Summer Teacher Academy Takes a Civil Rights Journey Through the South
Greta Cunningham
August 21, 2024
Each summer, CDH facilitates Teacher Academies– opportunities for collaborative learning around topics or skills of the teachers’ choice. The Board of Directors approved this program in 1998 to provide teacher-led professional development during the summer months.
This year CDH selected Spanish teacher Dr. Alexis Howe’s proposal “Learning for Justice: A Civil Rights Journey through Atlanta, Montgomery, Selma, Birmingham, and Tuskegee.” At the end of June, Howe and six other teachers– Mr. Jesse Cusick '98, Ms. Christina DeVos, Ms. Angie Keske, Mr. Joe Kruse, Ms. Jenny Markert '83, and Mr. Doug Meeker– traveled through Georgia and Alabama to visit Civil Rights Movement landmarks, memorials, and museums.
“Collaborating with other teachers is absolutely instrumental for elevating student learning and achievement,” said Markert. "They all had amazing insights and wonderful ideas about how to use the material we were learning to benefit our students.”
While much of teachers’ day to day work is solitary, the academy provided them with a unique opportunity to grow closer.
“At CDH we have a lot of conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion because they’re part of our values,” Howe said. “But I thought we needed to go out and see these things beyond reading and talking about them.”
One of Howe’s driving forces to plan the trip was her desire to visit The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, often referred to as the lynching memorial– the first of its kind in the country.
“I really felt like I needed to see it with my own eyes, and I thought that if I felt that way, there were probably other teachers who felt the same,” she said.
The memorial is one of three Legacy Sites designed by the Equal Justice Initiative. It opened in 2018 to commemorate the legacy of Black Americans who were racially terrorized by enslavement, lynching, segregation, and presumed guilt in the justice system.
“Most people have a superficial knowledge of some of the egregious treatment people of color have received throughout the formation and history of this country, but to be in a memorial dedicated to the victims of such crimes is truly astonishing,” said Markert. “To be able to see with your eyes the full impact of the crimes, the sheer number of people who have been terrorized in this way is powerful.”
To develop the rest of the trip’s itinerary, Howe spoke with former CDH English teacher Mr. Rob Peick and social studies teacher Ms. Jenn Androsky, who had led similar trips to the South for students. Some of their stops included the Legacy Museum, Freedom Monument, Edmund Pettus Bridge, and Brown Chapel.
“By the end of the Legacy Museum, I was in tears,” said social studies teacher Christina Devos. “The last part focused on mass incarceration, and, in the middle of this huge exhibit, there were screens with a person who was incarcerated waiting for you to sit down across from them and pick up the phone provided to start talking. It looked just like if you were actually visiting someone in prison, looking at them through a glass partition and conversing through the phone. I couldn't stop listening to all of their stories.”
The Legacy Museum is another one of the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Sites and covers 400 years of African American history from slavery to current mass incarceration.
“Being able to physically be present in the places where history happened, like walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama where the violent march from Selma to Montgomery happened to fight for voting rights and to be inside the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham and hear from a local about the bombing that occurred there and killed four young girls is profound learning,” Markert said. “To talk to people who were there, to talk to people who live there now– that is how learning settles deeper into a person’s being. This is how a person can take what they’ve learned and turn it into active participation in healing the world.”
Devos was struck in particular by their conversation with a woman who took part in the Birmingham Children’s March, a protest against segregation, when she was 16.
“I could have read an interview with her in a book, but that pales in comparison to talking to her, asking her questions, and hearing her tell her story,” Devos said. “We had the opportunity to make so many connections with people and those experiences stay with you.”
These are the experiences they hope to bring back into the classroom. Throughout the trip, the teachers worked together to process what they were seeing and discuss how it could impact their lessons.
“For me, this trip was just about trying to connect with people,” said Howe. “You can never fully know someone else’s experience, but you can try. I'm hoping this changes the way I relate to my students. I can also share these experiences with students, and encourage them to go on a trip like this too.”
Teacher Academies will continue to empower teachers to deepen their connection to the curriculum they bring into their classrooms.
“It’s amazing that CDH has this grant for teachers,” said Howe. “I am so grateful for the way it shows how they value teachers' continuing to learn.”