Ira Rodrigues

Social studies teacher Ashley Lock and department head Mike Hill end Curriculum Night surrounded by handouts, flyers and textbooks. The materials offered helpful tips and elements specific to classes, such as the project-based component to the Current Events class that the department plans to offer next year. “[The class] will be in tandem to the seniors’ government class,” Hill said. “As you learn about the government, you go practice. That is going to be important.”

The social studies department, represented by department head Mike Hill and teacher Ashley Lock, presented course offerings and new classes to prospective parents and students on Curriculum Night, Jan. 13. 

“Parents, typically parents new to the school, want the lay of the land,” Hill said. “They would love to be able to pick up things, see them and be able to ask a specific question to someone who might have the answer, rather than looking it up online. I think, for a lot of people, it’s more reassuring.”

Not only did Hill and Lock offer information about established social studies classes, but they also debuted changes in the department. As of next year, Sustainability Investigations and History of Social Change will be removed for a new, semester-long Current Events class. 

“We are going to inject a lot of things from those other classes inside this one class,” Hill said. “Instead of one teacher teaching an elective by themselves, [it’s] a way to condense that all together and have lots of eyes and ears in the process. We’re excited about it.”

To prepare, Lock will travel to Washington, D.C., over the summer to gain more information on what the new course should teach students.

“I’m going to a conference on having civil discourse in a civics course,” Lock said. “That will be one new thing that we’re kind of changing up. We’ll be writing the curriculum on it.”

In contrast to the previous courses, which were open to underclassmen, the new Current Events class is planned to be almost exclusively for seniors. 

“I can’t imagine it really registering with sophomores,” Hill said. “You’re on your way out of high school. We want you, more than anything else, to be an active citizen, and that means attaching yourself to the society in which you live. That’s kind of a pathway on your way out, so to speak.”

At the end of the night, Hill and Lock had spoken to countless parents and students. The experience, although spanning almost three hours, was rewarding for them. 

“There’s at least one, if not a handful of instances, where you feel like it was good that you were here to answer this question, because you cleared something up for someone who is now going to go home and go, ‘I don’t have to worry about that,’” Hill said. “It kind of allays some fears.”