Riverdale Country School
A long-standing commitment to interdisciplinary study
Riverdale Country School recently made the decision to move away from Advanced Placement (AP) designations and, in most disciplines, from teaching to AP tests. In 2010-11 all courses abandoned AP designations. As a result, the school as an institution has begun a review of its course offerings with the aim of developing curricula and introducing courses that will surpass the AP curricula of the past.
Riverdale is, though not unique, unusual in its long-standing commitment to interdisciplinary study. Integrated Liberal Studies (ILS), an interdisciplinary study of changing world views from the Greeks to the present for the entire senior class, has been taught since 1981. Eight ILS faculty teach individual disciplines but at the same time try to model connective thinking through the references they make in class to the other disciplines.
Constructing America (CA), an American studies course for the junior class that draws upon the resources of the English and history departments, was introduced as a required course in 2002 after a successful pilot program the previous year. Constructing America is team-taught by an English and a History teacher who are present in the classroom together and who seek to blur sharp disciplinary boundaries in their modes of teaching.
“Faculty are looking for ways to help students to ask better questions and to engage in explicit construction and analysis of arguments within and across disciplines: In short, to cultivate the habits of critical rationality.”
In addition, in the past 20 years various teachers—mainly in the English and history departments—have taken the initiative and developed team-taught interdisciplinary electives on such topics as World Religions, Vietnam, and Race, Class, and Ethnicity in New York City.
Over the years hundreds of recent graduates have returned to visit, and when asked about their first impressions of their college/university, many mention how easy the transition has been and more often than not, they point to their ILS class as the key to their success. “ILS taught me how to think”—or a similar refrain—is heard quite often from Riverdale alumni. Prior to his graduation Patrick Cook ’10 commented to a faculty member, “How does one really know anything? After this week in ILS philosophy, that is the only question really worth reflecting on.”
And Ali Kokot ’10, former co-editor-in-chief of student-run newspaper The Riverdale Review, wrote in an editorial: “The interdisciplinary nature of both [ILS and CA] offers something for everybody. Not everyone at Riverdale is passionate about history or literature, but by adding in elements of visual art, film, theatre, architecture, science, mathematics, philosophy, language and music to the syllabus, the students can almost always find something.”
The administration and faculty are now exploring the possibility of a more interdisciplinary program to complement the required interdisciplinary humanities courses in junior and senior year. Riverdale Country School aims to develop courses involving more discussion-based learning, more experiential learning, and more stimulating and meaningful learning; faculty are looking for ways to help students to ask better questions and to engage in explicit construction and analysis of arguments within and across disciplines: In short, to cultivate the habits of critical rationality.
“Riverdale is unusual in its long-standing commitment to interdisciplinary study. Integrated Liberal Studies (ILS), an interdisciplinary study of changing world views from the Greeks to the present for the entire senior class, has been taught since 1981.”
Riverdale’s current initiatives include a pilot program in rhetoric to be introduced in tenth-grade English classes, focusing upon the construction and analysis of arguments. New mini-courses dealing with topics such as climate change and critical thinking will draw upon the expertise of the academic departments and even other constituencies within the school, such as the Director of Plant and Sustainability. In addition to the English and history departments, Riverdale plans to extend such collaboration to involve the art, math, and science departments. A physics/calculus course is one such example.