Community-based teaching activities for Black History Month: Reprinted from July 2011

I was untimely the first time this article was posted, as it made an original showing on the Wall last July. At the time, I promised to repost in February. As mentioned during the first posting, the point here is to for teachers  to think of Black History Month types of activities as more than something to occupy the month of February. If teaching and communicating go hand-in-hand, then the best way to reach students is to meet them with topics they are most interested with. This is not to suggest that every research project has to be about Lil Wayne and Ice-T, but the four objectives stated here are particularly useful guidelines.

In order for a community-based curriculum for Black History Month to be successful, there are several objectives which must be addressed, not only during February, which is officially Black History Month, but throughout the year.

The four main objectives of a successful program are 1) embracing community involvement, 2) raising awareness to African-American issues, 3) educating about the past, from slavery through the Civil Rights movement, while preparing for the future, and 4) developing a program which will continue to grow and prosper after the month of February. Any flourishing curriculum program will include elements of history, sociology, community service, and to a lesser degree, event planning and business management.

There are several existing programs worth reviewing as examples of successful community–based curriculum ventures. The organizations may have possibly started in February, but developed into worthwhile and successful year-round entities.

RAMP

In the Pittsburgh (PA) region, a volunteer organization called RAMP (Raising Achievement in Monroeville and Pitcairn) has embraced the concept of community involvement by forming a group dedicated to closing the academic achievement gaps which exist between subgroups of students. According to their mission statement, this is created by raising achievement in their students while creating an environment that believes in them. Within their organization, they have created several programs including community gatherings, tutoring sessions and incentive programs which reward students for raising their report card grades by one letter grade or more.

Arthur Ashe Children’s Program

In Washington, DC, the Arthur Ashe Children’s Program, named for the late tennis star and human rights activist, serves over 450 at-risk students in 20 DC schools, combining academics with athletics and life skills. The program reaches students from early elementary through high school and includes student projects which topics such as “The Marketing of Tennis Apparel,” “How to do Stock Analysis,” and “Pollution and the Environment” Combined with a strenuous tennis instruction session along with a Reading is Fundamental (RIF) literacy program, the programs, run through the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation, boast a 100% college acceptance rate for its seniors who have worked through the WTEF Center for Excellence.

History Lesson at the Apollo Theater

In New York City, Columbia University’s Oral Research Office and the Apollo Theater Foundation have joined forces to document and preserve the history of the world-famous theater, which celebrated its 75^th anniversary in 2009 and is known as a centerpiece of the Harlem Renaissance movement. The Oral Research Office has produced more than 150 hours of interviews with Apollo performers such as Smokey Robinson and Leslie Uggams, while also interviewing important black community leaders in Harlem to develop a program which also integrates the history of theater as well as the Harlem neighborhood into one curriculum program.

Columbia has also added three online resources. MAAP, short for Mapping the African-American past, combines interview material with photos and maps among its archives. The Amistad Digital Resource has been developed to assist teachers, while Columbia’s Black History Month Web site looks back on the university’s initiatives and work in research projects as they relate to recent African-American history.

Community-based curriculum starts at school

Successful curriculum programs take advantage of the school as a community learning center, available for all members of a neighborhood. Forming its building blocks toward the young school age student, but looking to develop lifelong learners, there are many resources available to build a curriculum for Black History Month. For example, at Scholastic.com, an entire section of its website is dedicated to lesson plans, activities and instructional guides for the teacher to use for planning purposes. Lessons include “All That Jazz” and “Black History Math Hunt.”