complete a research project that involves analyzing an object from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in its historical context. 

The first semester will have us engaging in a close reading of two texts in order to orient our understanding of the early modern world. We will read Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali and Shakespeare’s The Tempest. A close reading of these texts will anchor our investigation of the historical contexts in which these works emerge and allow for a deep and expansive interpretation of the themes contained within them. Next, our focus will be on the relationship between state power and creative enterprise in Early Modern Asia, focusing on Mughal India, Ming China, and Tokugawa Japan.

We return to Asia at the beginning of the second semester to consider the intellectual foundations of Chinese society, politics, and economics during the Qing dynasty. Grounding our initial discussion in the ideas of Confucius, we will examine an abiding tension between the rise of new ideas, methods, and regimes and a reliance on tradition, stability, and hierarchical order. This tension becomes particularly apparent when we turn to the history of Chinese science, leading us to pose the question of whether or not China experienced a “scientific revolution” or underwent a period of “enlightenment” similar to what occurred in Europe between the 15th and 18th century. To fully understand the history of intellectual transformations in these contexts, we need to consider the construction of narratives of the “Scientific Revolution” and “Enlightenment” as singular developments in history that occurred exclusively in the Western world. We will challenge this Eurocentric narrative, identifying connections and exchanges between Asia and the West that helped give rise to “modern” thought. We will also consider on their own terms the dramatic transformations in thinking about the natural, political, and social worlds that happened in Europe during this time.  Moving on from the intellectual foment of the Early Modern world and its various modes of enlightenment, we will finish the year with a consideration of how ideas were put to practice and reflected in revolutions in North America and Europe.

Full Year Course, 1.0 credit 

This section of eleventh-grade history continues to ask questions fundamental to historical inquiry: how do we access the past and how do we know what we know?  What constitutes proper historical evidence? With the expansion of communication technologies and the increased dissemination of popular culture over the twentieth century, we inherit a trove of new and old modalities for representing and interrogating the past.  By asking how cultural forms helped circulate ideas and generate awareness, we can gain insight into the historical consciousness of those living through historical events.

Additionally, our focus will be on the popular means of representation, and our investigation will utilize images (both static and moving), exhibitions, memorials, music (ranging from opera to pop music), radio broadcasts and televised coverage, movies, and more along with customary primary and secondary source analysis.  For instance, what can we learn from the riotous response to the 1913 premiere of Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring"? How do we understand Billie Holiday's rendition of "Strange Fruit" (1939) and its reception as popular responses to racist violence in America? As a televised event, how did the experience of "9/11" change popular perceptions of terrorism, Islam(ism), and United State's foreign policy?  How does Art Spiegelman's Maus inform and challenge narratives of the Holocaust? With these and other case studies in hand, we will be savvy to the various means of historical representation operating in the past but also the means informing our sense of what happened, why it happened, and the implications for historical development.

The structure of the course will utilize a selection of historical episodes marked by a particular form of historical representation as a starting point. We will then contextualize this work in a search for analytical antecedents in an effort to understand historical development, and we will also consider the impact of these forms of historical representation on historical consciousness then and now.

 

Full Year Course, 1.0 credit

This section of eleventh-grade history continues to ask questions fundamental to historical inquiry: how do we access the past and how do we know what we know?  What constitutes proper historical evidence? With the expansion of communication technologies and the increased dissemination of popular culture over the twentieth century, we inherit a trove of new and old modalities for representing and interrogating the past.  By asking how cultural forms helped circulate ideas and generate awareness, we can gain insight into the historical consciousness of those living through historical events.

Additionally, our focus will be on the popular means of representation, and our investigation will utilize images (both static and moving), exhibitions, memorials, music (ranging from opera to pop music), radio broadcasts and televised coverage, movies, and more along with customary primary and secondary source analysis.  For instance, what can we learn from the riotous response to the 1913 premiere of Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring"? How do we understand Billie Holiday's rendition of "Strange Fruit" (1939) and its reception as popular responses to racist violence in America? As a televised event, how did the experience of "9/11" change popular perceptions of terrorism, Islam(ism), and United State's foreign policy?  How does Art Spiegelman's Maus inform and challenge narratives of the Holocaust? With these and other case studies in hand, we will be savvy to the various means of historical representation operating in the past but also the means informing our sense of what happened, why it happened, and the implications for historical development.

The structure of the course will utilize a selection of historical episodes marked by a particular form of historical representation as a starting point. We will then contextualize this work in a search for analytical antecedents in an effort to understand historical development, and we will also consider the impact of these forms of historical representation on historical consciousness then and now.

