Elizabeth Siarny

HISTORY DEPARTMENT CHAIR; DIRECTOR OF GLOBAL PROGRAMS; DIRECTOR OF SERVICE LEARNING  |  ESIARNY@YORK.ORG

Elizabeth’s passions lie in hearing peoples’ stories and learning about the contexts in which they live. From learning Victorian sewing methods to tracing the path of the U.S.S. Cabot (the aircraft carrier her maternal grandfather served on in World War II), Elizabeth is driven to understand how individuals are shaped by their time and vice versa. She brings that passion to understand personal experience to the history classroom, asking her students to share their interests, connect to each other, and apply their understanding to the past. In her class, you’ll find students building their own towns, debating the applicability of Daoism, Buddhism, or Legalism to modern day scenarios, or building museum exhibits, all in service of learning history by doing history.

Elizabeth began her teaching career in Washington, DC Public Schools, where she taught high school social studies and wrote social studies curriculum for the District Office. After moving to California, she worked in Oakland Unified School District and then taught for eight years at Branson School in Marin County. There, she ran the school’s Community Engagement programs, and then oversaw the Branson Summer Programs. Elizabeth graduated from the Klingenstein Center at Teachers’ College, Columbia University, with an M.Ed. in Private School Leadership. She has a Masters of Arts in Teaching from American University, and is a proud graduate of the University of Chicago (Go Maroons!).