Exploring Educations

Liberal Arts has been used to describe the type of educational foundation upon which Overlake’s academic program is built. In this special section of The Overlaker, we uncover the many ways in which Overlake exemplifies a liberal arts education as well as veers outside that world too. We talk to folks in our community who work in our academic program each day who share their perspectives on what it means to be a liberal arts school in 2022. We also talk to an alum who has worked in two vastly different industries and yet pulls on the same skills derived from their time here.

LIBERAL ARTS AS A CONCEPT has been around since the ancient Greeks,” states Gerald Buhaly, Head of the Upper School. “The foundation of liberal arts is that you provide equal weight to all of the different academic subjects that you have in your program, whether it’s math, science, history, English, languages, arts, physical education, they have an equal emphasis in your program.”

Educating the whole student has been around since the time of the philosopher Plato, when exploration for the sake of learning and understanding was something to strive for in society in order to become a well-educated citizen. And since that time, countless evolutions in education have occurred with a host of different names including Liberal Arts, as well as International Baccalaureate, Advanced Placement, and more recently STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) and even STREAM (Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Arts, Math). Each of these approaches has benefits and also perhaps some misconceptions.

“I think in today’s world, the term ‘liberal’ has people think of it in a particular way, whether good or bad,” explains Buhaly. “But I also think that there’s a more profound thinking behind liberal arts, which is that people in today’s world are often very career-focused. They think of liberal arts as being a sort of program where because you are emphasizing all of the different subjects, you don’t spend enough time in maybe STEM fields where they think that their child needs to go to have a career.”

But one could argue what career doesn’t involve solving problems. Big or small, problems exist, and adults spend many hours working on solutions to these problems. That work involves communication and collaboration with your colleagues.

“None of the world’s problems are going to get resolved by simply a STEM education. You need to be able to communicate. You need to be able to know your sort of historical connections to the problems that you’re facing,” explains Buhaly.

Perhaps to no surprise is the agreement of that statement by a social studies teacher at Overlake. “I think liberal arts help students have an understanding of how society functions,” says Dave Parsons, Social Studies faculty. “They understand how we’ve got to where we are currently, with appreciation for human success and opportunities, as well as appreciation of all the challenges that have been faced and the injustices that have been in the world.”

What may be more surprising is that a long-time science teacher at Overlake also agrees. “It’s understanding the impact that whatever you’re doing has on the broader universe, whether it’s humans, animals, the environment, it all matters, and I think a liberal arts education roots any single discipline in that broader scheme,” says Lisa Orenstein, Upper School Science faculty.

“I don’t know any scientist worth their weight in gold that isn’t an effective communicator,” says Orenstein. “I mean, how else do you make your way up the ladder? You have to write in peerreviewed journals. Communication is the currency of any discipline. If you can’t communicate clearly and within a manner that’s supported by evidence, then what are you doing? You’re just working for yourself.”

How Overlake embraces the liberal arts

“The term liberal arts doesn’t fully encapsulate what we’re doing at Overlake, because if you considered a traditional liberal arts education, it’s very likely that it does not include an experiential education component, or the sheer number and depth of our clubs program, or our wellness lessons, or DEJI (Diversity, Equity, Justice, & Inclusion) work,” says Buhaly. “There’s so much more that is a part of what we do here beyond what would be considered a traditional liberal arts school.”

“What we’ve tried to do in our Social Studies department is the combination of gaining knowledge and developing skills, like research, writing, communicating, speaking, along with an understanding of society past and present,” explains Parsons. “Then additionally, with AP economics, understanding how businesses function and with AP government, how government functions.”

Overlake offers more than a dozen Advanced Placement (AP) courses, which isn’t traditionally part of a liberal arts education and has been criticized by some in academia that AP courses promote rote memorization rather than deep understanding in a subject. “I think we’re really careful about the APs that we offer, so for instance, we do not offer, AP US history or AP Euro because they are memorization and regurgitation. They don’t have sufficient critical thinking and analysis,” explains Buhaly. “The AP courses we have aren’t necessarily the most dominant ones at our school. In other words, we have the ability to build courses that are unique and interesting now and kids have a passion for learning about. So, this year, we have the ethnic studies course. That was based upon kids really wanting to have an ethnic studies course.”

For science teacher Orenstein, her collaboration with an English teacher provides a rich, broad learning experience, emblematic of a liberal arts education.

“Nate Edmunds teaches this radical empathy class and I teach global health,” explains Orenstein. “They’re both very human focused endeavors. We have the students read a novel, that is about a pandemic and then we evaluate, talking about key principles regarding radical empathy as well as the global health elements. Then we look at all these same ideas with a real-case scenario, like the 2014 Ebola outbreak. That’s a perfect example of integrating STEM into humanities, which to me is quintessential liberal arts.”