 

Full Year Course, 1.0 credit

Students in the eleventh grade will focus on twentieth-century world history.  The foundational logic of this particular version of the course includes a definition of human ecology in which we explore the complex relationship between human beings and their natural, social, and built environments.  In this way, a solid evaluation and understanding of ecology and environmentalism relies on a keen perception of human behavior and the myriad relationships between the natural world and broader economic, political, social, and cultural forces.  An environmental and ecological assessment of world history is really a broad frame/ lens through which we examine human activity in a larger ecological setting: action unfolds in various contexts. All human activity has an ecological impact, and all human behavior has an ecological basis, and this idea will serve as our guiding logic as we explore the events and developments of the twentieth century into the twenty-first.

Overall, we will conduct our investigation of the twentieth century through the lens of ecological and environmental impact.  We will reframe a consideration of the seismic events of the twentieth century (world wars, genocide, regional conflict, decolonization, etc.) through a careful analysis of the ecological and technological bases prompting, reflecting, urging, redirecting the episodes characteristic of the “Age of Extremes.”

We will explore the role of land use, the struggle for energy, water rights and access, food shortages, deprivation, and the subsequent consequences of collectivization and rapid industrialization. Many of the environmental issues of the day have a direct antecedent in the events of the early to mid twentieth century (and often earlier), and attention to ecological developments will provide the overarching narrative for our investigation.

Full Year Course, 1.0 credit

Full Year Course, 1.0 credit

This course will introduce students to some of the major ideas, events, and thinkers in the history of black radicalism. Scholar-activist Angela Davis once said that “[r]adical simply means ‘grasping things at the root.’” In this course, we will have to ask: What does it mean for black people to be “radical?” Does our response change with space and time? Students will, among other things, learn about maroon societies in early colonial America, female investigative journalists exposing the horrors of post-Reconstruction, the cultural and artistic renaissance of the interwar period, and will be introduced to various narratives and theorists from the post-WWII period. We will then look at the Afrofuturism of the late-20th century,  as artists sought to reimagine a future filled with arts, science, and technology seen through a black diasporic lens.
 
We will explore questions of nation, identity, language, and the cultural and political meaning of diaspora in various movements. We will rely on cultural, political, and intellectual history to examine the efforts of black people who have sought not merely reform but a fundamental restructuring of political, economic, and social relations. The following questions will provide a conceptual framework for the course: In moments of struggle and resistance what meanings can be found in cultural forms and expressions? Are the oppressed suffocated and silenced by the violence of history and hegemony or is another language, poetics, community, and politics possible? What is the role of the artist in the Black Radical Tradition? Throughout the semester, we will be in conversation with theorists, artists, and poets, such as Douglass, Wells, Césaire, Fanon, Achebe, Baldwin, Wa Thiong’o, Lorde, hooks, Rankine, regarding the culture, aesthetics, and politics of the Black Radical Tradition.

Fall Semester Course, 0.50 credits

The sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gave rise to the phenomenon historians call the Atlantic World--a cross-cultural space for exchange of goods, people, and ideas.  In one part of that world, a hybrid culture took root in the English-speaking colonies of North America, spurred on by the imperial ambitions of Western powers. Free and bonded immigrants from Europe and Africa shaped this culture; so too did the Native Americans whose residence in North America long predated the newcomers’ arrival. This course will examine the development of colonial America within this Atlantic context.  Topics will include Native American folkways, the establishment of British settlements in the Chesapeake and New England, indentured servitude, the growth of commerce, daily life for slaves and free people, religious revival, and colonial governance. In our final Assignment, we will analyze the American Revolution. We will ask to what extent the Revolution wrought fundamental changes in American society; we will also ask how it was shaped by events throughout the Atlantic sphere.  In all, the course will equip us to better understand the diverse cultural, economic, and political circumstances from which the United States emerged, and to situate the narrative of North American history within a global framework. Together with selected secondary works, a rich variety of primary sources--including European explorers’ travelogues, writings by former slaves, diaries of New England women, and political pamphlets--will guide our inquiry.

Fall Semester Course, 0.50 credits

Will China overtake the US as the leading consumer of the world? Why is Maduro’s once rich Venezuelan economy failing? Will growing nationalism undo the benefits of free trade? How pervasive (and dangerous) is income inequality? Globalization has turned our macroeconomic model upside down in recent years, making the study of macroeconomics no longer nation specific but instead the study of a deeply interconnected world economy, in constant flux.  In this course, students will be introduced to the basics of macroeconomics, exploring the scale and structure of individual economies, and the dynamics of growth. We will consider specific topics including population and migration, human capital, health care and education, and the global cost of climate change, as well as the role of political institutions in economic development. Exploring case studies based on current events, we will deepen our understanding of these fundamentals in a 21st century context.

