Inspiring the Future: Alums Visit Acalanes Class
By Hannah Geraghty and Maya Stafford, Business Manager and Print Arts Section Editor
From Europe to America, and the world as a whole, politics and the economy are constantly changing. Hearing perspectives from all sides proves to be significant to high school students at Acalanes.
Acalanes graduates of the class of 1974 visited fourth period AP Comparative Government and Economics class last Friday, Sept. 13 to discuss a European perspective on politics and the current state of the world.
The two visitors were author and journalist Hans Peter Martin and law professor Anders Fernlund. They arrived in Lafayette to attend their 50-year Acalanes reunion, which took place on Saturday, Sept. 14. The graduates spent some time on campus reflecting on their year at Acalanes.
“I spent here the most significant year of my life, and I’m very grateful for that… In this year, I learned a lot that helped me professionally and also personally,” Martin said.
One major topic that Fernlund and Martin discussed during their visit was the current political state of Europe, especially in Sweden and Austria, where Fernlund and Martin are from, respectively. The guest speakers also examined what the future may look like for Europe and the world.
“We are on the Titanic globally, the Titanic has already hit the iceberg… It is not clear how many lifeboats there will be,” Martin said. “It’s worthwhile to fight and to help build as many lifeboats as possible.”
Another focus was the importance of a government class, which is a graduation requirement at Acalanes.
“In Sweden, the government classes are not taught at high school level, it’s taught at university level. One of the best things here in the US [is] that you have pulled down the government class, the speech class, and so on to high school levels so that everyone can learn these items,” Fernlund said.
Students attending the event learned about European politics, which was a new experience for some.
“Being in America, I don’t really watch the news that much but when I do it’s mostly American… To hear about European concerns and what they’re facing, it was interesting,” Comparative Government student and senior Ayaka Darroch said.
The guests spoke for the final 60 minutes of the class period within which the time was divided into a portion for the guests to speak about themselves and their experiences and then time for students to ask their own questions.
“There are concerns, there are things that students hear that I didn’t hear or are not my concerns that I think they would want addressed, and it enabled them to get those concerns and questions addressed. I think that that’s vital, that’s very important,” AP Comparative Government teacher Joseph Schottland said.
Students appreciated that the event gave them the chance to have a more interactive form of learning.
“There’s only so much you can understand from just reading textbooks,” Darroch said. “Watching videos, having guest speakers, just any kind of outside sources, different ways of hearing things I think, it’s always good. [It] gets you learning.”
