Meredith (“Mimi”) Garcia had the unique challenge of teaching “Apocalyptic Lit” amidst the COVID-19 hybrid year. Still, the central questions of the course remained, “Will the apocalypse bring total annihilation, transcendence, bloodthirsty zombies, or all of the above? Will it bring people together or tear them apart?” As a medium, fiction allows for distance from both the material and reality, enough to critically engage with the text. Despite the fantastical, sci-fi qualities to apocalyptic literature, Mimi stresses that each text, from The Walking Dead to Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, speak to questions of human nature and of hope.
Mimi’s new course offering, “Globalization, Literature, & Film”, investigates how globalization and media have come to shape each other and our everyday lives. The course utilizes films like Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950) and Walter Salles’ Motorcycle Diaries (2004) to discuss how politics, history, and cross-cultural encounters come to manifest in film. Mimi notes that the entire film industry and how we have come to watch film also plays a role in how we analyze and reflect on the relationship between literature and media—to be both critical of the past and the present.
Sixth Grade Food & Identity Unit Kicks Off
Today officially kicked off the Food and Identity Unit for this year’s sixth graders! The cross-curricular program is a D-E tradition for our youngest Middle School students within their MESH (Math, English, Science, and History) classes. “This unit is about building...
Calliope Earns Top CSPA Honors
Congrats are in order for the editors and contributors of the Upper School (US) English-language literary-arts magazine, CALLIOPE! Last spring’s issue was named a 2026 Crown Finalist by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA). Being a Finalist means CALLIOPE...
Jazz “Rocks” D-E!
Way to Rock, D-E Jazz Rock! The Upper School’s annual Jazz Rock Winter Concert was performed earlier today to a packed, enthusiastic audience in Schenck Auditorium. Scheduled on the final day of classes immediately prior to winter break, this year’s concert held up...
MS Paper Roller Coaster Expo Recap
The annual 8th Grade Paper Roller Coaster Expo rolled into D-E’s Middle School (MS) Building earlier today! This showcase event was the culmination of students’ hands-on study of (and appreciation for) the laws of physics and Newton’s Laws of Motion. Visiting fellow...
LS Holiday Sing-Along Assembly Highlights
D-E’s annual Lower School (LS) Holiday Sing-Along Assembly yesterday held up to tradition! With festive lights and hundreds of happy smiling families, the LS Gym was transformed into a lively, lovely holiday-esque scene. Students and LS faculty/staff sang seasonal...
TREP$ 2025 Was a Success!
The TREP$ program, which kicked off in September, culminated in the TREP$ 2025 Marketplace, where our sixth-grade entrepreneurs set up shop in the Wharton Lessin Dining Hall to sell the wares they’d planned, received feedback on, prepped, and learned how to promote....
English Department Spotlight
In continuation of a monthly series spotlighting D-E’s community of learners in every department, we had conversations with English Department Chair Mr. Jeremy Meserole, P’26, ’28, ’30, and other English Department faculty, who spoke on topics such as being inclusive,...
D-E Welcomes Visiting Students, CloseUp Foundation for Day of Deliberative Dialogue Conference
D-E recently hosted a daylong civics workshop for a cohort of D-E students and high school students from across the Tri-State area. The day offered a continuation of last month’s Day of Deliberative Dialogue in the Upper School, facilitated by our Office of Diversity,...
US Student Committee on AI (SCAI) Meets to Research AI in the Classroom
D-E’s Upper School Student Committee on Artificial Intelligence (SCAI) is hard at work researching the effects of AI on metacognition (that is, a person’s thought processes).This student group was founded last year and is advised by Chief Innovation Officer Ms. Gross...
Lower School Assembly Celebrates Core Value of Commitment, Neurodiversity, and Differences in Abilities
This week’s Lower School (LS) Assembly “centered on commitment and the strength of neurodiverse and differently-abled communities—a meaningful moment for all of us,” said LS Assistant Principal Madeleine Lopez. In celebrating D-E’s core value of Commitment, students...
