This February, Fund for Teachers is celebrating Black History Month by highlighting some of our Fellows’ journeys to bring a better understanding of the African American experience to all students. In this four-part blog series, we’ll be diving into everything from the Transatlantic Slave Trade to student advocacy. Our Fellows explored the “past and present” of black history in our last blog. In this final installment of our blog series, we look at how Fellows Shunn Rector, Diane Palm and Kristin Peterson are addressing the achievement gap impacting students of color. Read on to learn more about their experiences in the classroom and how they are honoring Black History Month in their schools.

Kristin Peterson is a special education teacher at a Saint Paul, MN, school that not only addresses students’ academic needs, but also fills needs stemming from poverty. Her school houses medical, dental and mental health clinics, as well as a food and clothing shelf. Visiting the National Museum of African History and Culture in Washington DC is not an option for her students at this point, yet she felt it vital that her students see their great heritage showcased.

Kristin wanted them to see how others have struggled also, and gone on to do tremendous things. So she went to the Smithsonian’s newest institution on her fellowship and created a Virtual Field Trip Kit with photos, interviews and primary sources she collected along the way.

“The greatest challenge that my school, students and district face right now is the significant achievement gap that exists,” said Kristin. “I believe my Virtual Field Trip through African American history is inspiring ALL students to reach for their own greatness and aspire to achieve at their very highest levels of learning.”

Inside the walls of Houston’s Juvenile Correction Facility, the achievement gap is impacted by students’ surroundings as much as their ethnicity. Shunn Rector and Diane Palm teach the incarcerated middle school students and decided to research black history in Senegal, the first African country to adopt a law criminalizing the slave trade.En route to Senegal, the duo conducted research on the Transatlantic Slave Trade at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library and, afterwards, explored Le Petit Senegal, a thriving population of 8,000 Senegalese immigrants in Harlem. The remainder of their fellowship consisted of interviews and documentation across Senegal. Now, their students design personal “Doors of No Return” to connect with this period of history and also make correlations with their own struggles.

“We recognize that the achievement gap exists when students feel like outsiders due to barriers of language, religious beliefs and race,” said Diane. “We wanted our students to understand that, unlike kidnapped enslaved Africans, they have choice when we are confronted with our symbolic Doors of No Return.”

Bridging gaps is what Fund for Teachers is all about. We step in with funding that equips preK-12 teachers with experiential learning that directly transfers to students’ needs, academic and/or otherwise. We thank Shunn, Diane, Kristin and all of the Fellows who participated in this series for sharing their experiences and their students’ learning. Make sure to see our previous Black History Month series blogs here, and stay tuned for more inspiring stories by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

This February, Fund for Teachers is celebrating Black History Month by highlighting some of our Fellows’ journeys to bring a better understanding of the African American experience to all students. In this four-part blog series, we’ll be diving into everything from the Transatlantic Slave Trade to student advocacy. Our Fellows explored how black history is impacting student identity in our last blog. This week, we are taking a deeper look at how Fellows Pearl Jonas, Ashley Porter and Kaitlyn Kraushaar are considering the past in light of current events. Read on to learn more about their experiences in the classroom and how they are honoring Black History Month in their schools.

Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” Our Fellows personify Jobs’ belief as they purposefully leverage history to change the future.

Establishing that African Americans HAVE a history is the beginning of Pearl Jonas’ teaching with students at Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy. She begins with the Transatlantic Slave Trade, then dives deeper into oral traditions as sources for understanding cultures and the past. Senegal and the surrounding countries provide the richest historical narratives, so that’s where Pearl conducted research on her Fund for Teachers fellowship. She now leads more engaging discussions that challenge how we think in the present based on how history was taught in the past.

“There are several myths, misconceptions and incomplete histories told about African societies,” said Pearl. “This has roots in some 19^th and early 20^th century European historians’ ideology that Africa has no history to tell.”

Conflict resolution inspired the fellowship of Ashley Porter and Kaitlyn Kraushaar. As teachers at Hixson Middle School, just twenty minutes from the 2014 shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson, MO, Ashley and Kaitlyn struggled to give their predominantly white students perspective through this tumultuous time. To find new ways to shape conversations on diversity across their district, the teachers designed a Fund for Teachers fellowship to research how teachers around the world address social justice.