 

Students will meet in class, and participate in regular on line work, including discussions, quizzes and case work, as well as individual labs.  This course can be taken in series with Microeconomics, or independently, and is available to juniors and seniors.

Fall Semester Course, 0.50 credits

In the film adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s novel The Devil Wears Prada, fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly patronizingly tells her assistant:

“You go to your closet and you select…that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back…However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs, and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you’re wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room.”

This begs the question of how much choice or free will we really have when deciding, possibly even agonizing over, what to wear every day. What are some of the larger social, political, and economic forces at work that shape how we fashion ourselves? 

This course will examine scholarship on “dress” and fashion across a wide range of contexts. We will consider the imposition of “codes” of dress by governments and institutions throughout history as well as ways in which individuals and groups have used dress to voice support for and opposition to certain values. Course themes include, but are not limited to: the symbolic nature of dress in various political, religious, and sociocultural contexts; social media and the business and promotion of fashion in the digital age; issues of labor, intellectual property, and environmental sustainability in the global fashion industry; and the use of fashion to transcend the realities of everyday life.

Must robots replace human workers in every industry?  Will Amazon completely redefine the retail store?  How will corporations respond to climate change, the ultimate negative externality, to work with the public sector toward the common good?  Microeconomics is the study of production and consumption, of how, as the Greek base word “oikonomos” suggests, we “manage our households.”  In this course students will be introduced to the basics of supply and demand, price elasticity, surplus and scarcity, opportunity costs, perfect competition and monopoly, and the continuing public private debate about market efficiency.  Through case studies based on current issues, we will deepen our understanding of market fundamentals in a 21st century context.
 
Students will meet in class, and participate in regular on line work, including discussions, quizzes and case work, as well as individual labs. This course can be taken in series with Macroeconomics, or independently, and is available to juniors and seniors.

Spring Semester Course, 0.50 credits

We live in an era of globalization; as individuals and as a nation, we are more aware than ever of the broader world, but also, the issues that the international community confronts and must contend with daily. From wars to epidemics, terrorism to human rights, nations have to respond to these issues by balancing the needs of their own citizens with the demands or conflicting desires of other nations. 

In this class, students will explore the fundamental theories of international relations and analyze components of the international system: state and non-state actors, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations. The first part of the course uses historical events of the previous century to understand the variety of past approaches to global issues. Students then move into an examination of 21st-century case studies that encapsulate current challenges and allow students to assess the policies, structures and strategies used to respond to a complex world of conflicting ideologies and goals.

Spring Semester Course, 0.50 credits

The twentieth century saw the rise of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements across Latin America and the Caribbean, forever changing how citizens of the region engaged in civil life and imagined their place in the world.  In this seminar, we will examine how revolutionary art and propaganda helped to unite these mass social movements. We will use music, visual culture, material culture, and film to trace how the meaning and memory of revolutions have changed over the course of the 20th century.  This class will address a range of revolutionary moments, from major government overthrows in Mexico and Cuba, to the radical student movements and underground insurgencies of the 1960s and 1970s. We’ll also discuss how artists resisted dictatorships that sought to censor creative expression and suppress hard-won democratic traditions.  Throughout the semester, we will seek to define what makes social movements revolutionary by discussing how they began and developed over time, why people joined or resisted their call to action, and how we as historians can assess their lasting impact. We will pay particular attention to how Latin Americans drew on international movements for anti-racism, gender, and class equality to articulate new visions of freedom.

Spring Semester Course, 0.50 credits, Tuesdays 6:30-8:30PM

A recent poll estimates that there are 5.8 billion religiously affiliated adults and children internationally, representing 84% of the world’s population.  Examined historically, it is then fair to say that the vast majority of the global population has historically identified as a practitioner of a religion given the ubiquity of religious belief across centuries of human experience.  The focus of this course is to examine what it means to be religious in the past and present. What are the dimensions of a religious identity, what is the structure of organized religion, and what is the overall form and function of religion both historically and in contemporary life.  How do we reconcile religious belief and modernity and attendant secularization? Rather than attempting a strict chronological development of major world religions (and some less popular ones), we will examine the ideas of “authentic” and “traditional” forms of worship and affiliation in the present era, and we will do this by examining the core beliefs of religious systems and their contemporary interpretations and iterations.  Religions may appear immutable (supported by complex ritual forms, social bonds, and dogma), but religious beliefs and identities are often in flux and changing over time. This reality will complicate the search for purity of religious experience and expression and we will witness how this search becomes one potent means of differentiation in contemporary religious life.

This course will maintain a careful balance between central and original religious tenets and evolving practices and interpretations, the transformation of ideal religious forms of worship and celebration and expression (including rituals, arts, and artifacts), and the ways in which religious beliefs and expectations shape human behavior.  To better serve this last point, we will also examine how human behavior shapes religious belief and practice.

Full Year Course, 1.0 credit

This course is designed to support greater local, national and global understanding and citizenship, while fostering a deep appreciation for the cultures of the world, to challenge students to critically think about the world's most pressing global issues, and to help students understand how their lives in New York fit into a larger global context.

We begin this course with personal reflection coupled with an historical examination of globalization, definitions of citizenship, volunteering, community service and the way in which they inform service learning. Using the United Nations Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals as a means to guide our attempts to understand local and global issues and subsequent service opportunities. This course, places an emphasis on social action, and with that being able to understand the institutional roots of social, economic, environmental and political problems in the world today.

Aligned with Dalton's mission of promoting global citizenship, this course seeks to promote student participation in service learning organizations/projects that are located in New York City, but have a global reach via the UN Sustainable Development Goals.  Students will partner with an organization and develop a service-learning project. This experiential learning that engages students in service within the community is an integrated aspect of this course.

Full Year Course, 1.0 credit

The tragedy of September 11, 2001changed the world in profound ways. In this course, students explore the causes of 9/11, the events of the day itself, and its aftermath locally, nationally, and around the world. In place of a standard chronological framework, students instead view these events through a series of separate lenses. Each lens represents a different way to view the attacks and allows students to understand 9/11 as an event with complex and interrelated causes and outcomes. Using a variety of technologies and activities, students work individually and with peers to evaluate each lens. Students then analyze the post-9/11 period and explore how this event affected the U.S., the Middle East, and the wider world.

This course is offered through our partnership with Global Online Academy (GOA).

Spring Semester Course, 0.50 credits

How does an entrepreneur think? What skills must entrepreneurs possess to remain competitive and relevant? What are some of the strategies that entrepreneurs apply to solve problems? In this experiential course, students develop an understanding of entrepreneurship in today’s global market; employ innovation, design, and creative solutions for building a viable business model; and learn to develop, refine, and pitch a new startup. Units of study include Business Model Canvas, Customer Development vs. Design Thinking, Value Proposition, Customer Segments, Iterations & Pivots, Brand Strategy & Channels, and Funding Sources. Students use the Business Model Canvas as a roadmap to building and developing their own team startup, a process that requires hypothesis testing, customer research conducted in hometown markets, product design, product iterations, and entrepreneur interviews. An online startup pitch by the student team to an entrepreneurial advisory committee is the culminating assessment. Additional student work includes research, journaling, interviews, peer collaboration, and a case study involving real-world consulting work for a current business.

This course is offered through our partnership with Global Online Academy (GOA).

Spring Semester Course, 0.50 credits

Students in this course study several of the major 20th century genocides (Armenian, the Holocaust, Cambodian, and Rwandan), analyze the role of the international community in responding to and preventing further genocide (with particular attention to the Nuremberg tribunals), and examine current human rights crises around the world. Students read primary and secondary sources, participate in both synchronous and asynchronous discussions with classmates, write brief papers, read short novels, watch documentaries, and develop a human rights report card website about a nation of their choice.

This course is offered through our partnership with Global Online Academy (GOA).

Spring Semester Course, 0.50 credits

 

Fall Semester Course, 0.50 credits

Consider the many, many ways in which you interact with colors on a daily basis and receive or send information via these colors.  In other words, why are some colors associated with certain qualities, and how and why do those qualities take on cultural meaning as a result of their associations with color.  Color can be used to rank, to discriminate, to promote, to startle, to grab attention.  This course, after an initial grounding in the study of the physical reality of color and seeing, will examine a variety of theories, examples, and a series of case studies in which we will witness the ways in which color is perceived and understood as a complex system of signification.  We will concurrently examine how the availability and use of color speaks to complex historical forces and acts of human agency.  History, science, and culture will intersect. What is color?  What does it mean to experience color? An answer to that question requires a transdisciplinary approach involving cultural and social history, the sciences, art history and theory, psychology, philosophy, a study of symbolism and linguistics, and any other interpretive approach that helps to make sense of the meanings associated with color historically and in our contemporary world.  How have colors come to take on the meaning(s) they have? Do colors contain inherent features meriting a certain psychological and emotional response or are these associations cultural by-products and social constructions?  For instance, why did the desire for the color indigo enable a vast system of global commerce, enslavement, and imperialism?  In addition, have colors been gendered?  How, when, and why? One last thing.  Consider the following. The Pantone Color of the Year 2022 is “Pantone 17-3938 Very Peri” characterized (by Pantone) as a “New Pantone Color Whose Courageous Presence Encourages Personal Inventiveness and Creativity.” If you would like to make sense of this statement, this course might be for you.  No prerequisites. Millennial pink clothing is not required.

