Course Closeup: Global Studies
When we think back to high school history classes, most people remember a lot about the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. This year, Dr. Chris Doyle shook that expectation up a bit with the introduction of an elective course focused primarily on what is going on in our world today: Global Studies.
This course aims to broaden and diversify the history curriculum at Avon Old Farms. It does so by introducing 9th and 10th grade students to global problems from different, often non-Western perspectives. While the methods of this course derive from history (in its approach to evidence, consideration of issues from multiple points of view, stance on objectivity and detachment) the focus is squarely on contemporary problems.
Last year I took the Crime and Punishment Intersession course offered by Dr. Watt and Dr. Doyle. Both their intellect and passion for the topic were inspiring, leaving me so intrigued I began studying that in my time away from school and occasionally meeting with them to talk. When I heard about Global Studies, I knew I could not miss the opportunity to have Dr. Doyle as a teacher again in a class preparing young citizens of the world for the future. - Max Cohen '22
On his course syllabus, Doyle challenges his students from the beginning to push themselves beyond their own experience as a young american male:
“This class asks you to think deeply about world trends while trying to rise above your perspectives as American teenage males. Doing so will be hard! To make things tougher still, we’re not just going to investigate the state of the world. Rather, we’ll be diving into the toughest problems confronting people in the opening decades of the twenty-first century.”
The one-semester course is organized into five units, each with its own readings, projects, papers, and goals for ‘essential understanding’:
Unit 1: The Nature of Modern Warfare
Through a selection of readings from books, newspapers, and scholarly materials, students learn that since World War II, conventional warfare has been largely eclipsed by “asymmetrical” conflict, including guerrillas, terror, cyber-ops, misinformation, and surveillance. They also come to understand that modern war increasingly involves non-state actors ranging from Al-Qaeda and ISIS to DynCorp International (the world’s largest private military contractor), and tend to be low-intensity and of a longer duration than the wars typically addressed in a history class. Lastly for this unit, students begin to see that modern warfare bears a resemblance to conventional “total” wars (such as WWII) in its capacity to involve civilians and efforts to demoralize them through terror and misinformation.
Unit 2: Globalization: Legal and Illegal Trade Networks in the 21st Century
In Unit 2, the class discusses how global trade promises cheap material abundance for all, but has produced a mixed legacy including significant and rising global inequality. Students are shown that global trade today depends on cheap labor, which has implications for human rights.
Global Studies helped us learn better strategy for debating, research, public speaking, spontaneous discussions, and comprehensive reading. The class encouraged each student to actively follow the school offered subscriptions to a wide variety of news magazines and newspapers. The class provided us with guidance and structure to understand the complicated issues of national politics, military leadership, and the globalized world we live in. This class was historical, while still fascinating the students by connecting our studies to current events we have witnessed. - Max Cohen '22
Unit 3: Personal Identity, Liberation, and Revolution
During this unit, the class looks at how concepts of personal identity and freedom vary from society to society and are influenced by history and culture, and how demands for political liberation often arise out of a newfound sense of personal identity. They discuss how Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, and Mohandas Gandhi all evolved into revolutionaries after perceiving themselves as liberated from colonial upbringings. This leads to a conclusion for the unit: interpretations vary widely on the morality of modern revolutionary movements and their leaders.
Unit 4: Technology, Master or Servant
In the fourth unit, Doc Doyle shines a light on how technology promises easier, healthier, and better-educated individuals and cultures, but it also has the potential to dehumanize and miseducate. He shares that since WWII, scholars have shown increasing concern about the possibility that humans have lost control over the technologies they have created. The internet and social media, for example, promised to revolutionize education and political life by making it easy to disseminate ideas. But those technologies have also been implicated in influencing elections through fake news, spreading ideologies of hate, and abetting the recruitment of terrorist groups.
Unit 5: Sex, Consumerism and the Natural World
In the final unit, students learn that the world’s population has more than doubled in the last 40 years, placing unprecedented demands on the natural environment to sustain over seven billion people, and that over the last 30 years, scientists and scholars have expressed rising alarm at the pace of human-caused climate change, species extinction, deforestation, and oceanic depletion. But, international diplomacy, treaties, and NGOs (non-government agencies) have attempted to avert ecological crises, with mixed results.
But, how does Dr. Doyle create a space where young Avonians are receptive to lessons which force them so far beyond their comfort zone? It has a lot to do with his laid back and open nature, but also his own example of constantly wanting to learn and better himself.
Originally from Port Jervis, New York, Doyle moved around a lot with his family before settling in Brookfield, Connecticut. He earned a Bachelor’s in history from Western Connecticut State University, a Master’s from Trinity College, and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Connecticut. He began teaching high school in 1985 and worked for more than a decade as a college professor, including a stint as an assistant professor of U.S. history at the University of Northern Colorado. Doyle and his family returned to their roots in Connecticut in 2003, when Doyle began teaching history at Farmington High School. Prior to Avon Old Farms, Doyle was the director of global studies at the Watkinson School, located in Hartford.
“The advantage for me in working with young people is that I can teach through my own life experience,” he said. “I liked to read, but I was a horrible student in high school. I identified with stories, biographies, and history. It wasn’t until my sophomore year of college that things started to click. I use that to show my students if they persevere with reading, thinking, and learning, they will have decades to hone their intellect.”
The Global Studies class is revolutionary, teaching kids that the issues of the world and the progress that it makes require our attention. Each student was captivated by the topics of study and was excited to see Dr. Doyle each day and witness his enthusiastic teaching. Global Studies captures a world view rather than an unnecessarily specific one. The class prepared us for the future by studying our past. A unified past, present, and future, one that each Avon Old Farms student will be prepared to enter. - Max Cohen '22
Doyle shared that he came to Avon Old Farms to fulfill something he felt he was missing professionally for quite some time: a feeling of totality.
“I feed on young people’s energy and their exuberance,” he said. “They’re at that age when anything is possible. They think they can be anything they want if they work hard at it. That idealism of youth is what has nurtured my own belief that if I want to do something, I can make it happen…. I’ve read that all people have one shared existential goal: wholeness. To me, as someone who has always been active with cycling, running, and wrestling, my missing piece in all my prior positions was coaching.”
When Doyle signed on with Avon Old Farms, he joined the school’s cross country, wrestling, and track coaching staff.
“I grew up separating athletics from academics, but as an adult I find that when I am on my bike or running a trail, my mind always wanders back to the other side, the teaching side,” he shared. “Now with a few years under my belt, I’ve learned to bridge that gap and bring a few coaching techniques inside the classroom. For example, clarity of direction is of utmost importance. I had to learn to distill my advice down to the most direct instruction. I cannot recite a dissertation on the side of a wrestling mat while my guy gets pinned. Also, people will respond better to positive advice than to critical words. And keeping a sense of humor is important.”
Doyle also shared that he’s personally received a lot of satisfaction in working with athletes.
“When you think about what goes into your best athletic performance, there are complicated physiological, psychological components,” he said. “It’s a real puzzle to bring an individual to his best performance. What’s the best way to bring our runners to peak form? What happens when someone is overtrained? When do you try to dig into the psyche of a wrestler who’s struggling with what used to happen naturally? Pondering those questions is just as satisfying for me as writing historical scholarship.”
As educators, it is the faculty’s duty to ensure our boys are always prepared for the next challenge life presents. We’re proud to have Dr. Doyle on our team as someone who always take an innovative approach to ensure excellence.