The genesis of “Beyond Empire” comes from a personal place. As a first-generation American of Trinidadian immigrants, who came to the US amidst Trinidad’s independence from the UK, Stephen Bailey finds that it is imperative to trace these stories. The central questions of the course ask, “What is it to move beyond empire? How do people understand themselves in a new context? How do you reacquire or reinvent yourself?” What underlies the curriculum is the belief that through investing in the literary worlds of other cultures, students can be world scholars and compassionate readers.
Stephen emphasizes reading a breadth of literary styles like poetry, fiction, non-fiction, etc. to think critically about how language is used. With challenging material from authors and playwrights like Tayeb Salih and Lynn Nottage, Stephen asks for courage from both his students and himself; the courage to ask hard questions and to listen to different voices and opinions. “That is where true inquiry begins!”
Apiary
Dwight-Englewood maintains two colonies of honey bees located near the Nettie Coit Garden. There is also a much smaller demonstration hive located in the Library, where one can see the bees moving about within the hive, which is made of glass. These bees pollinate...
Pollinator Border
The Nettie Coit Garden is surrounded by a pollinator border full of plants designed to attract bees, monarch butterflies, and other pollinators. These pollinators, attracted by the flowers in the pollinator border, go on to also pollinate the various vegetables in the...
Nettie Louise Coit Teaching Garden
The Nettie Lousie Coit Teaching Garden is a large organic garden situated on campus. As the name suggests, the primary purpose of this garden is to educate students and community members about sustainable agricultural practices such as crop rotation, cover cropping,...
Compost Arena + Initiatives
The Compost Arena has been growing exponentially, going from two tumblers to ten in just six years, in addition to moving to a new location in 2023. Currently, the compost arena has enough room to process a majority of compostable food scraps from the kitchen and the...
The Greenhouse
The Greenhouse, built alongside the Hajjar STEM Center, is a teaching space and laboratory for many groups: DIG and Environmental Science classes, AIRS and Focus students doing research, and the Environmental and Garden Clubs. The space allows students to start...
The Green Building Spaces (STEM, MS – LEED Certified Buildings)
Dwight-Englewood is proud to have two of its buildings LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified, awarded by the USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council). The first building, the Hajjar STEM Center – more commonly known as “STEM” – consists of seven...
US Garden Club Completes Rehabilitation of Lower School Garden Bed
The US Garden Club has been working hard over the past few weeks to rehabilitate the Lower School Garden, which had effectively been left fallow since the departure of long-time LS science teacher and avid gardener Beth Lemire. Now, the Garden Club has successfully...
US Garden Club Expands Relationship with CFA
On April 12, the Garden Club took a field trip to the organic vegetable garden at the Center for Food Action. While the Sixth Grade has a long-standing relationship with the CFA, having been the ones to originally construct this garden, this was the first organized...
APES Class visits Columbia Earth Observatory, Water Treatment Plant, and Solar Farm
This Spring, the AP Environmental Science class went on three field trips to get some firsthand experience with various aspects of Environmental Science. The first trip was to the Columbia Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and to the Hudson River Field Station,...
Earth Week Overview
The Environmental Club’s Earth Week schedule, which spanned from April 21st to April 26th, featured an array of activities to fuel environmental awareness in the school community. Events included a planting and pot decorating activity at the annual Spring Carnival, a...
