Global Education
Global Education and Learning
Providing a global education is built into Lakeside’s mission, which drives our globally focused curriculum, off-campus study options, and Global Service Learning program that sends students abroad and throughout this region. Our goal is to nurture an ethos of global citizenship in our students by connecting their lives with the needs and realities of a global society.
Through all the facets of a global education, we seek to inspire and empower students to be agents of change both in their local communities and in the international arena. Lakeside graduates often go on to study and work internationally, and credit their Lakeside experience with inspiring them.
A globally focused curriculum
A globally focused curriculum means that Lakeside teachers design their courses with global perspectives in mind. Many of our faculty and staff have experience teaching, learning, working, and living around the world, and they bring their global knowledge and cultural competency to bear in the classroom, in co-curricular activities, and in their interactions with students. The school supports faculty in learning best practices of teaching about global issues, and faculty and staff regularly lead GSL trips as well as visit locations during the program, to help make connections back to their classrooms.
The result is a curriculum that helps students gain an understanding of the world and the role they can play in it. English classes introduce students to a broad range of international writers and perspectives. History classes focus on global issues such as access to resources, human rights, and globalization. Language classes expose students to the diverse cultures that use the languages in order to enhance global awareness and understanding. And Upper School electives like Gender Studies, Genocide in the Modern World, and Advanced Ecological Studies: GSL Costa Rica ask students to pursue complex questions that require a nuanced understanding of different cultural and historical contexts.
Lakeside Upper School students can take online classes with students from around the world through the Global Online Academy (GOA), a consortium of leading independent schools from around the world. Students participate in a truly global classroom, learning alongside peers with diverse backgrounds and experiences while taking classes like Global Health; Redressing Inequity through Data; Water: From Inquiry to Action; 9/11 in a Global Context; and Entrepreneurship in a Global Context.
Global Service Learning (GSL)
Global Service Learning for Upper School students is a four-week summer program in which students live with host families and work on projects in mostly rural communities in the developing and near-developing world. Recent GSL sites have included the Colombia, Ecuador, French Polynesia, Costa Rica, Senegal, Tanzania, and Thailand. Financial aid is available. Learn more about Upper School GSL.
Global Service Learning at the Middle School sends all 8th-grade students for eight days in October to one of six Pacific Northwest communities where issues of economy, environment, and culture intersect. There is no extra cost to student families. Pre- and post-trip curriculum and follow-up service-learning projects on their return help students integrate their studies with their GSL experiences. Learn more about Middle School GSL.
Study away
Lakeside juniors have the option to study off-campus through the programs School Year Abroad (to Spain, France, Italy, or China), Catalyst Term at African Leadership Academy, South Africa, as well as in different areas of the United States, like rural Vermont, coastal Maine, and Washington D.C. Learn more about study-away options.
Global clubs
Students pursue their own interests in globally oriented student-run clubs on campus, which have included Amnesty International, Global Health Club, and Model UN at the Upper School; and Current Events Club, and Students Taking Action Club at the Middle School.