“Liberal arts is about providing choices but also there are some fences around those choices,” explains Buhaly. “You still have to take four years of English, three years of math, three years of science, and two years of art and so on. There’s choice but there’s also some limits to that choice. I had an Upper School student yesterday that came up to me and said ‘I really love jazz band and I want to do all years of my arts in jazz band. Do I have

DAVE PARSONS, SOCIAL STUDIES

to take any other arts?’ And the answer is yes, you do. In order to graduate, you’re going to have to take at least one class in one of the other areas such as visual arts or theater because we want you to have that broad experience.”

The experiences are vast for students who spend any time in the new Idea Lab inside the Whitten Math & Sciences Center. There the sky’s the limit to what solutions can be conjured. And the room is purposely not called a makerspace, as there is more happening there than just making devices.

“I think, this is an idea lab space and not a makerspace, because we are rooted in a broader spectrum of exploration,” explains Orenstein. “We want to provide rich experiences for students to explore their passions, and to innovate whatever the case may be, whether they’re interested in economics, robotics, or engineering.”

Orenstein’s Design Thinking class, which uses the Idea Lab, is a great example of the varied types of problems these Upper Schoolers are trying to solve. “I’ve got somebody who’s doing a project on effective medical communication, in order to reach out to marginalized communities. And then someone is working on labor practices with respect to cinematographers and directors in Hollywood. So, there’s a wide spectrum. If this was a makerspace none of those projects would be going on.”

Exploring the IB Program

“The International Baccalaureate program was developed in order to provide children of expats with a program of study that they could continue to have and receive independent of where they were located,” explains Buhaly who has served as both a principal and teacher at several IB schools. “The diploma program has a requirement of six different subjects that every student has to take that are in five different subject areas.”

Those subject areas include stem-based disciplines, like science and math as well as humanities-based classes, such as social studies and languages. “It does follow many of the sort of concepts of liberal arts because of the breadth of what you’re required to do. You couldn’t get out of English. You couldn’t get out of social studies. You couldn’t get out of languages. You had to do that package of six courses and five subjects,” explains Buhaly.

Another veteran of IB education is social studies teacher Dave Parsons who taught history and was the IB coordinator at two schools. “IB was set up to try and provide students with a global perspective. So, every course within the IB program has to include insights into different parts of the world. For instance, in a subject like history, there are themes and you take case studies from different parts of the world.”

That global view, no matter in what style of educational program it is under, serves to enlighten a student’s perspective and understanding of the world they live in. “We want them to know about different cultures in the world. We want them to know, art, and art history,” says Parsons. “And by looking at different history in different parts of the world, you get more interest in those countries, and you have more respect for the people of those countries.”

At Overlake, diversity in the courses offered and the topics covered, like diversity in thought, provides opportunities for students to learn about subjects and ideas they may not even know they have an interest in. “We want to provide rich experiences for students to explore their passions and innovate, whether they’re interested in economics or whether they’re interested in robotics or engineering,” says Orenstein.

Helping students make the transition to college and beyond

“Overlake’s education is not accidental. If you create a schedule that makes room for all these priorities, those life experiences can happen,” says Kate Asgari, Director of College Counseling. Asgari is referring to the variety of learning objectives available to students that are beyond the core subjects, such as experiential education, wellbeing, digital citizenship, Diversity, Equity, Justice, Inclusion work (DEJI), clubs and other co-curricular endeavors. All of these topics are intentionally woven into the curriculum and serve the larger goal of preparing students to become great global citizens beyond Overlake.

“I think liberal arts in general is misunderstood. It is less about categorization and bifurcation and much more about how all these programs are coming together or jointly taught,” Asgari says. “Where an education like Overlake excels is someone seeing fewer boundaries. The ability to blend together and not see things so departmentalized, but a holistic whole.”

When students start to make these connections across department lines, they are encouraged to pursue those possibilities and explore new experiences. They can take different classes, start new clubs, try different sports, even advocate for curriculum change, all under the guidance of campus adults always advocating to build students’ agency.

As graduates return and speak about their Overlake experience, they often recall the relationships they had with campus adults that gave them the confidence to explore new things and push the bounds of their comfort zone beyond the walls of Overlake. In college, when they encounter new challenges, they also don’t shy away from asking for help and utilizing their university’s resources because that framework was laid in high school. “There’s an ease we see in graduates who go into college and know how to ask for help and seek out resources that best cultivate their own talents and interests,” says Chris Kuipers, Associate Director of College Counseling.

The Overlake experience is a special blend of choices, relationships, and opportunities that help students leave Overlake as well-rounded young adults ready to contribute to whatever community they end up joining in college and beyond.

