A picture of Sidwell Friends school academics drawn from its high school texts.

I looked into their high school course books (got the titles and read the info available on amazon.com), and found that they are better than those chosen in public schools, but not particularly Quaker. http://bookstore.mbsdirect.net/vb_buy.php?ACTION=top&CSID=Q2K0QUK0CKD0CDDCMMKO22D2D&VCHI=1 They seem to be studiously avoiding controversy by not offering a course on either economics or current affairs. The history books are better-written, better organized versions of the standard U.S. curriculum. One of the books does include a little more than usual on Judeo-Christian relations w/ a subtext of religious tolerance, but that is not its main focus.

They have a course called "Political and Philosophic Thought", but the readings are Aristotle, Cicero, Dante, Hobbes, St. Augustine, Abelard and Heloise, de Pizan, Plato. Nothing w/i the last 300 years!

They teach Latin, but also Chinese.

The books required for their courses on Latin America and the Middle East are refreshingly free of judgementalism of the people and institutions of those areas, but perpetrate the bizarre idea that the U.S. has been a constant source of support and encouragement for "democratization" in those areas, which has steadily increased and succeeds only to the extent that they are able to take U.S. advice. Hardly the sort of info I got in the late 60's from the Friends National Service Committee (now the American Friends Service Committee).

I don't know how much that politically avoidant orientation affects the lower grades the Obama girls will be attending, but I doubt the children are encouraged to take a pacifist stand, in contrast to the atmosphere at some other Quaker schools. The good news is that the school is very pro-environmental responsibility for oneself, but it doesn't pass judgement on the actions of our government or industry.

A background there would foster a well-meaning attitude. It would also encourage graduates to believe that anyone who dissents from U.S. policies is either an unreasonable troublemaker, or simply doesn't understand how our government always does its best to improve things for everyone everywhere.

Then they will probably go on to college...probably Ivy League, but in any case, a top university of some kind...and there, they will meet and hear the ideas of all kinds of great minds whose stances and philosophies are a little different from what they heard at Sidwell. Cognitive dissonance...the exact same kind of cognitive dissonance most people experience making the jump from secondary school to college. The kind that makes you examine and question the things you always assumed to be true because your parents told you they were or your teachers told you they were or your friends told you they were or the media told you they were or some author told you they were. And you take this big stew of ideas and from it you choose the ones that ring truest to you and make the most sense to you...and from that you create a world view. And you learn to think, rather than to just be a sponge absorbing a single other person or institution's ideas and then spewing them out when life gives you a good wring.

And what's wrong with that?

"A background there would foster a well-meaning attitude. It would also encourage graduates to believe that anyone who dissents from U.S. policies is either an unreasonable troublemaker, or simply doesn't understand how our government always does its best to improve things for everyone everywhere."

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Unless I'm just reading this in the wrong light, it doesn't sound as if students would leave with an enlightened background. In my book anyone who believes our government always has done it's best to imrove things for everyone everywhere is brain dead.

Especially considering where it was derived from. Not even an insider's view. Mine isn't either, but I'm wise enough to know that an outsider can only guess at how anyone would come out of receiving an education at ANY school.

Also, it is my opinion that the average American public school, at least during the 1950s and '60s, also "encouraged graduates to believe that anyone who dissents from U.S. policies is either an unreasonable troublemaker, or simply doesn't understand how our government always does its best to improve things for everyone everywhere." Yet somehow, that public school system failed to churn out nothing but little U.S. chauvinist robots. In fact, it spawned a hell of a lot of rebels. Go figure.

says 40 years ago the place was what I would call fairly conservative, repressing dissension from the Viet Nam War and adhering to a dress code. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3613397&mesg_id=3613811

The dress code has been dropped, but going by the contents of the only history course dealing with modern times, (see the 2nd paragraph of my previous post http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4514979&mesg_id=4515949 ), the ideology has not.

All high school education is meant to foster patriotic, law abiding behavior in otherwise truculent adolescents.

They only get access to a grain of truth if they either look for it or grow up a little more and go to a decent university.

saw right through it. Have no regrets either.

Their math offerings are on a par with most good schools, they require a one semester elective in one of the arts (and have a good selection from which to choose), but their science curiculuum is limited, not offering courses preparatory for the AP in either biology or chemistry.

Their senior elective course, "Conflict in Modern History" is based on the book "On the Origins of War: And the Preservation of Peace" by Donald Kagan. On reading the most descriptive of the amazon.com reviews http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0385423756/ref=cm_rdp_hist_hdr_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1 , I was startled to find that the thesis of the book is that war is a necessary institution, and an admirable one if exercised in defense of democracy. He claims many wars, especially those in which the U.S. has engaged, are such. He specifically defends preemptive war and goes further to claim that unilateral disarmament frequently causes more deaths, by encouraging bully nations to take advantage, than threatening or going to war. As far as I could see, he doesn't distinguish unilateral disarmament by a nation that vastly exceeds all others in military weaponry, from non-negotiated disarmament in any other situation.

Not the teachings people expect from a Society of Friends' school.

Doubtless not all graduates of such an education will end up jingoists. On the other hand, I think that part of the reason graduates of the public schools of the 50's and 60's didn't buy into all they were taught depended on other factors not necessarily applicable to the students of Sidwell. Many of the parents of those earlier students had political attitudes colored by their experiences with the Great Depression, and many had a working class skepticism of the government. Many of those students went on to public colleges and universities that were and are the home of most of the more progressive educators. Will a typical Sidwell student with privileged parents, who goes on to prepare for a prestigious MBA program, or even takes one of the majority of Ivy League majors, be called on to question his/her underlying assumptions?

This school could likely be the best choice for the PE's daughters, especially as they will already know Biden's grandkids there. And of course there are many worse alternatives, including most of the D.C. public schools. Some of the other private schools may foster a more elitist, even predatory culture. A previous poster made a good case for not having the Obama girls jump the waiting lists for the best magnet schools and deprive two other students of the opportunity.

As many of us became curious about the nature of Sidwell, I simply looked into what they teach, and reported what I found.

Call me crazy but I really don't believe his kids education is any of my or your business.