Credit: 1.0 | Prerequisite: see description

Current Issues is a course that prepares students for the world around them. No experience in current issues or the news is needed to take this class, but a desire to learn and grow is. Students explore both short- and long-term topics with a focus on exploring the cause-and-effect relationships to these moments. In this setting, students can ask frank questions and learn more about the global society in which we live. Students are introduced to the federal system and government as well as the court system to better understand events they hear about in a variety of media. Students can also influence the class by submitting current events and leading discussions in the classroom about current issues that interest them and their peers. In addition, they learn how to build and develop a logical argument, shying away from fallacies and circular logic. A student must have completed either Lower School US History or Lower School 20th Century History at the minimum. This class reaches across curriculum to provide a broad and curated look at contemporary events. Current issues include research (both directed and self-guided), open dialogue and discussion, formal argumentative papers, and reading about topics in a open but regulated setting.