Spring Semester Course, 0.50 credits

Picking up where the fall semester of Thinking Globally left off, students will have the opportunity to  partner with an organization and develop a service-learning project. This experiential learning that engages students in service within the community is an integrated aspect of the spring semester. Students will also have the opportunity to engage in larger conversations with change makers around the country and  the world.

Aligned with Dalton's mission of promoting global citizenship, this course seeks to promote student participation in service learning organizations/projects that are located in New York City, but have a global reach via the UN Sustainable Development Goals.  

“Thinking Globally” (Fall Elective) is a prerequisite for this semester

Spring Semester Course, 0.50 credits

From the 1654 origins of their arrival in New Amsterdam until today, generations of Jews from around the world have decided to call America their home. Whether fleeing persecution or seeking economic mobility, these Jews believed that their futures would be best served by uprooting themselves from their lands of origin and reestablishing themselves in a novel, promising place. Jewish newcomers to America sought to integrate into their surroundings while simultaneously leaving imprints of their religious and cultural values and traditions upon the broader American political, economic, and social landscapes. These moments of interconnectedness are at the heart of this course, which will explore the American Jewish experience from its inception in the early modern period through the incredibly rich and diverse tapestry of Jewish communal life that is expressed in our contemporary age. We will regularly contextualize the American Jewish historical experience within broader movements affecting non-Jewish minorities in the United States while also considering the lived experience of Jews living elsewhere during the same period.

Spring Semester Course, 0.50 credits

Enshrined in the country’s Constitution, the First Amendment guarantees “no law respecting an establishment of religion.” However, commentators observing American society from its creation noted that its citizens “loved” religion, were people of faith, and often tied expressions of religion to those of American patriotism. This class will look at several of America’s religious communities to better understand the main tenets of their faiths while also gaining an understanding of how they attempted to achieve - or, at times, disavow -  their religious communities’ acceptance within the American state. From indigenous communities to the Puritans, from the Mormons to the members of the Moorish Science Temple, this class will think about how people in America connected to their ideas of God, and translate them in ways palatable to broader political and cultural realities at particular moments in the nation’s history. 

How do you look at a work of art? The design of this course is to develop a dynamic toolkit for evaluating, situating, and understanding art and visual culture. In the first instance, this course recognizes the ways in which the definition of “art” and perceptions of art have evolved across histories and geographies. Context matters, then and now. The position and power of curation will occupy our attention, as well. Collection, acquisition, and attendant calls for repatriation will also demand our focus as we examine the flow of art and artifacts across contexts. We will also explore the generative power of the “art market” to transform material culture (especially art) into objects of value. Moreover, questions of the “artist” will also emerge, and we will wonder who is an “artist,” what is the criteria, who has access to this role, and how do we understand non-canonical forms of artistic practice? Numerous field trips and other opportunities will support our work in the classroom.

Students will meet twice a week in class, have regularly scheduled individual labs, and participate in online work (skype, blogging, social book work) on a weekly basis. Students will participate in a practicum project to develop a Dalton Fair Trade Store, working with potential international entrepreneurs.

Class meets two days a week at Dalton, and two days a week online
Full Year Course, 1.0 credit (Open to 11th and 12th graders) M. Tewell

It’s cliché to say that ‘it’s never been more important than now to be politically aware,’ but this time it is no cliché.  The United States is in the midst of a public health emergency of the sort that few of us have ever lived through. This emergency has been shaped by, and continues to shape, the contours of American political life—including the operations of our state, local, and national governments.  Our upcoming elections are no longer solely about the candidates and issues themselves. They are now referenda on the fundamental purpose and character of government. Even the basic question of how to safely conduct elections is now in question. 

To begin grappling with these questions, Election Seminar 2020 will offer interested students an overview of the federal, state, and municipal elections process.  Students will each track an issue of choice, and report periodically to the group via research in credible news sources. The historical and political knowledge the class gleans will culminate by asking, “How can I use my growing awareness of the political process to help my community in a meaningful way?”  Toward that end, students in the class will work in teams to curate activities and assemblies for the broader Dalton community as the election cycle unfolds. Students will also research alternate methods of election in Western democracies, as the course seeks to foster creative thinking about political change on both the local and national level.  Several guest speakers will lend their expertise about the political process to the class.

