Social Studies
The goal of the Vermont Commons Social Studies department is to empower students to engage their community and their world. Every element of the curriculum uses human history and culture to build critical thinking, research, and analytical skills, to train students to think in terms of complex systems, cause & effect relationships, and multiple perspectives, and to build the writing and speaking skills needed to communicate effectively.
History is core to our mission of addressing the question, "How did the world come to be the way it is?" Every opportunity is taken to connect the developments of the past to society today. Thus history is not random dates and names but rather a map of our own complex world of experiences.
History is only one part of the Social Studies, however. If the goal is to engage our communities, then the students also need to understand economics, current events, sociology, philosophy and anthropology, all of which are woven into the curriculum.
Social Studies classes are discussion-based so as to encourage thoughtful debate and respect of differing opinions, and to bring out as many perspectives as possible. Students are expected to engage in and outside of the classroom and not to simply be receptacles of information.
Students are asked to be skeptics and to question what they have been taught in the past, what they are learning in their classes at VCS, and the opinions of their peers. Students learn to assess credibility through analysis of arguments and evidence, and thus to back up their own opinions.
Students write numerous scholarly papers and give many presentations to their classmates. Through this process they learn to research, to analyze information, to organize arguments, to provide evidence and citations, and to communicate clearly.
THE CLASSES
The Big Picture: 7th and 12th grade, the bookends of the VCS curriculum, focus on the local community and how it connects to global trends and developments. The 8th through 11th grades form a long look at human history that is spread out enough to allow us to really dig into the lessons of human experience and to take every opportunity to connect the past to today. US History is woven in to the 10th and 11th grade curricula, and looked at in depth in the 12th grade spring semester.
7th Grade - Hands on the Land - Looks at Vermont history in the context of US history and through the lens of the landmark book (of the same name) by Jan Albers. Students learn to think about our state as the sum effect of generations of humans who had differing interests and different perspectives on nature.
8th grade- The Ancient World - Looks at the development of human communities, societies & civilizations from pre-history to the Persian Empire.
9th grade- The Classical & Medieval Worlds - Looks at the maturing of human civilizations from the Greeks to the Renaissance.
10th grade - Global Studies I - Looks at the period 1500-1800 as the first globalization and the blossoming of the modern world, with an emphasis on United States history.
11th grade - Global Studies II - Looks at the period 1800-1950 as the complete reformation of human society due to the Industrial Revolution and the use of fossil fuels, with an emphasis on United States history. By the end of 11th grade, students will have been fully prepared to take the World History AP Exam.
12th grade - 1st Semester - Contemporary Social Issues - This is primarily a Political Science course aimed at developing students who are literate and engaged in local developments as they relate to current global events and trends. Professor Bill McKibben's landmark book Deep Economy forms the curricular framework.
2nd Semester - US History from 1950 to the Present