IN MIDDLE SCHOOL, EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED

openings through which someone teaching in any department or discipline could connect.”

Middle School faculty discussed the proposed themes in small groups and provided feedback to committee members. “There was a great amount of respect and appreciation” for the work of the committee members, says Divya.

As the end of the academic year approached last spring, grade-level teaching teams met in workshops to start sketching out potential changes to the curriculum that would incorporate the new themes. While complete overhauls were not expected in the first year, faculty members were asked to connect some aspects of their classroom content to the themes. Stipends were made available to teachers who were interested in significantly revising their curricula. “Teaching feels so urgent all the time,” says Cassie. “The pause of the summer and the stipend were really valuable. I was able to plan virtually the whole first trimester.”

These programmatic changes were also intended to open up new opportunities for cross-departmental collaboration. “We need to meet the highly integrated brains of our middle schoolers with a highly integrated program, one where knowledge is not treated separately but as connected,” says Divya. This was already happening to a limited degree.

English teacher Alyssa Goodrich and history teacher Hannah Walton had sought out common threads in their curricula and designed a shared theme of courageous citizenship. Science teacher Stephanie Dolan and visual arts chair Jona Rice had collaborated on an exploration of the scientific application and artistic use of light. The faculty wanted to push further, however. “Authentic engagement with the themes will lead to authentic interdisciplinary connection,” says Cassie.

Lisa Libby’s sixth-grade biology class already lent itself well to the theme of “Adapt, Survive, Thrive.” “It’s embedded in pretty much everything I teach in that class,” she says. All great teachers appreciate the opportunity to rethink their curricula, however, so the idea of collaboration was top of mind for Lisa as she worked over the summer. While she was designing a new unit on structural and behavioral adaptations in animals, an idea began to crystallize: What if students were asked to design an imaginary animal, out of whole cloth, based on a set of randomly assigned traits and adaptations? A call to colleague Kim Farr, a visual arts teacher, led to a plan for the coming school year. After the six-graders created “new” animals (and their habitats) in science class, Kim would help them extend their work into the visual arts realm. How can you demonstrate traits and behaviors through illustration? And how do you draw convincing feathers and talons?

“The themes can serve as a through line across all courses,” says John McDevitt. “This is particularly important for sixth-graders, who have a different teacher in every subject for the first time in their lives.” As seminar teacher, John occupies the unique position of being the only faculty member to instruct every middle school student over the course of an academic year on a range of developmentally appropriate topics ranging from self-awareness and self-management to social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making (he also provides counsel to faculty members on advising activities). “Everyone is focused right now on how to use the themes to guide what we do in the classroom,” he says. “But we’re already having some great conversations about how we can do more to incorporate the themes into advising.”

It’s been a successful first year. History teachers are leading their classes in discussions about ancient civilizations that thrived through innovation and adaptation. Students have examined the concepts of destruction and transformation during their units on the Reconstruction era, the Jim Crow era, and the civil rights movement. Seventh-grade students have studied Indigenous peoples of the United States, learning that everyone has a sense of home, regardless of where it is. (A unit on Ukraine led to a discussion about what happens when your city or nation is taken away from you and how this could affect your sense of belonging.)

English classes have explored how our essential needs catalyzed the invention of stories—what power do stories hold, and how have they changed us over the course of human history?

Eighth-grade Spanish students have discussed what it means to leave a place that has always been home and the reasons why we might be forced to leave. In PE class, students have explored how our movements influence those around us and how we can coexist in tight spaces. And while robotics classes are fundamentally about creation and transformation, thematic studies have pushed the curriculum further. Students have examined how the field has both created new possibilities and destroyed certain jobs.

As the first year of thematic studies draws to a close, Divya and the Middle School faculty will soon meet to share their successes, provide support to those who are looking for innovative ways to connect themes to the curriculum, and explore ideas for more widespread collaboration between teachers next year. “Our students will be going into Upper School with a different sensibility around knowledge and understanding than perhaps they’ve had before, because of how intentionally we’re teaching these ideas and questions,” Divya says. “There is real potential to continue this approach of essential questions informing every aspect of our teaching and our work with young people. I think that we live in a world where finding commonality is an essential part of the journey of life.”

Lisa concurs. “Making a curriculum that is cohesive and interconnected means we’re all moving toward the same goal,” she says. “That framework just makes sense to me. I’d like to think that it makes sense to the students, too.”