As in past years, the class will be open to interested students from all four high school grades. 

Fall Semester Course, 0.25 credits

It has never been more imperative to gain an understanding of the political processes that define our nation.  The last two years have witnessed a fractured national government attempting to craft workable policy in the face of an emergent and fluid public health crisis.  In some ways, the results have highlighted latent fissures in American society.  At times these fissures have threatened to become chasms, with a climate of misinformation and partial truth obscuring the mechanisms of pluralist democracy.  The high watermark of this disinformation climate, at least thus far, has been the claim of a stolen election that fueled an insurrection at the Capitol on January 6 of last year.  We are still feeling the ripple effects of that seismic event.  At the same time, if our democracy is shaken, it has also proven resilient.  Even a campaign of denial was insufficient to sway local officials in positions of authority into changing election certifications.  For that matter, anyone who had ever doubted that their voice can be heard at the local level has been proven wrong by the last two years.  Formerly sleepy town hall meetings have become staging grounds for pitched battles over essential questions about education, public health, the relationship of the state to the citizen.  In all its messiness, this is the stuff of democracy.  Such gatherings stand in sharp contrast to what we see in Eastern Europe, where a dictator shapes policy to his will, with disastrous effects for the people of Ukraine and deleterious effects for his own people.  No contentious town hall meetings are to be found in Russia, for the state has clamped down on public dissent.  With our words and deeds, we Americans continue to indicate our preference to live in a battered, rancorous republic than a land where civil liberties bend to the will and ego of one man. To begin grappling with these questions, Election Seminar 2022 will offer interested students an overview of the federal, state, and municipal elections process as it has existed until now.  Students will also track a candidate and an issue of choice, and report periodically to the group via research in credible news sources.  This ‘two-track’ approach—political science and political history on one plane, student interest and an evolving news cycle on a parallel plane—will accommodate a cross-section of students from all four high school grades.  The only prerequisite is an interest in learning more about civics and political affairs.  Students who have taken a previous version of Election Seminar are eligible to take the course, as the content will be entirely different.

Open to all grades, priority given to upper class students
Fall Semester Course, 0.25 credits

Election Seminar 2024 will offer a one-semester overview of the federal, state, and municipal elections process as it has existed until now. Students will also track a campaign and issue of choice in the upcoming November election cycle, and will report periodically to the group via research in credible news sources.  In addition, students will help to plan and execute two High School assemblies pertaining to the election, including interaction with guest speakers. Unlike other History electives, this course is open to High School students in all grades, so as to offer a robust forum for engagement in civic affairs to a broad cross-section of our community. Questions addressed will include: How are House, Senate, and presidential elections structured? What is the difference between a primary and a general election? How does our current campaign finance regime work? What types of candidates and campaigns does our current political system tend to favor? Why? All voices, backgrounds, and perspectives are welcome, provided ideas are shared thoughtfully and respectfully. Students who took the 2022 iteration of Election Seminar are also welcome, as the subject matter will vary since the course largely follows the current and evolving political news cycle.

Open to all grades

Fall Semester Course, 0.25 credits

In her groundbreaking 1922 book, Education on the Dalton Plan, Helen Parkhurst wrote that if a student followed the model of education set out in her foundational document, they would not only learn the necessary academic content of the day, but would acquire life skills to help achieve their goals in the years beyond those spent at the school. This class seeks to explore the history of The Dalton School through its first century of existence, and how Dalton - as both an institution and through the voices of various adults and students - thought about academics, personnel, student life, extracurriculars, and even its operations in ways that reflected its commitment to thinking about the lives of those benefiting from their time in its environs. Assignments will include Progressive Era educational models and opportunities for women to join the workforce as professional educators, the response of the school to important world events such as the Great Depression, the Vietnam War, and 9/11 that impacted the lives of Dalton community members, and a sustained investigation into Dalton’s Archives (including visual, audio, and textual materials) with emphasis on digitized collections to map out decades of student life at the school in the form of creative projects.

In this elective we will explore the history of social class in the United States from colonial times to the present through a service learning lens, paying careful attention to changes and continuities in how Americans have talked about, imagined, and embodied economic distinctions and inequalities of various kinds. Some of the topics considered include the Great Depression and the New Deal, the Great Society, and Reaganomics. We will use this historical grounding and the tools of social science to help us navigate contemporary debates about social and cultural capital, the economic legacy of slavery, and the “Second Gilded Age.”  During the second Assignment, students will divide into teams and begin to focus on a specific theme related to inequality within local communities. Some examples are: housing and food insecurity, environmental justice, and education. As part of the final Assignment, students will engage in a substantive service learning project in New York City. They will use texts from the course to help frame and plan this hands-on service experience.

