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teaching their peers and teachers what
they had learned.
“My overall goal was for the students
to feel more empowered to change the
world around them,” Stines said. “Their
primary takeaway was that accountability
and vulnerability are the cornerstones
of communication and community. They
have already discussed implementing
changes they’d like to see in the
community, while also bolstering their
suggestions with qual itative evidence to
back up the research.”
As she had predicted, encountering
the unexpected was also a common
denominator as the students progressed
through their research projects.
For their Social Animals project,
seniors Connor Sakal ’17 and Chris
Sano ’17 developed an art installation
as a way to gauge their fellow students’
opinions and understanding of community
issues in an artistic format. Toward
that objective, they created a large
painted mural of a human brain, which
was installed in the Student Center.
Students were invited to write on the
mural their opinions about various issues,
such as the daily schedule, sports
requirements, Spring Term, and more.
“We were trying to allow students
who had some sense of frustration or
discontent within the community to express
their feelings in a visually appealing
and anonymous way,” Sakal said.
They learned quickly, however, that
polling on controversial issues doesn’t
always yield positive or predictible
feedback. After a couple of days with
primarily positive comments written
on the mural, the messages became
increasingly negative and, in a few
cases, rude and contentious.
“The biggest thing I learned is that
social experiments don’t always get a
perfect result,” Sano said. “The negative
feedback and positive feedback
are both important. But you won’t always
get the balance you’d like to see.”
Mia Blackwell ’17 also discovered
that there are two sides to every coin
Peter Cholnoky ’18 (left) interviews Jason Bumbray ’17, as part of his project, Social Analysis
and Documentation on Male Emotion and Friendship, for the Social Animals class.
when she conducted a survey comparing
perceptions and stereotypes
regarding boarding school vs. public
school students and faculty.
“From people who attended both
public school and private school, there
were a lot of negative stereotypes out
there,” she said. “I learned that people
need to step back and look at where
their opinions come from. They aren’t
always what is actually happening.”
“Social Animals was an outstanding
opportunity for our students not only
to become familiar with some of the
central concepts of sociology as an academic
discipline, but also to engage
in an active inquiry of those concepts,”
said Mika Saarela, Director of Studies.
“This is a prime example of the benefits
of Darrow’s curricular approach;
the students receive a taste of how
academic disciplines work in higher
education, but also get an opportunity
to develop their problem-solving, collaboration,
and design thinking skills—
and have a lot of fun in the process.”
—Editor’s note: Catherine Stines and
her students contributed to this story.
At the conclusion of their Social Animals
class, the following students made
presentations to the school community
based on their projects:
• Mira Sneirson ’18: Social Experiment
on Good vs. Evil and Dualistic
Thinking
• Nyaiah Lamb’17: Gentrification
Awareness and the Effects on the
Harlem Community
• Jessica Cooper ’17: The
Understanding of Empathy after
Trauma—Empathy vs. Sympathy
• Mia Blackwell ’17: Perceptions of
Boarding Schools vs. Public Schools
• Peter Cholnoky ’18: Social Analysis
and Documentation on Male
Emotion and Friendship
• Maya Woolridge ’17: Participatory
Grades and the Implication on
Extroverts vs. Introverts
• Katherine Moody ’17: Social
Experiment on Group Immersion
and Belonging
• Connor Sakal ’17 and Christopher
Sano ’17: Social Experiment and Art
Installation of Community Issues and
Understanding
• Desmond Tracey ’17 and Jason
Bumbray ’17: Analysis on Emotions
and Body Language
DARROW SCHOOL 13