What colleges think

When a college looks at an Overlake student, they see the culmination of a well-rounded high school experience. Our students are great writers, critical thinkers, and have explored a

KATE ASGARI, DIRECTOR OF COLLEGE COUNSELING

great deal of interests over their time at Overlake and have a sense of who they want to become.

Colleges are trying to look beyond the test scores to find out who applicants are as a person, what their values are, and how they will contribute to the college campus community. “Colleges want to know who you are and what you are bringing to their community. They want to know when this student comes here, what will their mark be?” says Asgari.

The approach to helping the student become the best version of themselves does not happen by accident. At Overlake, it comes from walking the walk of mutual respect between students and adults. Students’ voices matter and affect change. Increased emphasis on topics like well-being and Diversity, Equity, Justice, and Inclusion (DEJI) in the schedule, all help students expand their learning beyond parroting facts and instead are woven into the fabric of the curriculum allowing for a rich experience. Emphasis on these skills help empower students to advocate and call for changes where they see gaps.

Students have been integral in curriculum changes at Overlake for years. Just last year, several students attended a conference and saw the need for a student DEJI Associated Student Body (ASB) rep after seeing the impact it had at other schools. This past fall that became an elected ASB position that works closely with the staff members to plan curriculum and student events. Colleges see that Overlake students are leaders and independent thinkers and know that they will bring that same spirit to their curriculum. “When they (students) go to college it never occurs to them not to behave that way. They’re practicing speaking up. Not everyone steps into college feeling agency and empowerment,” Asgari says.

Overlake is preparing students for their journey beyond Overlake. That may look like a whole host of options: four-year college, community college, gap year experiences, or internships. The College Counseling team guide students through the process of discerning their next steps beyond Overlake. Fit is the most important factor the team considers when guiding a student. They consider the student’s interests and individuality and help them find a place where they can grow and be a contributing community member.

“There are a lot of good schools where students can go to become an engineer, lawyer, doctor, teacher or whatever it may be. It’s much more for us about where you are going to be able to grow as a person, which I think it as the heart of that liberal arts value,” Kuipers says.

Trying and learning

The best path forward often involves some stumbling along the way. Overlake encourages students to try all manner of activities. Some endeavors lead to a newly found passion, but some lead to discovering the activity was not something they enjoyed. However, a setback can be just as illuminating as a success. Students may try a sport or a club and realize that it’s not for them, but they were given the freedom to explore options and even to fail.

“That trial and error, bumping up against things we don’t want to do, is part of Overlake’s mission and goal,” Asgari says. She pointed out that students will be faced with lots of opportunities to try new things and change course during college and into adulthood and Overlake helps them recognize that that’s a normal part of the human experience. “Overlake gives them the confidence to change paths. They were encouraged here to do that,” she says.

Whatever a student decides to pursue after leaving Overlake, or however many times they change course, we can be sure that students will lean on their foundation forged at Overlake.

“Our department is part of a much bigger mission of cultivating thoughtful, engaged, moral young people who are going to go off and hopefully make this world a better place,” says Kuipers.

Switching Career Paths

Scott Heiner (’10) spent most of his time at Overlake in what he calls a “laser-focused” approach in obtaining skills that would translate into a career in music. “I made an intentional choice to focus my efforts on arts and humanities (or perhaps this was simply an elaborate excuse to avoid the gauntlet of Lisa Orenstein’s science classes!),” laughs Heiner.

That focus paid off. Heiner spent the early part of his career creating music with bands like MUNA while also serving as tour manager for other bands. This life took him around the world.

Now Heiner works at a tech startup called Surge AI, which helps companies create artificial intelligence models of their data in an effort to have better data accuracy. He leads the company’s product operations team. “It’s a significant shift! There are almost no day-to-day parallels between my work as touring drummer (and tour manager) in the music industry and my work at an artificial intelligence startup. But from a broader perspective, both require an entrepreneurial mindset and a desire to build something impactful from the ground up.”

And although Heiner may have thought he was going to spend his entire career in a humanities-based profession when he was at Overlake, he learned later that the skills learned here apply anywhere. “At its core, a great English class helps students think critically about a given subject, and then articulate those thoughts for others to understand. I’ve found those skills to be invaluable in my careers in music and tech — arguably more so than any particular domain-specific knowledge.”

Regardless of either career path chosen, when asked what value a liberal arts education holds in this current world, Heiner was quick to point to the versatility of such an education. “I think it’s more important than ever, given the many global challenges we face today. We need grounded, well-intentioned, cross-disciplinary thinkers who are motivated to make a positive impact. A liberal arts education (particularly an Overlake one) gives students all the tools they need to do just that.”