“The current climate in our city remains very racially charged and divided, and healing is needed on both sides of the issue,” said Ashley. “Bringing to light race relations and the struggles of other minorities in a safe and responsive environment is key in helping all of our students make sense of who they are and who they’d like to be.”

Students at Hixson now regularly participate in restorative circles, such as this one led by Principal Grace Lee, to reevaluate how they handle tense or even hurtful situations. Kaitlyn and Ashley also applied FFT funds to purchase a Safety Pin Box, conversation prompts and tasks designed to help students become allies for the black community.

“The Safety Pin Box is a great resource that is helping our school as we strive to eliminate the equity that still oppresses our students of color,” said Principal Lee.  “As a city, we are confronting racial inequities that support unjust systems. Hixson is at that table around those conversations and our kids are passionate about leading the work for change.”

America’s teachers no longer have the luxury of merely teaching one subject; instead, they are on the front lines of students’ academic and moral instruction, as well as their emotional and physical safety. Fund for Teachers is privileged to represent and advocate for our nation’s educators who look beyond current circumstances and resources to shape more informed and empathetic citizens.

We thank Pearl, Ashley and Kaitlyn for sharing their experiences and their students’ learning. Make sure to check our Black History Month feed on our blog here. Next week, our final post in this series will explore how FFT Fellows are addressing the achievement gap with students of color. Stay connected and find out when it’s live by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

This February, Fund for Teachers is celebrating Black History Month by highlighting some of our Fellows’ journeys to bring a better understanding of the African American experience to all students. In this four-part blog series, we’ll be diving into everything from the Transatlantic Trade to student advocacy. Our Fellows explored how Black history is taught in our last blog. This week, we are taking a deeper look at how Fellows Merle Rumble, Melissa Petropoulos and James Petropoulos are reframing black history to help students identify with their heritage and with others. Read on to learn more about their experiences in the classroom and how they are honoring Black History Month in their schools.

Although African American herself, Dr. Merle Rumble realized her knowledge of civil rights pioneers lacked a breadth and depth she wanted to share with third graders at Fox Run Elementary in Norwalk, CT. The ephemeral Martin Luther King Day left untapped the vast legacies of those who came before and after the progressive leader. She decided to embark on an independent tour of civil rights sites across nine southern cities with her Fund for Teachers grant to increase her understanding and inspire students to see themselves in the achievements of African Americans.

“I wanted to help my students not only to dismantle the false assumptions of African Americans being relegated to slaves and protestors, but also develop their appreciation for the positive impact and contributions of those whose struggled and persevered,” said Merle.

Through guided tours and impromptu interviews, she gathered materials to inform four new units: Africa to slavery, Rosa to Martin, The Civil Rights Movement and African American Heroes. Students are now researching African American heroes and learning songs and poems from the Civil Rights era, inspiring them to identify with those leaders’ achievements.

Looking more deeply into the lives of enslaved Africans during the Colonial Period led Melissa and James Petropoulos‘ students to reconsider how unique they all are. After learning about the unique contributions made by African Americans whom Melissa and James researched on their fellowship, their fourth graders organized a school-wide Unity Day assembly.

“Focusing on humanizing the slave as a person instead of the person as a slave helped students respect what slaves endured,” said Melissa. “Their response was increased empathy for each other.”

In this celebration of kindness, acceptance and inclusion, student pieced together their individual identities to form this Unity Wall. Each description, together, represents the diverse community that Roywaton Elementary strives to be.

While the name of our organization is Fund for Teachers, students are equal beneficiaries of the $27 million in grants awarded since 2001. These teachers crafted fellowships around what they felt would most impact their students. Consequently, students – for years to come – will see themselves and their ancestors in a whole new light.

We thank Merle, Melissa and James for sharing their experiences and their students’ learning. Make sure to check our Black History Month feed on our blog here. Next week, we’ll be exploring how FFT Fellows are assessing the past and present in terms of black history. Stay connected and find out when it’s live by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Read our first installment in this series here.

