Smithsonian National Education Summit 2023: Online Day 2

Today — July 20, 2023 — was the second full online day of the Smithsonian National Education Summit, with the Welcome Reception held two nights ago and the first full online day on Wednesday. I attended three history-focused sessions inspiring students and teachers to learn about their past in order to change their school, community, country, and the world for the better.

Inspire Creative Changemakers

During this fast-paced session based on an article by the same name published on July 13, six Smithsonian educators used artifacts from their respective museums to demonstrate how to teach students to become creative changers, or “people who intervene to in creative ways solve a social problem”. The educators used routines like “See Wonder, Connect Times Two” from Harvard’s Project Zero to lead the audience through thinking critically about the objects. The lively text chat for viewers was monitored by Stephanie Greenhut, a Smithsonian Learning Lab product owner.

Nadya Kim, Teen Programs Coordinator at Cooper Hewitt, spoke about the Free Southern Theater poster designed by Sean Gerard Clark and displayed as part of the New Orleans public art installation Paper Monuments. The removal of four Jim Crow era monuments inspired artists to reveal hidden histories of the city. The poster advertises the Free Southern Theater, a branch of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) focused on supporting Black writers, actors, and other theater employees. John O’Neal co-founded the theater in 1963 and moved the operation to New Orleans in 1965. The theater lasted for seventeen years until closing in 1980, when O’Neal founded Junebug Productions with the support of his wife Bertha O’Neal and his daughter Wendi Moore-O’Neal. Kim gave examples of questions to ask students when they view the artwork. Who needs to hear the story? What should be shared? What should monuments look like?

Dr. Orlando Serrano, Jr., lead educator at the National Museum of American History, opened with a quote from musicologist and historian Dr. Clyde Woods: “The blues are the cry of a new society being born”. Using a turntable as his artifact, he described the influence of Grandmaster Flash, the Furious Five, and Clive Campbell aka DJ Kool Herc on modern R&B, soul, disco, and hip-hop. He described ways to incorporate music to talk to students about their emotions or describe an experience and suggested that students could create a playlist of songs that promote inclusivity and equity in their communities.

Phoebe Sherman, Student and Teacher Programs Manager at the National Postal Museum, displayed a Chicago NAACP Race Restrictive Covenants Cover, an envelope sent through the mail with postage and a cancellation stamp. The envelope was sent on June 6, 1945, at 11:00 a.m. and was received by Mr. Elmer Gertz, a lawyer and civil rights supporter from Chicago. Near the end of World War II, male military veterans were entitled to home loans and other benefits because of their service. However, Black veterans were excluded from buying homes in many majority-White suburbs, and banks participated in redlining by refusing to give loans for houses in majority-Black suburbs. The Chicago NAACP launched a campaign for $50,000 to fight these race restrictive covenants, harkening back to a tradition used by abolitionists before and during the American Civil War. Sherman suggested a class project where students would research an issue they care about and decorate an envelope accordingly.

Jocelyn Kho, Student Programs Coordinator at the National Portrait Gallery, reminded viewers that “A portrait can tell a story.” Students should search for clues and other elements within this image. She shared a pair of images; the classic “Come Let Us Build A New World Together” poster featuring young John Lewis with two other peaceful protestors, and a portrait of the congressman in the last year of his life. Photographer Danny Lyon took the photograph in Cairo, IL in 1963, having hitchhiked to the area upon hearing about a kneel-in at a segregated public swimming pool. Lyon later became the first staff photographer at SNCC. SNCC press and publications lead Mark Suckle turned the photograph into a lithograph poster and printed a run of 10,000 to be sold for $1 and raise money for the organization. The posters sold out quickly. The intentionally unfinished portrait of John Lewis, painted by Michael Shane Neal, shows that Lewis’ lifework is likewise not finished, and students must become changemakers to complete it.

Allie Burns, Distance Learning Coordinator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, presented an art piece called Unapologetically Asian by Julia Kwon. The patchwork facemask is made of bojagi, a type of Korean silk sometimes used for gift wrapping or in Buddhist ceremonies and first originating around the 1300s. Kwon created the mask as part of Stop Asian Hate and photographed others wearing her masks before donating it to the museum. Burns pointed out the messaging on clothing says a lot about the personality and beliefs of the wearer. She challenges students to think about how clothing can be used to create change.

How Movement and Migration Have Shaped Our World

This gentle talk covering tough topics on migration and immigration in the United States was introduced by Gabriella “Gabi” Kahn of the Smithsonian Office of the Under Secretary Education, and led by Sher Anderson Petty, a teacher-leader with over twenty years of experience and expertise in professional development for teachers, including work with the Professional Development Collaborative at Washington International School and Harvard’s Project Zero in Washington, D.C., nicknamed “DCPZ”.

