Interdisciplinary Studies

Integrated Knowledge

We help our students become adaptable and well rounded young adults.  This is why we employ a liberal arts model of education, which encourages students to pursue a wide variety of subjects.  TNS teachers lead by example, teaching in a variety of disciplines.  For example, our mathematics department head also teaches Spanish and our film teacher is also able to teach both music and history.

Our interdisciplinary studies courses are further evidence of our love of academic variety.  These courses draw from and synthesize a wide range of ministry expectations taken from the Ontario Secondary Curriculum.  Rather than simply memorizing content, students learn to apply their understanding in new contexts.  For example, our grade 11 Media and Film course shows students how to draw sociological conclusions from the study of advertisements, television, film, and music.

The Courses

Media and Film Studies, Grade 11, University/College Preparation (IDC3Mf)

This course will allow students to acquire the knowledge and skills that will enable them to understand media communication and to use media effectively and responsibly. Through analysing the forms and messages of a variety of media works, including film and music and audience response to them, and through creating their own media works, students will develop critical thinking skills, aesthetic and ethical judgment, and skills in viewing, representing, listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Social Justice, Grade 11, University/College   (IDC3Ms)

This course examines social justice from a range of disciplines, enabling students to recognize and understand the causes of injustice, apply critical thinking and ethical reasoning to a variety of social justice issues, and build skills and experience in international and/or community development and affairs.  Research and analysis of justice and social change from historical, political, economic, legal, and cultural perspectives will build students’ understanding of their own beliefs and values, as well as the origin of those beliefs.  The course includes an emphasis on community involvement, providing opportunities for students to examine models of social change and implement strategies to address social injustice.

Utopian Societies, Grade 12, University Preparation (IDC4Uu)

This course provides students with opportunities to use a wide range of information resources and research skills to analyse the purposes, features, and impact of significant historical and fictional designs for perfecting society. Using an interdisciplinary approach, students will explore how utopian fiction and experiments (e.g., Robert Owen’s model industrial town of New Lanark, Scotland) question the assumptions of past and current societies. Students will also assess the influence, success, and failure of utopian solutions to effect change and to produce a just society, and will then present their own vision of the future.

Music and Society, Grade 12, University Preparation (IDC4Um)           

The course explores the role played by music in the aesthetic, cultural, social, religious and political life of past and contemporary societies. Using an interdisciplinary approach, students will examine such topics as the evolution of specific musical forms and styles, the role of the musician, the development of musical instruments and ensembles, the importance of music in ritual and storytelling, the relationship between non –Western and Western musical traditions, and the influence of music on literature and the arts. The course also introduces students to resources, research methods and case studies related to musicology.