Our Social Studies/Humanities program is sequential in structure, global in scope and guided by the ideals of the United Nations Charter. We want our students to develop an appreciation and understanding of their own cultural heritage and that of others, to value diversity and to recognize the rights and responsibilities we all share. The program helps students develop knowledge and understanding of world history and geography; of different economic, social, political and cultural systems; of the host country and the United Nations through an integrated approach that emphasizes the interactions of peoples and cultures across time and place. In the Junior School, Middle School and Tutorial House, we share a common goal: to provide knowledge, skills and values that will enable our students to become active learners, to make sense of the past, to understand its connection to the present and to be informed and concerned participants in their communities and the world.
The program in the Junior School encourages shared inquiry and investigation, leading the students from the individual to the larger community and outwards into the world, exploring the present as well as the past, their own lives as well as the lives of others. Through integration of the five curriculum strands of history, geography, social sciences, host country and United Nations, students learn to ask questions and find answers, to learn from each other and to work together. The curriculum emphasizes the fundamental dignity of every human being and encourages attitudes of respect for oneself and for others. All students participate in projects and field trips, linking the classroom to the wider world.
The program in the Middle School encourages active investigation and discussion of ideas, of similarities and differences, of connections between the past and the present. Students follow a common course of study integrating the five strands of world history, geography, social sciences, host country and United Nations. They travel to all regions and from the earliest civilizations towards the emergence of the modern world. Class work emphasizes active inquiry; by the end of eighth grade, students have been introduced to primary sources, done their own research and learned to present their own ideas and understanding in terms of clear argument and selected evidence in essays and debates. We have a strong commitment to learning beyond the classroom, drawing on the diversity and resources of New York City and our parent body.
The program in the Tutorial House encourages active listening, informed argument and increasingly independent learning. In the ninth and tenth grades, students complete the final two years of our common curriculum, which integrate the five strands of world history, geography, social sciences, host country and United Nations, now focused on global processes of change from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. By the end of tenth grade, students have a broad understanding of the kinds of critical issues facing the world today examined each year at the UNIS/UN student-led conference. In eleventh and twelfth grades, students are ready to undertake more specialized and intensive study, choosing from a wide range of IB and UNIS courses including Economics, History, Philosophy, Psychology, Social and Cultural Anthropology, and Contemporary Issues.