Sinan Parsons
Sinan Parsons is an Upper School history faculty member currently teaching the Grade 9 course “Perspectives in World History” and the advanced Grade 11 course “U.S. and the World.” He’s also a Grade 9 advisor, Middle East and North Africa affinity group faculty advisor, geopolitics club faculty advisor, JV girls’ basketball head coach, varsity girls’ basketball assistant coach, and JV boys’ soccer assistant coach.
“While this is quite a wide range of roles, I truly enjoy every single one of them, and I am glad that these roles allow me to interact with many different types of students at Rivers,” Parsons says.
What does Excellence with Humanity look like in your work with students?
For me, Excellence with Humanity means fostering an environment that is collaborative rather than competitive. This means that while we always want to strive to do our best, it is OK to make mistakes, because learning from our mistakes is the best way to improve at something. (It is only when we keep repeating the same mistakes that we can get into trouble.)
It means that everyone should feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and views in class, and that we should be able to debate and disagree with compassion and good intent. As I always tell my students when passing back assessments, “comparison is the thief of joy,” and our goal should be to deepen our understanding of the world around us together rather than to prove that we know more than the next person.
Indeed, we are all learners in the classroom, including myself, and while nobody has all of the answers, we are all assets to each other’s learning. To me, it is this sort of environment at Rivers that allows for the deepest possible connections between students, teachers, and all members of our community.
What’s your favorite unit to teach?
My favorite topic to teach is our Grade 9 unit “20th Century Conflict” at the end of the year. I find that many students are especially drawn to the material, sometimes for the usual reasons such as being fans of military history (how I got my start as well, as cliché as it may be) or technological and economic advancement, but also because its relevance for our modern day allows students to connect with the material in a deeper way.
It shows us how fragile our era of international cooperation and interdependence really is, and how dire the consequences can be when we live in a world of zero-sum politics where nations act purely out of self-interest. So often, we take our established world order for granted, and I find that it can be eye-opening for students to see how quickly it can come undone, especially as we see new challenges arise in our current day. At the same time, however, I find it oddly comforting to see the extremes from which we have recovered in the past and feel that it offers hope for the future.
In three words, what makes Rivers special?
Diligence, generosity, compassion.
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