Promising Practices

I know that it has been awhile but I am finally going to blog about Promising Practices, I have just been really busy, but I really did have a good time. Now to be quite honest I was kind of dreading this, I am not a morning person and I convinced myself it was going to be really boring just getting lectured at for like 7 straight hours, but it wasn’t it was informative, interesting, it was absolutely a good time.

The first session I went to was Neglected Histories, Neglected Stories

This was good because it was all about secondary ed history, which is why I am here.

Honestly due to this session I think I now, finally, know my concentration. There was 5 women there presenting on topics related to the Atlantic, and the relationships such as the slave trade. These women talked about going a little deeper into the subject with the students such as thinking about the goods and products that were produced at the time of the slave trade and due to the slave trade. Inviting students to look into the primary families that were involved, such as the Brown family, of Brown University, maybe have students write a biography, or obituary of theses families. Choosing specific stories for the students to look into and discuss, this way its not just theory, the specific stories are easier to remember anyway, and lets face it more interesting. One of the main focuses of this session was complicity, for instance how does Rhode Island’s history fit into the greater scheme of the U.S.? Just because Rhode Island didn’t necessarily have any slaves it did benefit from slave labor, for example where was Samuel Slater getting his raw material.

This was absolutely fascinating I really enjoyed myself, which is saying something, because it was 7 o’clock in the morning, and I didn’t even know we had one of those in the morning too.

The second session I went to was the A.L.L.I.E.D. This was really interesting too, this group talked about providing allies for people who feel underrepresented. This doesn’t just mean minorities, which has a historically negative connotation, using the term underrepresented it a bit more hopeful. So what does it mean to be an ally? It is the difference between sympathy and empathy, feeling bad for someone and uniting with someone, the difference is passive listening, or aggressive action. Individual vs. Community. Tara and Ms. Bogad did an awesome job !!!