Independent studies are opportunities for 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students to pursue ideas and passions not covered by current course work.  

Students must complete this form to apply for preapproval.

Requires Preapproval
Graded Pass/Fail
Fall or Spring Semester Course, 0.25 credits

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant once claimed that philosophy could be boiled down to three questions: What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope? Kant also suggested, that these three questions could be further boiled down to a fourth: What is the human being? In this elective, we will examine a variety of attempts made by philosophers, both contemporary and historical, to grapple with these questions. We will explore  readings in the philosophy of religion, epistemology, philosophy of the mind, ethics, and existentialism. 

Some of the questions we will consider include: What is the relationship between logos and mythos in different societies and to what extent has this changed over time? How do we know things about the world and what kinds of knowledge do we consider to be valuable? ? If everything in the world is determined by previous events, can we say that we ever act freely? If God is dead, is everything (or anything) permitted? Are humans and persons the same thing or does the status of personhood extend beyond homo sapiens? To what extent do we have access to the interior lives of others? Or put another way: Can you ever know definitively that your friend is not a zombie or mindless automaton?

Are we rational creatures?  How can we find happiness?  Why do we fall in love?  How do we rationalize undesirable actions?  Why do we risk our lives to help others?  How do orderly crowds turn into violent mobs?  Why do we like gossip?  These sorts of questions lie at the heart of Social Psychology, a social science which illuminates and clarifies the nature of human beings and their social world.  

This course introduces students to the study of social thought and behavior.  Main topics include an overview of the field, the role of the mind in social life (e.g., obedience, self-perception), the nature of social interaction (e.g., attraction, social influence), and the application of psychology to social problems (e.g., justice, crowds, popular delusions).  The last two weeks of the course will include presentations and discussion of student-designed research projects on topics of their choice.

 

Spring Semester Course, 0.50 credits (Open to 11th and 12th graders)

 

We live in an era of globalization; as individuals and as a nation, we are more aware than ever of the broader world, but also, the issues that the international community confronts and must contend with daily. From wars to epidemics, terrorism to human rights, nations have to respond to these issues by balancing the needs of their own citizens with the demands or conflicting desires of other nations.

In this class, students will explore the fundamental theories of international relations and analyze components of the international system: state and non-state actors, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations. The first part of the course uses historical events of the previous century to understand the variety of past approaches to global issues. Students then move into an examination of 21st-century case studies that encapsulate current challenges and allow students to assess the policies, structures and strategies used to respond to a complex world of conflicting ideologies and goals.

 

Spring Semester Course, 0.50 credits

From Hamilton: An American Musical, to Wonder Woman, to Get Out, to Black Panther to A Wrinkle in Time, increasing discourse around issues of race and gender are reaching the mainstream. This course analyzes how film and theater have represented race, ethnicity, class and gender in contemporary society. Through readings, class discussion, film screenings and special projects, students gain insights into the ways that different groups of American people have been depicted in both mainstream and alternative media/entertainment. The course looks at the interaction of form and content on stage and screen, and how these are  used to create meaning.

Spring Semester Course, 0.50 credits (Open to 11th and 12th graders)

The vicissitudes of the past year and a half—including a devastating pandemic, the beginning of a national reckoning with racial inequity, and an election cycle culminating in a violent threat to democracy—have left many Americans wondering what long-term forces might have begat our current moment.  How did we get here?  This course will offer the beginning of an answer, by way of a detailed examination of the American Revolution within its global context.  Topics will include the growing rift with Great Britain, Loyalism and Patriotism, the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, persistence and change in the institution of American slavery, lived experience for free and enslaved Americans of color, the role of women in the Revolution, visual culture and artifacts, the progression of battle, and variance in Native American participation in the theaters of war.  The course will interrogate the ways in which global culture and geopolitics profoundly influenced the course of the Revolution, and in turn, influenced the way the United States developed.

Students will closely read a number of core texts for context, content and significance.  Among those texts are Thomas Paine’s groundbreaking pamphlet Common Sense; the Declaration of Independence in its various incarnations; a Tory account of the Revolution written by the brother of the tax collector who had the unfortunate job of enforcing the Stamp Act in Boston; and petitions for freedom by enslaved men and women.  Secondary sources will include Pauline Maier’s groundbreaking study of revolutionary political documents, recent biographical sketches by historians including Gordon Wood and Jon Meacham, and essays collected together by historian Gary Nash in his seminal Race and Revolution.  Students will have the opportunity to undertake an original research project exploring some aspect of a particular topic in detail.  In pursuing both the shared readings and their independent research, students will assemble a snapshot of an era in which the fundamental terms and rhythms of life were changing utterly, with new precedents set each day.  In at least this respect, perhaps the Revolutionary era was not altogether different from our own.

