Arts & Sciences faculty in history, education and American Culture Studies have completed the first phase of a collaborative community program designed to improve the teaching of American history in the St. Louis public school system.
The project gives public-school teachers an opportunity to return to the classroom, to become students once again and to re-experience the passion of American history as told through primary sources.
The ultimate goal is to have teachers bring this fresh perspective back to the public-school students they teach, to spark new approaches and innovations in the American history curriculum offered in the St. Louis public schools.
David T. Konig, Ph.D., professor of history and of law, co-directs the grant program along with Linda Riekes and Olivia White of the St. Louis public schools. Margaret Finders, Ph.D., associate professor of education, is leading a related summer workshop designed to help teachers develop new history curricula based on material covered in the program.
Konig’s other collaborators see the project as a model for school districts around the nation.
“Our goal is to assist in the revival of the St. Louis public schools as a vibrant educational enterprise, emblematic of the city as a whole,” Konig said.
“We’ve seen that we have two great assets to build on in this project — the renewed enthusiasm for historical research among the teachers, and the fact that some of the most significant episodes in American history took place here in St. Louis, in the same communities where these schools are located.”
Supported by a three-year award from the U.S. Department of Education, the first phase of the “Teaching American History” program involved bringing 28 St. Louis public-middle-school teachers back into the classroom for five daylong training sessions on key aspects of American history. When classes resume this fall, new curricula developed in the program will be implemented into St. Louis public-school classrooms, and a second cohort of teachers will begin the next cycle.
The University assisted the St. Louis public schools in obtaining the Teaching American History grant, and it continues to take the lead role in the program’s implementation. Arts & Sciences faculty are leading four of the five teacher training sessions this school year; one session was led by faculty from Saint Louis University.
One objective of the program is to encourage the use of primary historical documents in the teaching of history. For example, during a training session on “Freedom and the Early 19th Century,” Konig introduced teachers to original documents from court cases of slaves who sued for freedom in St. Louis during the1800s.
The “Freedom Suits” are available online through the St. Louis Circuit Court Historical Records Project, another collaboration that involved faculty, staff and students from American Culture Studies.
In March, the middle-school teachers visited WUSTL for a session on “African Americans in the Civil War Era” taught by Leslie Brown, Ph.D., assistant professor of history, of American Culture Studies and of African and Afro-American Studies in Arts & Sciences.
Brown offered the teachers fresh and provocative approaches to teaching slavery, including an examination of Missouri slave narratives, excerpts from the film Glory; and Frederick Douglass’ views on “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July.”
Other Arts & Sciences faculty collaborating on the project include Peter Kastor, Ph.D., assistant professor of history and assistant director of American Culture Studies; and Garrett A. Duncan, Ph.D., associate professor of education, of African and Afro-American Studies and of American Culture Studies.
Other training sessions included:
• “The Impact of Westward Expansion on Native Americans and People of Color,” a program focusing on the Lewis and Clark expedition, transportation and life along the American waterways. Offered in collaboration with the Missouri Historical Society and the St. Louis Mercantile Library, this session included unique access to the Mercantile Library’s collection at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
• “Separate but Unequal,” a focus on the landmark Brown v. Board of Education court battle, equality of educational opportunity and other civil rights legislation and documentation since 1954. This was offered in collaboration with the Department of History.
• “Freedom and the U.S. Constitution,” a study of landmark Supreme Court decisions in American history, offered in collaboration with the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, the Mound City Bar Association and the Saint Louis University School of Law.