Petty guided viewers through a learning arc of conducting analysis, gaining information and explanation, and discovering a narrative focused on the theme of movement. For the first project in the unit, she tasked students with writing literary analysis essays with theme of migration and movement. They viewed the art exhibit Incoming of artwork by Richard Mosse and read the poem Home by Warsan Shire. They used a See Feel Reveal Wonder framework from DCPZ to better understand the images. For the poem, they analyzed mood and tone through diction, imagery, figurative language, and syntax, taking notes in a rubric to draft an essay. I was impressed both by the frameworks and by the final product from a student example.

In the second phase, students learned about Westward Expansion, when predominately White American settlers displaced Native Americans, by viewing landscapes of Wyoming painted by Thomas Moran and reading primary documents from indigenous people. They compared this movement to the Great Migration, when Black Americans moved from the rural South to cities in the North. Using a worksheet for the DCPZ See, Think, Me, We thinking routine, the students studied The Migration Series painted by Jacob Lawrence. To compare the paintings and writings to their own experience, they completed a Seek to See Routine worksheet. Once again, I found the frameworks easy to navigate, and the student produced a great example.

Finally, students saw the collage Tomorrow I May Be Far Away by Romare Bearden and wrote poems about where they were from. They thought of places that they could “recall with joy” and described them using their five senses. While this project would take more time with younger learners, an older student or lifelong learner could easily write a decent poem in a few minutes. Like the other segments of the series, I was impressed by Petty’s ability to lead an engage activity and the resulting poem from the example student.

Our Evolving American Story

This session was packed with helpful information about Smithsonian Education, a branch of the Smithsonian focusing on DEAI (Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, Inclusion), resources for educators, and working with affiliate museums around the country. The triarchy of this talk was Carrie Kotcho, Acting Associate Director for Audience Engagement and the A. James Clark Director of Education and Impact at the National Museum of American History; Emily Key, Director of Education at the National Museum of the American Latino founded in 2020, which was formerly part of the Smithsonian Latino Center; and Tricia Edwards, Deputy Director for Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) and Smithsonian Affiliations.

I appreciated that the speakers explained the Smithsonian from a quantitative standpoint. The organization contains twenty-one connected museums, two of which are in the process of being built, making the Smithsonian the largest of its kind in the world. About three hundred Smithsonian educators reach about 10 million people worldwide every year. The institution passed 175 years in 2021, and its staff has used this opportunity to decide where it is headed, launching The Smithsonian Campaign for Our Shared Future to tell a more complete and inclusive story.

Like many museums, the Smithsonian is viewed as a trusted resource for teachers, students, and the general public. To better meet their needs, the institution implemented four areas of focus: Life on a Sustainable Planet, Reckoning with Our Racial Past, Reaching Rural Communities, and Women’s History. Collaborations in 2020 through early 2021 led to the creation of the Civil Intersections Resource Kit: Asian-Latino Solidarity Movements and Cross-Cultural Dialogue, now available on Smithsonian’s Learning Lab. The kit details the plight of farm workers, especially Filipino and Latino farm history.

At the same time educators were creating the kit, local and state legislations were banning the teaching of inclusive histories. Despite this threat, the Smithsonian commits to serving teachers and students first, maintaining a holistic and inclusive approach, and never giving up. Unfun facts from the session included the 44 states that took legislative steps to restrict teaching, 18 states that imposed restrictions, 6 states with penalties for breaking the restrictions, and 2 states with filed lawsuits declaring these restrictions unconstitutional. 24% of teachers in a recent Smithsonian survey reported feeling limited on what they are permitted to teach.

Back to happier topics, the Smithsonian Affiliations comprise of over 200 organizations who work together to uplift local stories to better understand national and global issues, fulfilling the Smithsonian mission of “Fostering Critical Conversations with Our Communities”. A new resource, Becoming US by the National Museum of American History, presents units on five topics around immigration and migration: Borderlands, Education, Policy, Belonging, and Resistance. Smithsonian educators developed the materials over a six-year period through a collaboration with the University of Maryland’s College of Education. The material covers the National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies Ten Themes for high school students, with plenty of primary sources connected to lessons, and all materials available both in English and Spanish.

Along with providing historical information, the resource guides educators through the three steps of teaching the material. First, educators must be mindful of how their own background and the background of the students will affect how the lesson is perceived. Second, educators must put in the work and brush up on history, especially lesser-known stories, and might consider reading the pamphlet “Let’s Talk!” from Teaching Tolerance. Third, educators must be brave when establishing trust, respecting students, and creating norms in the classroom.