Upper School Intersession 2025

You may have heard about Jackie Robinson and his breaking of the color barrier in baseball, but have you heard the history of the Negro Leagues and how baseball was segregated in the first place? Can you name some women baseball players who were also Negro League stars (yes, they could play baseball in the Negro Leagues even if not for Major League Baseball)? Did you know that baseball was one of the incarceration camp sports for Japanese Americans during World War II?

If these questions sound interesting and you'd like to learn more, please come join an interactive discussion about the history of baseball in America that you may not have heard before, focusing on the Negro Leagues and baseball in the wartime incarceration camps. We'll be using books that involve primary sources to build our knowledge of this part of our country's history, and think about how this impacts sports as we watch and understand them today. After we do our deep dive into baseball, we'll discuss more broadly how resistance and joy show up as social movements in other sports as well, and how those tools can be used in the future.

From street safety and awareness to full-force self-defense techniques, this 2.5-hour class lays a foundation of skills including intuition, situational awareness, body language and voice proven effective at increasing safety and confidence. Participants practice de-escalating dangerous situations, and get the unique and powerful experience of practicing physical techniques at full force in safe and realistic scenarios against a padded mock assailant.

This class is led by a Whistle Instructor, who is the lead coach, and a Suited Instructor, who plays the role of mock assailant and wears a padded suit to allow students to hit full force. Physical techniques include defending against attacks from the front, being grabbed from behind, and an introduction to fighting from the ground. You'll leave this class feeling strong and maybe surprised by your own power and courage!

Students will be provided a one-hour orientation tour, and then will help with Farm Chores, Animal Socialization, and general AAH Smile Farm projects including some maintenance of the AAH Smile Farm. Student Volunteers should register in advance on the AAH website: https://www.animalassistedhappiness.org/youth-individual. Animal Assisted Happiness Smile Farm is located at Baylands Park, 999 E Caribbean Drive, Closed toed shoes are required while volunteering. It is recommended that volunteers where long pants and long sleeves; dress in layers for the weather.

This visit will count toward the volunteer orientation and qualify volunteers to help with future AAH Smile Farm visits serving youth with needs and Vocational Education programs.

I will talk about why there is often a shift which states are "swing states" over time, as well as how politicians choose certain topics & themes to focus on in their campaigns based on what is politically viable. Example questions include: How did Barack Obama carry several states that are now considered strongly Republican? Aside from purely just changes in public opinion, why do political parties shift their political stances over time? This session will be taught in a non-partisan fashion and is intended to teach students about the salience of political issues and how campaigning works from a calculated standpoint.

In this interactive session, participants will discuss some of the legal and policy issues underlying free speech and privacy rights, and the potential conflicts between the two with the rise of new technologies like the Internet.  Real-life cases brought by the ACLU will be used to illustrate how public interest litigation cases are developed to create and change laws, and the potential clashes that can occur between competing civil rights and policy goals.