This February, Fund for Teachers is celebrating Black History Month by highlighting some of our Fellows’ journeys to bring a better understanding of the African American experience to all students. In this four-part blog series, we’ll be diving into everything from the Transatlantic Trade to student advocacy. This week, we are taking a deeper look at how history is taught with our Fellows Pearl Jonas, Kristen Peterson and Melissa and James Petropoulos. Read on to learn more about their experiences in the classroom and how they are honoring Black History Month in their schools.

History shouldn’t be subjective. Facts are facts. Who records and repeats the facts, however, often determines the truth that’s shared. Pearl Jonas, teacher at Science Leadership Academy in Philadlephia, PA, strives to reduce the risk of fragmented history by teaching with artifacts and primary sources. To teach African American history to freshman in an urban setting, she used her Fund for Teachers grant to go to where the African Americans’ history began — the Transatlantic Slave Trade in Africa.

Classwork at The Dakar Institute of African Studies, combined with excursions to historical sites such as Goree Island, once the largest slave-trading center on the African coast, now informs one of five different African history units. The first two units of her African American history class now include primary sources, concepts, and debates that she collected and engaged with while in Senegal. Topics such as the   Negritude literary movement and Islam in Africa, as well as discussion about how oral tradition influences history, also help students reconsider previous misconceptions.

“This kind of framework is not available in textbooks,” said Pearl. “We now spend time breaking down the Transatlantic Slave Trade and learning about why it happened so we can gain a deeper understanding of what drives people and a society to commit crimes against humanity.”

While Pearl chose to design a fellowship focusing on the pre-history of slavery to construct an accurate and mindful curriculum, Melissa and James Petropoulos realized that the curriculum they taught was simply wrong. Textbooks used at Rowayton Elementary School in Norwalk, CT, stated that slaves in Connecticut were “treated as family,” giving students false perceptions of enslaved Africans in New England. James and Melissa designed a tour of sites associated with slavery during America’s Colonial period to give students the real story.

“In that erroneous history book, slavery was trivialized and in many other books there was little focus on the dignity of the enslaved,” said Melissa. “We wanted to make a clear point through this fellowship: humanity trumps slavery.”

The husband/wife team drove from Connecticut to Louisiana, stopping at museums and sites that honor the culture, beliefs, relationships, and memory of enslaved Africans. They now integrate a new story into history lessons, accompanied by artifacts and interviews collected from their fellowship.

“Rather than teaching about slavery from the point of view of slaves being victims, I now demonstrate how they were heroic, resistors and contributors to our shared American history,” said James.

As a white teacher in an urban district, Kristin Peterson, teacher at John A. Johnson Achievement Plus Elementary in Saint Paul, MN, realized that her own lack of knowledge about her students’ heritage hampered their learning and self-esteem. She identified the new National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington, DC, as the most reliable resource for learning about the accomplishments and hardships African Americans endured during the past 300 years. On her fellowship, she spent four days roaming six floors of galleries in the Smithsonian Institution’s newest museum, photographing exhibits and filming presentations and interviews with museum staff. She also purchased items for students to experience the museum in multi-sensory ways, such as basket weaving kits, quilts, music, maps and even a cook book.

“While I understand that I can never fully empathize with the experience of African Americans, I feel like I now have a very rich understanding and insight for what people went through and what their lives were like,” said Kristin.

Kristin has since incorporated technology into lessons in order to share her experiential learning.  A “Virtual Field Trip Kit” houses catalogued items that can be checked out to teachers and students, as well. She also placed her research on a district-wide drive for access by every Saint Paul Public Schools teacher. Kristin is a perfect example of the ripple effect one fellowship can have in a learning community. Not only are her immediate classroom students benefitting (as future students will for years to come), but also students throughout the school, her colleagues and even teachers whom she doesn’t know.

These FFT Fellows pursued knowledge in response to learning gaps. In Kristin’s case, her own understanding was enhanced in an effort to encourage students with their history. For the Petropouloses, the state’s incorrect information is what needed to be addressed so their students could learn true history. And Pearl used her grant to seek information that wasn’t available anywhere else. Fund for Teachers is honored to serve as a bridge that takes exemplary educators from where they are to where they want their students to be.

We thank Kristen, Pearl, Melissa and James for sharing their experiences and their students’ learning. Make sure to check our Black History Month feed on our blog here. Next week, we’ll be exploring the topic of identity with more FFT Fellows. Stay connected and find out when it’s live by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.