ADAPT,SURVIVE, THRIVE EXPLORING HOME CHANGE In MiddleSchool, Every t hing is Co

New thematic studies pose powerful questions across disciplines n n e c

DESPITE ALL ITS HARM, the COVID-19 pandemic drove many school administrators and teachers to explore new opportunities for pedagogical innovation. At Waynflete, Middle School Director Divya Muralidhara sought out fresh ideas to make the school’s grades 6–8 program more interdisciplinary, more interconnected, and more interdependent, leading to greater cohesion during the academic year and across grades. With support from Head of School Geoff Wagg, Divya determined that this change would take the form of “thematic studies”—major themes for each of the three grade levels that would serve as the foundation for curriculum development.

After soliciting initial feedback from the entire Middle School faculty, Divya established a fiveperson committee in March 2022. The group comprised both new and seasoned faculty members who were passionate about the thematic studies concept and eager to think beyond their own academic disciplines. Divya granted the team autonomy to shape the loosely formed concept into a sequence that would enable teachers to build on the material taught in earlier grades. “I put my name in because I love this kind of synthesis thinking,” recalls Cassie Pruyn, an English teacher who served on the committee. “I was interested in the process of connecting all these different ideas.”

Following April break, committee members worked with Divya to put the final touches on the draft themes prior to a faculty presentation in May. “I loved what I was seeing in terms of the committee’s connection,” Divya says. “They were energized as a group, and there was real value in their debates and discussions.”

A preamble to the introduction of the themes explains that they were designed “to awaken the imagination, deepen curiosity about self and community, provide space for reflection and inquiry, and broaden one’s sense of the world.”

Inspired by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the sixth-grade theme, “Adapt, Survive, Thrive,” explores how needs have driven humans to invent and innovate, how civilizations around the world have found different ways to meet their own needs, and how the design of our bodies (and understanding of our identities) reflects adaptations to the needs of survival.

Grade 7 students broaden their outlook in their theme, “Exploring Home.” Students ask: What do home and community mean to me? How can understanding the role of community make us more empathetic to each other? How does listening to each other’s stories strengthen our community? What responsibility do we have for protecting and nurturing our planet?

Finally, in eighth grade comes the most dramatic theme of all: “Change: Destruction, Transformation, Creation.” “We thought a lot about the word ‘destruction,’” says Cassie. “We knew that it might have a negative connotation for some. But it’s an exciting word. We wanted the students to be thinking, ‘What would I do differently?’” Students would spend the year exploring how they can harness forces of change to reinvent themselves and the world around them. How must we challenge the thinking of the architects of our societal structure to address profound injustices? How can our passions and leadership skills motivate us to act in the face of challenges and uncertainty? How can we effectively engage with each other to bring about change?

The themes become more abstract as students progress through the three grades, meeting them where they are developmentally and ultimately preparing them for a successful transition to the Upper School. Committee members sought to strike a difficult balance—to create a curriculum-building framework that wasn’t stiflingly specific yet not so broad as to be “mushy” (i.e., too easy to connect anything to the theme). “It would have lost some of its tension,” says Cassie. “The idea was to create