Fall Semester Course, 0.50 credits

“Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.”  — Oscar Wilde

We live in one of the most famous (and largest) cities in history.  How can we understand the meaning of cities? This course seeks to foster a critical understanding of the cultural and artistic processes, planning actions, and policies that have influenced the history of cities and urbanization over time. In order to understand cities we will examine the social and political dimensions of architecture and public space, as well as issues of preservation and conservation. New technologies continue to shape how we come to know cities and provide increased evidence of urban activity, and we will pay attention to the new methodologies shaping how we interpret and understand the evolution of the built environment. We will explore this topic through case studies of specific cities at unique moments of historical importance. Case studies will include, but are not limited to, Rome, Tokyo, Machu Picchu, Istanbul, New York City, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Versailles, and Shanghai. The last two weeks of the course will include presentations and discussions of student research on an era and city of their choice.

Fall Semester Course, 0.50 credits

We commonly understand “antisemitism,” to mean prejudice or negative attributes assigned to Jewish people. This course interrogates both the term and its usage in places across the globe over the course of the 16th-21st centuries. Why have the Jews served as targets for a particular form of animosity? How did specific local or national contexts shape manifestations of these feelings, or actions, towards Jews? How did Jews in predominantly Christian or Muslim lands experience antisemitism in the Modern Era? To address these questions, we will explore a variety of case studies using visual and textual primary sources along with academic material from disciplines including history, religious studies, literature, and ethnography. There is a potential Spring 2021 DGI trip to Eastern and Central Europe being offered to explore the Jewish past and present with antisemitism being one of the main themes explored. Students in this Fall elective would not be expected to attend, but would be encouraged to do so.

 

Fall Semester Course, 0.50 credits

One cannot hope to understand recent events in the Middle East without studying the social, religious, economic, and political history of the region.  To that end, this course journeys back in time—and then to the present—to offer a greater understanding of the history and present of the modern Middle East.  We will begin by questioning the usefulness and origin of the term “Middle East.”  This then raises questions about how the Middle East has been understood by the West over time and vice versa.  Then using Napoleon’s 1798 invasion of Egypt as a starting point, we will briefly survey the history of the region, highlighting major themes, such as imperialism, nationalism, constitutionalism, and Islamic orthodoxy.  The course will then shift to an in-depth investigation of two of the Middle East’s major questions and debates: the Iranian Revolution and the Arab-Israeli conflict.  We will conclude the course with the 2011 revolts in the Arab world and policy review papers on a major national security issue on a topic that affects a nation or population of each student’s choosing. 

Fall Semester Course, 0.50 credits    

The course begins with an examination of what it means to be a citizen-- locally, nationally and globally. It also challenges students to critically think about the world's most pressing global issues, and helps students understand how their lives in New York City fit into a larger global context.

Key components of this  course include personal reflection coupled with an historical examination of globalization, definitions of leadership, volunteering, community service and the way in which they inform service learning. Using the United Nations Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals as a means to guide our attempts to understand local and global issues and subsequent service opportunities. This course places an emphasis on social action, and with that being able to understand the institutional roots of social, economic, environmental and political problems in the world today. Assignments will also be dynamic to take advantage and give attention to major world happenings.

Fall Semester Course, 0.50 credits

"A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes."  

—Wendell Berry

This course is a fundamental reimagining of  “You Are What You Eat.” In its new form, this course, a full-year one, will continue to explore the historical, ecological, ethical, scientific/ biological, cultural, aesthetic, political and economic forces shaping what and how we eat.  We will continue to explore the convergence of the local and the global, the urban and the rural, and the past and the present, when it comes to the choices we make when we eat. We will highlight eating as a profound engagement with (or alienation from) the natural world indicated by our food consciousness and current practices of production and consumption.  However, the course will utilize project-based learning models in the Teaching Kitchen and will focus on research, communication, and collaboration toward the fulfillment of service-learning projects based on student interest. In the Teaching Kitchen, we will engage in formative activities, and as a result students will utilize a base of knowledge (fortified by engagement with key texts, discussion, and their native curiosity) as a means for applying their knowledge in innovative forms.  An emphasis on social action around environmental sustainability, food justice, and beyond will be a focus of our investigation, particularly in the form of individualized projects, as we consider the obligations of an informed and participatory citizenry.  

Full Year Course, 1.0 credit