lessons within our history help us improve THE future
“There is no greater satisfaction than finding new lessons within our history that help us better understand our world as we strive to improve its future.”
Christ School’s History Department seeks to globalize the overall curriculum to include a core of non-Western cultures and nations, along with traditional studies of US History, American Government, and classical Western studies. This approach was honed to include a specific class of Twentieth Century World History for sophomores, preceded by a freshman class of World History focused on the “non-Western” empires, but through the lens of our Western background. Eighth grade curriculum is titled Humanities and provides a foundation of study in civics, ethics, and current events that students refer to throughout their high school years. Four offerings in AP History are intended to be the apex of our curriculum and are available to students who show the appropriate aptitude and have performed well in regular and honors level classes.
Electives that focus on modern History and current Social Studies compliment the curriculum for the third and fourth forms. The evolution of the elective offerings reflects student interest, faculty initiative, and specializations that often use History as a basis for discussion on very relevant issues. Current examples of these electives are Economics, Ethics in International Relations, Rhetoric, Comparative Government and Economies, and Introduction to Entrepreneurship.
Faculty are encouraged to routinely review our curriculum guide to insure that we are teaching the material and skills that we aim to teach. Beyond relevant content, good, scholarly research and citation techniques are some of the most important skills we can foster in our students. That demands that we assign challenging projects and that we are diligent in using academically cited material ourselves as a model to our students.
The Christ School faculty teach History because they love the subject matter and they seek to communicate their passion to their students every day. There is no greater satisfaction than finding new lessons within our history that help us better understand our world as we strive to improve its future.