By Lila Rimalovski ’15, Guest Writer 

“Tomorrow we are meeting with a top lobbyist at British Petroleum (BP), next week we will visit the Ways and Means Committee, and the following week we are going to the FBI,” said Richard Kelley, my AP Government teacher from The School for Ethics and Global Leadership in Washington, DC. The best part about that sentence: he wasn’t kidding.

My AP Government class consisted of three students: a liberal, a conservative, and I, who is somewhat in between. We argued our way from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol Building. Our healthcare debates echoed the hallways of the Senate Building and our conversations about immigration were held in the Supreme Court. Granted even some of our lessons were taught over seasoned fries at the Good Stuff Eatery, one of President Obama’s favorite burger spots on the Hill. The amount of time we spent in the actual classroom was oftentimes less than two hours a week.

We condensed the yearlong class into four months, going through material at a very quick pace without much attention to detail. As I studied the syllabus, the AP exam at the end of the semester seemed unconquerable. How was learning outside of the classroom going to help me pass a fact-based assessment? However, I finally realized that I could apply in-class material to real life situations. When the BP lobbyist mentioned the Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act of 1946, I vividly remember making eye contact with my classmates simply because we had studied the Lobby Act quite well. When we visited the FBI, after extensively studying the intricacies of the bureaucracy, the agent who we met with was blown away by our knowledge regarding the Pendleton Act and the merit-based system. We applied what we learned in the classroom out of the classroom. Consequently, the three of us all scored fives on our AP exam.

Yet, this was only one example. For French and Spanish, we visited over six different embassies and conversed with diplomats in their native language. In my Comparative Government class, we spoke with a Russian ambassador about President Obama’s meeting with Vladimir Putin regarding the Syrian Assad Regime. Even for Pre-Calculus, our teacher created a scavenger hunt throughout Washington, in which we needed to solve a problem to receive the next clue. The classroom walls at SEGL extended to all corners of the city, as real learning experiences existed outside of them.

The experience was amazing, but I don’t believe that Newark Academy should follow in those exact footsteps. As the Academy stands, it is already an extremely progressive independent school. We eliminated most exams, fully support semester schools, have June Term, and are taking many steps towards more experiential learning experiences. Similarly, the Global Speakers Series and the Immersion Requirement truly contribute to our image as a global academy. However, the Academy is also a traditional and prestigious private school in Northern New Jersey. Spending less than two hours a week in the classroom is simply not right.

Our school skillfully balances historical customs with innovative educational experiences. Each year, a new program is created or a new student board oversees an aspect of the school previously managed by administrators. We are on the right track in an effort to incorporate additional aspects of “wall-less” classrooms into our curriculum. So even though it would be nice, we don’t need to hold class lectures over seasoned fries.