Recently in the online community run by our partner, Verizon Thinkfinity, an educator asked how members of our history teachers group “connect the classroom with the outside world.” An avid Skyper, this teacher often finds opportunities to bring experts to his students via the Web. One way that the museum has tried to make the outstanding programming and experts here more accessible to a wider school audience is through live and archived webcasts, including the upcoming National Youth Summit on the Freedom Rides.
On February 9 at noon EST, the Museum—in partnership with the National Endowment for the Humanities, Smithsonian Affiliations, and American Experience/WGBH—will bring together secondary students and Freedom Rides veterans Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), Diane Nash, Jim Zwerg, and Rev. James Lawson for a discussion on the history and legacy of the Freedom Rides. The program will be webcast live; teachers may register at http://smithsonianconference.org/freedomrides and submit questions for possible inclusion in the program. Be sure to visit the Freedom Rides page on the museum’s website to find more information and a teachers guide with suggested activities for before and after the webcast.
The museum piloted this model last year with a Youth Town Hall on the Greensboro sit-ins. The archived webcast from last year’s program is available on our website. You can read what students said about it in the blog post, “Powerful Lessons from the Greensboro Four”. Or, hear how teacher Amy Trenkle prepared and discussed the program with her students in “A Teacher’s Perspective on the Greensboro Sit-in Youth Town Hall.”
As Amy noted:
“These…experiences open gateways for students and encourage them not to be passive readers of history but to be engaged in the world around them. It also encourages them to think about the impact that not only one person can make, but what a difference they can make in their own community and for larger movements.”
In an effort to emphasize that larger lesson, we are inviting classes who participate in the program via the webcast to create a short video response to the program. Teachers may upload these videos to YouTube and email the link to the museum before April 30. Selected videos will be featured in our newsletter, on our Facebook page, on our Twitter feed, and on this blog, too! Topics are included below and details are available in the program’s teacher guide.
Video Topics:
Option 1: Reflection
Create a video montage of students reflecting on any of the questions below, based on their participation in the National Youth Summit program and webcast. The video should include at least one student, and can include as many as is appropriate for your class or school.
• What was the most important lesson you took from the panel discussion?
• What did the Freedom Rides accomplish, broadly speaking?
• What issue today matters to you? What would you do to address it?
• What is the importance of civic engagement? How do you participate in public life?
Option 2: Local History
Create a video interview with people in your community who were alive during the civil rights movement or who were active in it. Topics to discuss could include their thoughts on the time period and their activism, including reasons they became involved or not, and their thoughts about the movement’s influence on their life choices afterward. Be sure to ask them to reflect on the methods used by the Freedom Riders. Or, examine a civil rights protest or related event in your area that occurred around 1961, and consider the following:
• The practice of active, nonviolent civic engagement during the event.
• The degree of local sympathy, civil unrest, or apathy, if any, associated with it.
• Any changes that occurred immediately or soon after the event.
We hope you will join us for the webcast on February 9 and we look forward to your videos! You can also find more resources for connecting the outside world to your classroom, including a variety of scholarly lectures and panel discussions, through Smithsonian’s History Explorer.
Naomi Coquillon is an education specialist at the National Museum of American History.
Glad you enjoyed it! The archived webcast will be available on the Museum's website (http://americanhistory.si.edu/webcast/) and through Smithsonian's History Explorer (http://www.historyexplorer.si.edu) soon. You can also find a recording on the conference website: http://smithsonianconference.org/freedomrides/
Posted by: Naomi Coquillon | February 28, 2011 at 01:57 PM
I attended and want to thank you for such an amazing event. Do you plan to compile the videos to a DVD for sale?
Posted by: Xiaou Chin | February 24, 2011 at 09:09 PM
Gary, on behalf of the team here, thank YOU for your very kind words and for your interest in our resources. It's heartening to hear from educators that these programs are valued. If we were to host another similar program, what topic would you and your students like to see addressed? Let us know! And if you have questions about the K-12 resources on our website, please feel free to email us at thinkfinity@si.edu.
Posted by: Naomi Coquillon | February 14, 2011 at 05:21 PM
As an educator and a graduate student working on my Masters of Arts in Educational Technology at Michigan State University, I am constantly looking for ways to increase the effectiveness of my lessons through technology. A strong part of my philosophy of education stems around the premise that technology should be enveloped in all areas of curriculum; to enrich the learning process and to continually keep educational practices relevant to today’s world. I believe, especially with today’s technology, that we should bring history alive for our students. As educator’s, we should strive to use every means possible to bridge a connection between our students and this countries rich history. I was excited to read this post and see the amazing ways that you are bringing history alive and into our classrooms.
I want to thank you for your commitment to bringing new and innovative educational opportunities to our students. Your efforts have provided an opportunity for our students to not just learn facts and dates from a textbook, but to participate in and connect to our nation’s history and history makers. I applaud your efforts and I thank you for providing us with historically factual and relevant educational opportunities that utilize technology to enhance our subject matter. I am new to your site and I look forward to discovering all of the educational possibilities you have to offer. Please keep up the fantastic work!
Posted by: Gary J Brumbelow | February 08, 2011 at 06:47 PM