History

Mr. Lou Tanner was among the original founders of Renaissance School and has taught every student that has walked through its doors. Lou has traveled the world over and students begin to feel he has been nearly everywhere they study. You can read his detailed bio on the “Faculty” page and his description of the History curriculum below:

At Renaissance School, the History curriculum consists of a four-year program.  Grades 9-12 take World History, Modern European History, U.S. History, and U.S. Government, respectively.  Given that I teach all four levels, it makes it possible for me to constantly revisit themes touched on in earlier years and to thereby reinforce these lessons as students move forward.  It makes for an integrated approach, one that I believe works for students as much as it does for me.  Not only does it thus also remain a fresh experience for the teacher to each year rethink the different courses, but new connections spring to mind each and every year–with many of these coming from the students themselves.

Another advantage for me as a History teacher in particular is that in a comparatively small and intimate educational environment such as ours, teachers and students talk with each other constantly outside the classroom in all kinds of informal settings.  Ideas and observations get exchanged regularly.  Notes are compared, and the cross-curricular nature of the experience simply happens on a daily basis.  We all learn from each other and are able to continue these conversations as if the entire school was a classroom.  We teachers all bring different perspectives from our own disciplines, and since everything has a past, I try and bring some historical perspective to these conversations.  It makes for a dynamic way to think of History, one that transcends the classroom.