Seattle Academy Student Activism through Academics and Art

At Seattle Academy, we encourage our students to question, imagine, and create in order to contribute boldly to a changing world. During the 2020-21 Fall Trimester, that was evident in our curriculum and instruction. 

6th grade students in Abby Drivdahl’s History class completed a unit on Civics, including defining and understanding advocacy. They learned about advocacy on a historical and local level in the Seattle Boycott of 1966 and what student advocates did during that time. To finish the trimester, students were asked to pick one of the 'issues of interest' that typically come up when voters go to the polls. Project methods were open choice; any issue was acceptable, as long as it mattered to them. Students completed a background assignment on why this mattered to society and what some possible solutions were. Students created posters and a speech to present their final projects. Watch the final presentation given by Emma Daniels ’27 on lowering the voting age to 16 below.

  In the Upper School, students in Amanda Amsel’s Senior Advanced Visual Class were assigned an Artistic Activism project. Activist art represents and includes aesthetic, sociopolitical, and technological developments that have attempted to challenge and complicate the traditional boundaries and hierarchies of culture as represented by those in power. Starting a few weeks before the 2020 Elections, students chose a topic/issue/concept that they were passionate about and then completed a Visual Statement piece of art around that issue. Students chose from a range of topics and issues, including: societies judgments of women, Climate Change, Female Empowerment, Animal Poaching, Black Lives Matter Movement, Political Instability, Voter Suppression, Body Image, Neurodiversity, and Protecting Trans Lives.   View their Visual Statement Pieces Here: