Cultural Institutions as Spaces for Equity

Join cultural educators as they share strategies for fostering equity among students in the K-12 classroom. Learn more about how using institutional sources can engage critical inquiry in helping students understand the idea of equity. Panelists will also address challenges in locating sources, as well as best practices for incorporating institutional (re)sources in your instruction for equitable teaching.

Panelists:

- Linda Doornbos, Oakland University (Moderator)
- Candra Flanagan, National Museum of African American History
- Orlando Serrano, Jr., National Museum of American History
- Christopher Zarr, National Archives and Records Administration

Panel Suggested Resources

Classrooms as a Space for Equity

Join veteran educators as they share strategies for fostering equity among students in the K-12 classroom. Panelists will provide examples of using primary sources and critical inquiry strategies to help students understand the idea of equity. They will also share stories of the joys and challenges of teaching equitably.

Panelists:

- Linda Doornbos, Oakland University (Moderator)
- John Arthur, Meadowlark Elementary School
- Michael Skomba, Somerville High School
- Amy Trenkle, Alice Deal Middle School

Panel Suggested Resources

Community Assets in Support of Teaching and Learning: Celebrating the Golden Blocks through Multigenre Texts

In the target school district, most children are not able to read on grade level by third grade, a pivotal year that is an indicator for future lifetime success and wellbeing. We know that grade-appropriate texts based on Library of Congress and local primary resources have the power to engage young students through culturally relevant and authentic literacy experiences. As teacher educators, we also note that our preservice teacher candidates often need to improve their own background social studies knowledge as well as their ability and confidence to locate and to integrate primary source materials into their instruction. This project addresses both of these needs through the development of the Golden Blocks Comic Book Series, innovative texts that will address the literacy needs of elementary students and provide a source through which preservice teachers can building social studies background knowledge and skills in teaching through primary sources.

Presenter: Juan Walker, Augusta University

Dialogues on Racial Justice

In this session, you will participate in an online Paideia Seminar based on a primary source from the Library of Congress. The seminar will reflect the current work of the NPC in collaboration with the Washington DC schools in identifying primary sources that inspire candid and empathetic dialogue about racial identity and racial justice. After the seminar, we will debrief the conversation and share a summary of the project work thus far.

Presenter: Terry Roberts, National Paideia Center

Visualizing Environmental Justice and Activism

This session will introduce participants to lessons developed as part of the Map Center's exhibition More or Less in Common: Environment and Justice in the Human Landscape. Lessons incorporate historic maps as well as modern primary sources that tell stories of community activism and challenge students to consider whether we all share the same environment. Participants will try out the lessons and learn more about how to look for environmental justice case studies in their own communities using the collections of the Library of Congress. All lessons and primary sources are online and will be shared with participants as well as other kinds of sources for developing their own locally-focused lessons.

Presenter: Michelle LeBlanc, Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center

Suggested Links

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Primary Sources

Who are our students? What are their stories and how can we, as educators, incorporate those stories into instruction about a complex past? Using a culturally relevant lens, educators can share primary sources that reflect students' lived experiences, address the complicated nuances of the past, and reveal insights into our present. We will examine primary sources from the Library of Congress, including maps and photographs, that will create windows and mirrors for students -- they will see themselves, they will see others, and they will see connections between human experiences. Strategies will help educators examine their teaching (content and practices) to ensure that all students are represented, and that leaning into asset-based instruction builds more equitable learning experiences.

Presenter: Jessica Ellison, Minnesota Historical Society
 

Examining Rosa Parks' Lifetime of Civic Action through Library of Congress Primary Sources

By discussing and using sources from the American Civil Rights Movement, and specifically from the Library of Congress’ Rosa Parks Collection, this proposal directly connects to the theme of the Equity Summit. The focus of our proposal is best practices for integrating primary sources with elementary and middle school children, based on our experiences doing so during Freedom School in July 2022. This session will be useful for elementary and middle school teachers, as well as methods faculty, as we worked with preservice teachers during the implementation of this project.

We intend to showcase what we did with elementary and middle school students by demonstrating the same inquiry that students participated in, with the compelling question being Is the Civil Rights Movement an Ongoing Struggle? First, we will show the Woman Fingerprinted image http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/94500293/, and ask the following questions: What is the man doing to the woman? What is he doing with her hand? Why? Why would something like this event be photographed? We will also show an image of Emmett Till and his mother (https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/rosa-parks-in-her-own-words/about-this-exhibition/the-bus-boycott/emmett-till-with-his-mother/) since Ms. Parks had said that she “thought of Emmett Till and I couldn’t go back.” Finally, we will also two contemporaneous letters (https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/rosa-parks-in-her-own-words/about-this-exhibition/the-bus-boycott/montgomery-fair-department-store/ and https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/rosa-parks-in-her-own-words/about-this-exhibition/the-bus-boycott/incarceration-at-montgomery-city-jail/)that Ms. Parks wrote with scaffolding questions. In so doing, we will demonstrate a jigsaw where different groups of students can read different portions of these letters. In so doing, we will show how a class can piece together Rosa Parks’ description of the Jim Crow South.

Presenter: Adam M. Friedman, Wake Forest University
 

Teach Truth: The Long Struggle for Antiracist Education

Jesse Hagopian is an educator, author, and activist. This keynote will discuss Hagopian’s journey of discovery and the healing power of organized remembering.

Jesse Hagopian’s African ancestors survived the middle passage and enslavement on plantations in Mississippi and Louisiana. Jesse is a high school teacher in Seattle, and the author of the forthcoming book, Teach Truth: The Attack on Critical Race Theory and the Struggle for Antiracist Education.

Jesse an editor for Rethinking Schools magazine, a founding member of Black Lives Matter at School, and a campaign organizer for the Zinn Education Project’s “Teach the Black Freedom Struggle.” Jesse is the co-editor of the books, Black Lives Matter At School: An Uprising for Educational Justice, Teaching for Black Lives, Teacher Unions and Social Justice, and the editor of More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High Stakes Testing.