HISTORY OUTSIDE THE BOX Black Studies classes create miniature museums for elementary students LUCY LOCHMOELLER
RHEA PATNEY
the obstacles she had to overcome to become a physician.” The projects will be brought to the Ladue elementary schools in order to educate the younger generation n December 2019, Black Studies students made miniature museums in boxes that depict various im- of students. The boxes will be set up in a makeshift muportant events and people throughout Black history. seum, and kids will be able to pick up the items inside the boxes to learn in an interactive way. This month, high schoolers are bringing these boxes to “Right now, the plan is that, through a Google Form, Ladue elementary schools to share some of the many teachers will have the opportunity to ‘check out’ the stories of Black history. boxes,” District Social Studies and English CoordinaBlack Studies is co-taught by English teacher Brantor Laila Crabtree said. “The boxes will be sent to that don Murray and history teacher Ashley Lock. The class teacher to use with their classroom and then returned, focuses on Black history and culture and is offered so it can be checked out again. The Curriculum Office during both semesters, broken up into Black Studies I will facilitate sending out the boxes.” and II. This project has inspired the creation of addition“Our mission is to center Black culture in a space al Black history curriculum for the next school year. where it’s not always centered,” Murray said. “We show This upcoming summer, teams of students the rich and expansive teachers will be creating hands-on history and literary tradition of Black history lessons that will beBlacks, not only in America, but come a permanent part of elemenalso on the African continent.” tary school curriculum, in addition The students were given a time period from 1619, the year the first I hope the kids learn a lot from to the already made boxes. Junior and Black Studies student Andrea ship arrived with enslaved Afrithese boxes because Black His- Swihart-DeCoster hopes that the cans, to 1870, the middle of Recontory Month is supposed to shine new curriculum will give Black struction. Lock and Murray left it to the students to decide what light on the great African Amer- kids a more detailed depiction of went into each box. icans that have given a positive their history. “When I was in elementary “Even though the Underground contribution to our country.” school, there wasn’t a lot of eduRailroad wasn’t an actual railcation about African Americans in road, we had a student turn their -Paris Hamilton, 11 school,” Swihart-DeCoster said. box into a railroad,” Murray said. “Young African American kids are “Inside the box were certificates not really exposed to a lot of history about people like related to the services of Harriet Tubman to the Unitthem, so there is not a lot they can relate to. I think it’s ed States. Henry ‘Box’ Brown is a person who shipped himself in a box from the deep south into Philadelphia, important for them to get different views about how different people have impacted the world.” so someone put a doll-like figure into the box to exemUltimately, the goal of the project is to bring lost plify his journey from the south to the north.” stories of Black history to life and educate elementaThroughout the project, the students were able to ry school children on those stories. The boxes were a look further into some of the stories and people that creative extension of all the knowledge the high school have not been represented throughout history and restudents learned last semester, and they aim to take a tell them in their boxes. Junior Paris Hamilton chose to step further than the commonly taught names of Martin make her box about Rebecca Lee Crumpler, one of the Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. first Black female physicians in the U.S. “We wanted [Black Studies students] to see how they “I personally loved this project because I was able could extend their learning, along with helping younger to shine light on a woman who no one knows because students understand that there are other disparate voic[she] is not really spoken of today,” Hamilton said. es out there who are not often heard,” Murray said. “We “[Crumpler] went to a school in Massachusetts, an all-women’s school, and she was the only African Amer- wanted to do that in a way that was fun and approachican to graduate from that school. I think it’s important, able, so even a fourth-grade student could look at these boxes and understand the story being told.” especially to the kids who will see the boxes, to learn news staff
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02.12.20
SPREAD DESIGN BY L. LOCHMOELLER & R. PATNEY
