Ben Kahrl, BHS Social Studies, is teaching the course this year and is ushering it into the future, adapting the curriculum to the ever-shifting complexities of global discourse and negotiation in the 21st century. We spoke with Ben recently to find out why he took on the course and where he sees it going.

Why did you choose to teach this new course?

Ben: A few reasons, but mainly because I was intrigued by the open-endedness of the kinds of projects it allows. For example, we studied policies for addressing AIDS in different parts of the world and students wrestled with the question: What is the right way to control this disease? We can identify some wrong answers, but there is no single right answer.

Are you making any changes to the curriculum?

Ben: I may be putting the "soft skills" of public speaking and communication skills, as well as the topics of global health and development, more upfront. I'll give you an example. A few weeks ago, I arranged the class in six groups of four students. Each group had to devise a program, with a budget of ten million dollars, which would provide relief for a specific issue in a low-income country. Issues included infant mortality in Nicaragua, TB in Moldova, malnutrition in Myanmar and malaria in Colombia. For the first step, each member of every four-student team was stationed in a different BHS room, so they had to communicate by instant messaging on computers and/or texting on their phones. On the first day, I gave the students an additional hurdle: they could not use English in their communications; instead, they had to rely on whatever other language skills, or Google translate, they could coordinate among themselves. And then there was the unforeseen complication of technical glitches. Students were getting kicked off their networks, so now they had to solve technical problems while addressing their primary problem in a limited amount of time. Students discovered that technical issues have a significant impact on how they communicate--there was no chatting; they got to the bare bones of what they meant. On the second day, students were still stationed in different rooms but they were allowed to use video and English. Though the communication was easier, students found that they were less efficient, more prone to chatting and talking out what they needed to plan and do. They discovered that more limitations made them more incisive. They are learning to be effective and efficient communicators, no small task.

What is your vision of where the course might go from here?