Latin and Physics join forces at Wahconah for an exercise in cross-disciplinary learning
The New
England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) has made cross-curricular
learning one of its signature recommendations for schools in the six-state
region. The purpose of this approach is to encourage students to view what they
are learning in one class not in isolation, but in concert with the rest of
their academic courses. The ultimate goal of cross-curricular teaching and
learning is to stimulate students to use their critical thinking skills so they
will think “outside the box.” Sometimes a school’s non-stop daily schedule
unintentionally prevents both teachers and students from achieving this goal,
and often keeps students “locked” into viewing what they learn in one class as
separate from information gained in their other five or six classes.
Recently,
two Wahconah staff members, Charles Bradshaw and David Dahari, who teach
academic subjects that could not be less alike—physics and Latin—agreed to
combine two of their classes for two cross curricular sessions. Nearly fifty
students met in the Latin classroom, where they shared thoughts and impressions
about academic connectivity across the board, and how that matters when it
comes to processing everything they learn in school. Both teachers posed
essential questions about the importance students should attach to thinking
about what they learn in a broader context not simply limited to test and
quizzes in one class or another. Although some juniors were among the students
involved, a majority were seniors who will be leaving Wahconah in their rear
view mirror very shortly. One of the
exercises during the second class included a passage from the Roman writer
Lucretius, an atomist, poet and philosopher from the first century before the
Common Era. In that selection, he focuses on how irrational the “fear of
newness” was then, and the students agreed continues to have a strong presence
in our lives some 2,100 years later. The students who will be graduating were
asked to share what they might fear about their “new lives” after high school,
but what they will also gladly embrace. Mr. Dahari asked students to think
about what science really means. Sometimes people equate it with knowledge. But
as Mr. Dahari pointed out, what we “know” today may be something very different
from what we will “know” five, ten, or fifty years from now. Students offered
their thoughts about this, and many were thinking seriously about the process
and the purpose of learning as it relates to a holistic overview of the lives
they will live after high school.
All in all,
both sessions for the combined physics/Latin students yielded positive
outcomes. As student Austin Cancilla put it, he felt being in this mixed group
was a “healthy” exercise. Connor Washburn said "I thought it was really amazing
that we were able to do so much thinking without lifting a pencil." Connor
Matthews just said "I thought it was interesting how much two totally
different classes have in common."
