8th graders are studying the arc of Washington state history, starting with what scholars understand from 10,000 years ago and continuing into our region’s 21st-century leadership as a global player in technology. In this unit, which satisfies the state’s high school graduation requirement, students read through Washington’s History: The People, Land, and Events of the Far Northwest by Harry Ritter and write analytical summaries of each chapter. Students learn about the native peoples who lived in this land as well as European fur traders, Catholic missionaries, Black pioneers, Chinese laborers, and imperial explorers. As students understand state history, David guides them to bring their knowledge of the past to interpret the tensions and changes of the present. For example, Governor Inslee has recently announced that the statue of white missionary and pioneer Marcus Whitman in the Capitol will be replaced with a statue of Nisqually tribe member and activist Billy Frank, Jr. More locally, 8th graders will also examine the legacy of naval officer Charles Wilkes whose portrait appears in the book’s chapter on Manifest Destiny and whose reputation for harsh and arrogant behavior raises questions about whether he should be honored and remembered at Bainbridge’s Wilkes Elementary. On a field trip, 8th graders recently walked to Port Blakely Cemetery where they could explore and discover what stories tombstones tell, from the historic timber mill industry days of Bainbridge to contemporary COVID-19 deaths. For the final assignment, David will ask students to share their wisdom by creating a public proposal that reshapes a local story from the past and recreates an appropriate replacement and new representation for the future. This local history focus at the end of 8th grade serves as a fitting bookend to the first unit in the fall of 7th grade where they focused on origin stories. In the arc of Hyla History, students analyze and interpret patterns from global to local, from myths of how humans first began, to stories about the places where they live and go to school. 

7th graders in History are studying the Atlantic revolutions: American, French, and Haitian. Since students already studied the American Revolution in 6th grade Humanities class, David leads a brief review to create a foundational focus on the themes of cause and effect, power, and inequality. To understand the French Revolution, students participated in simulations of the different estates and socioeconomic levels. With candy representing wealth distribution, an exercise in paying taxes demonstrated who had power, how well the system functioned, and what happened if people didn’t follow the rules. In another exercise, students simulated the creation of the National Assembly, a significant event in the Revolution. Layers of complexity increased with each of the Atlantic revolutions: the Haitian revolution in a French colony also included a racial element. As the end product of this unit, students will write out their own declaration modeled on the Atlantic revolutions, explaining grievances and rights, taking a stance as an advocate or opponent for a position and taking up their voice.