Starting in the fall of 2025, Sidwell will implement a new history curriculum centered around a more targeted learning experience, according to the Sidwell website. Under the new model, eighth graders will take World History, freshmen will be randomly assigned one of six geographic regions and sophomores will select between the remaining five regions.
The current offerings are History of the Modern Middle East; African History; History of East Asia: Tradition and Modernity; Social and Political Change in Latin America; History of South Asia: Foundation and Development; and History of Modern Europe.
Sidwell Friends freshman Maya Ahmad mentioned that the change will not directly affect the sophomores. “I feel it will impact the ninth graders as they won’t learn enough of a foundation of history in eighth grade,” Ahmad stated. “It’s important to set a foundation in high school,” added sophomore Sasha Schooling.
The changes, which are a product of a few years of discussions, are an attempt to balance chronological surveys with more topical and in-depth course offerings, said the History department faculty. According to Upper School History Department Chair Laura Jordan, the new curriculum provides freshmen history teachers the liberty to focus on one specific topic rather than having to fit a larger amount of information in one year.
“Traditionally, our 10th grade regional history courses have been popular with students, and we thought it would be great to offer them two of those courses, rather than just one,” Jordan said. “[W]e know that students are invested in the choice of 10th-grade regional courses, and this curriculum change gives them two chances to take a particular course.”
Freshman Kate Horton said, “It will be intimidating for the new ninth graders because it’s already a big jump to high school and not having a high school general history class to set the foundation will set the students up for failure.”
Junior Luca Kountoupes, who has experienced the current history track for freshmen and sophomores, explained that the alteration would diversify the history classes. She explained that there are only a few people in the current Latin American history class, but the addition of the new curriculum would allow incoming freshmen to discover new interests.
The new curriculum makes no changes to the 11th grade history classes, where students choose between History of the United States or American Studies, or the numerous 12th grade elective history classes.
