With panelists including Instructors Eric Denby, Kit Leckerling, Ei Phyu Smith, M.C. Post, and Anna Green, the History and Social Science Department hosted a Q&A exploring current events and their connections to the past on February 6. The talk focused on United States President Donald Trump’s recent policies and touched on the importance of self-care during turbulent times.
Many questions of the discussion focused on previous events in order to explain recent developments in U.S. history. Smith emphasized how the Q&A was an open discussion centered around the students.
“Rather than having a panel where we each presented on our themes of interest, be that immigration, the role of executive orders, the power of the wealthy and many others, this was a student-led discussion. We sat in an open circle to practice, in place, the type of open discussion we wanted to cultivate. As a result, many of the questions [were about] strategies to make sense of contemporary developments and how to contextualize [them] within US history,” said Smith.
This panel follows the school-wide email sent by Head of School Raynard Kington, where he reminded students of the school’s core values of respect, empathy, and community, and offered support to students. Denby expressed his belief in Andover’s commitment to diversity and inclusivity.
“What I do know was that when I was on the job market and I was being interviewed, one of the reasons I chose Phillips Academy was because of its commitment to diversity and inclusion, and its commitment to students of color, to queer students, and trans students all of which I value highly. We have heard, and it’s been stated a couple of times that this commitment will continue and it is our job as an academy to continue with our values. I feel overall that this institution has entirely got our backs,” said Denby.
The discussion aimed to help student attendees expand on the knowledge they had learned in the classroom. Attendee Shloak Shah ’26 explained that the talk provided a valuable opportunity for students to connect historical lessons to real-world applications.
“[The talk was] a really great way of setting things up for teachers to discuss with students [by] promoting follow-up questions that are applied to the real world that you don’t really get the opportunity to in every history class. Depending on a teaching style… you may never be provoked to apply your learnings to like the contemporary theoretical reality. It was really helpful in getting us to draw parallels, but also recognize which parallels are valuable between the history of learning in class and the history that’s [currently] being made,” said Shah.
Although he initially had a negative outlook towards current events, Nathan Ramani ’27 shared how the discussion allowed him to feel more hopeful about the future.
“A new emotion I felt was a sense of hope, almost. The history teachers were really optimistic about the situation we’re in and acknowledged the fact that some students were here listening to this talk and it showed that we wanted to get involved. They said that the fact that we wanted to learn more is a great starting point and being here in the first place means that we can take the next step into combating some of these executive orders,” said Ramani.
Denby expressed his satisfaction with the panel, highlighting the value of its informal and interactive format. Looking ahead, he plans to host another Q&A during the Spring Term to continue these conversations.
“It was free-flowing. [The attendees] would ask a question to us, and one or two of us would attempt to answer it. It was very informal, and discussive, and for the most part, everybody stayed for the entire hour and a half. All in all, we felt that it was a resounding success… We are planning on doing another one in April, and it is going to be probably on a Friday during Protected Time so that everybody at least has the opportunity to attend,” said Denby.
