On the final two days of school last December, while hallways were filled with students excitedly sharing their plans for winter break, history classrooms were buzzing with conversation over something else: Lakeside’s annual current events day.
The elective-style sessions held by the history department in lieu of usual programming covered topics including Sudan’s humanitarian crisis, the Epstein files, the rise of AI, and more. Katie Piper, a history teacher who led an elective on Trump’s presidency and its consequences, explains that the current events days, the final A and B school days of 2025, were a chance to pause regular business and address “issues of particular prevalence to the community” that may be on students’ minds.
There has certainly been no shortage of prevalent global issues in the past year. For example, “there was a lot of focus [on current events] when the Israel-Gaza conflict was really fresh,” Ms. Piper points out. In fact, Tatler published an op-ed in January of 2024 criticizing the History department for its lack of a response. Since then, Ms. Piper says the history department has strived to “develop a framework for what happens when there’s unexpected news, so we’re not just being reactive, but we’re being thoughtful.”
One junior, Adi D. ’27 notes his support for the current events days, citing that Lakeside “tries to encompass a full range of views, but sometimes they fall short … I’m glad they’re taking steps with the History department,” he says. “I like having more regular spaces to discuss current events, where students can speak with peers who may or may not agree with their views.”
Indeed, Ms. Piper observes that many students in our generation derive their current events knowledge from chance encounters on social media. Leading up to the 2024 presidential election, the History department set up spaces during activity periods for conversations on politics. “Virtually no student showed up to these [sessions],” Ms. Piper explains. “My hunch is…many kids [want] to get informed, but just don’t have time.”
“To me, just as strong [as lack of knowledge on current events is], if not stronger, at Lakeside is a fear of sounding uninformed,” Ms. Piper explains. News on current events, in particular, is different from other parts of school curricula, which tend to be more impersonal and detached from students. It’s difficult to bridge information gaps and foster productive discussions between students with vastly different levels of personal political knowledge, unlike in other subjects.
More broadly, the history department’s coverage of current events brings up questions about the value of focusing on the present in Lakeside’s school curriculum. Learning about the Civil War and designing chemistry flowcharts at Lakeside could seem almost ironic while genocides and climate crises rage on in the modern day — issues that affect us, and issues that we could play a part in addressing if educated. In American Studies, is there value in teaching the Chinese Exclusion Act instead of covering the ongoing deportations by ICE? In chemistry, what’s the point of learning how to set fires in the lab if we can’t put out the ones burning down our forests outside?
In other words, what is the purpose of a Lakeside education?
Tatler reached out to Mr. de Grys, Lakeside’s academic dean, to learn how the school designs its courses. When crafting curricula, Lakeside thinks frequently about the purpose of education, Mr. de Grys explains. “We’re a mission-driven school; the mission on our website talks about the joy and importance of lifelong learning, healthy bodies, creative minds, and ethical spirits.”
He mentions that Lakeside is driven by its Competencies and Mindsets, around which academic programs are framed, so students receive “not just information and skills and content, but also habits of mind … like unstructured problem solving, communication and listening, resilience, [and] inclusion.”
At the same time, Mr. de Grys explains “every department has core content that students have to know … to be a responsible, knowledgeable member of society. So for history, it might be looking at the core arc of American history before European arrival and through the modern day. For science, there’s core content in biology in terms of understanding genetics, DNA, proteins, evolution, and natural selection.”
That baseline information provides the foundation for more innovative and exploratory learning, including about modern-day issues, Mr. de Grys says. “If you want to understand what’s going on in the economy today, you have to have a grounding [in the fundamentals]. What is capitalism? How does our federalist system or government help manage that economic system? What power do businesses and corporations have; what power does the government have? All of that is required to be able to jump into what’s happening today.”
However, he acknowledges that just providing foundational knowledge “is not sufficient,” as “just because you understand all of those basic principles doesn’t mean you have a good explanation for why inflation is so high. So I love that departments, including history, are making these connections explicit and taking time to talk about what’s happening in the world today.”
Ms. Piper, too, emphasizes the importance of using historical analysis to inform future change when educating students about the modern world. “I care much more about sending citizens into the world who will study all kinds of things. I’d love for them to learn enough to be successful history majors, but for me, that’s really secondary to … feeling like they have a greater understanding in our contemporary world by studying echoes in history, problems that keep repeating themselves.”
“For instance,” Ms. Piper says, “I think it’s important that we study the Chinese Exclusion Act so that we see the patterns in when we embrace immigrants and when we repel them, and the conditions that produce our societal responses.”
Ms. Piper mentions that the History department has worked to connect historical study to modern issues, but lesson plans are limited due to time constraints. “Some of my colleagues have done the math about how much instructional time we have at Lakeside versus…public schools, and it’s something like 40% less in a school year for every class.” This is due to fewer school days, as well as more frequent free periods, assembly, advisory, and activity periods. “If I don’t always successfully make the connection, it might have to do with the intense time pressure I feel to teach…in a schedule that’s seriously compressed from what I was used to before Lakeside,” she explains. “I very much try to have history classes feel relevant and not disconnected from the present and our contemporary problems.”
Ms. Piper has also been involved in increasing Lakeside’s civics offerings, introducing the 9th grade civics unit and the Government, Politics, and Policymaking elective, as well as anchoring junior year U.S. History around levers of change. “To me, when we’re thinking about facts and themes, I’m really interested in what seems really relevant and important right now to understanding our contemporary problems.”
The idea of relevance comes up when students ask the “so what” question, Mr. de Grys notes. “If you can’t answer [that] question, I think you’re in trouble — so I encourage students to ask that in a polite, respectful way … I love that by [covering] contemporary issues we can look at the news [and] really have a thread that ties it all back.”
