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Project Description
Multiple studies show that African-American, Latino, and Native American students view history with repugnance. Children of color only perform marginally worse than whites in mathematics but perform much worse in history. This is because many of the textbooks still in use today were originally written during times of gross racial injustice. Based in our nation's capital, “Getting History Right” will be a program aimed at developing a comprehensive number of activities that effectively communicate with and engage students. Education inequality is one of the most pressing issues of our time, and there is no city with a greater education disparity than our nation's capital. For example, wards 8 and 9 of the city have a functional literacy under 50% of the adult population, whereas the Northwest quadrant has the highest concentration of PhD's in the country. Over the summer, the founders will: target DC public school history teachers to set up time slots for the fall, organize trainings for talented college students, and use in-kind donations to create a completely self-sustaining program with high quality resources and materials.
Before seeking volunteers from the fifteen colleges that call Washington, DC home and advertising the program to history departments at local high schools, a number of objectives will be met to prepare the lessons. Dr. Jim Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, has agreed to help us develop inspiring and inclusive activities on the unknown "movers and shakers" of history. Another student organizer will spend his summer working with Columbia professors in the city’s public schools. He will specifically be studying teen violence, its causes, and evolution over the past decade. In studying the roots of violence (and many times prejudice as well), he will learn what volunteers should expect when discussing these topics in the classroom, in addition to discovering how best to achieve “a-ha moments” when developing the curriculum.
The goals of “Getting History Right” are entirely dependent on the quality of programs, resources, and culture we develop as a group. In the short-run, we hope to use my existing relationships with teachers in the area in order to spread the word and start seeking classroom assignments for the coming semester. Initially, there will be ten 1 ½ hour lessons on different areas of people’s history to be used upon the teachers’ discretion and convenience. Additional lessons will be developed if, for any reason, students are in participating classes multiple times. In terms of our long-term goals, we would like to see it become successful in DC by 2011. For this purpose, we define successful quantitatively although it is our philosophy that even if one student has a single “a-ha moment,” all our efforts will have been worth it. In three years time, we hope to see “people’s history” activities in at least one classroom in every DC public high school. But the possibilities are limitless if we can recruit enough talent. For instance, we could eventually work on lessons for fifth graders. In time, we could even network with history departments across the Mid-Atlantic region or friends with similar interests in other parts of the country. But no matter our size, we ardently believe that the organization should always be student-run and service-focused.
In establishing an educational program involving college-age volunteers, we aim to develop a culture of commitment among the volunteers and of professionalism with any teachers who are kind enough to grant us class time. The lessons will fully engage students in all classroom activities and will promote students' own arrival to their conclusions. This grant would essentially be our seed money for all materials, and it would go a long way in improving the understanding of history and, by default, lives of students in DC’s public school system. If our ideas come to fruition, it will be a great step forward in the lives of these students. It is the lessons of the Revolutionary War, Labor Movement, Civil Rights Movement, et al. that can help us learn to cope with the issues in daily life. To quote our mentor Jim Loewen, "those who do not learn history properly are condemned to repeat the eleventh grade."
Vital Stats
| Started On: | June/2008 | Ended On: | N/A |
| People Involved: | 4 college students starting the program, will seek more volunteers over summer. | People Impacted: | ~100 (5 classes of ~20 to start) |
| Money Raised: | N/A |
Project Updates:
Updates coming soon!