The Planning Group for the Deep South Regional Humanities Center formed the Education Committee to promote the relationship between a university-based Regional Humanities Center and K- 12 educators.  In fostering the mission of the National Endowment for the Humanities—to bring the humanities to American citizens—we believe that the most important link in this process is providing exciting and innovative humanities education to children from early childhood to adulthood. 

Our planning committee is formed of Rebecca Mark, a professor in Tulane’s English Department; Marva Lewis, a professor in  the School of  Social Work; Roslyn Smith, Director of External Grants and Professional Development for the New Orleans Public School System; and Cathe Mizell-Nelson, a graduate student in the English Department.  This skeletal committee will be broadened to include K-12 teachers, local professors, and other educational innovators in the community. We are planning a New Orleans city-wide brainstorming session of educators to define needs, areas of expertise, and exciting on-going projects.  This meeting will serve as a model for similar gatherings throughout the region.

Many K-12 educators must teach the same curricular material over many years. Without access to resources for professional development, particularly interaction with other teachers, seminars on ground-breaking research, introductions to new theories and texts, and demonstrations of effective pedagogical techniques and innovations, it is almost impossible to maintain the high level of energy and enthusiasm that K-12 teaching requires.  While many web resources and textbook resources exist, the education committee believes that people learn best through hands-on experience and personal contact.

To realize this vision, we are proposing that the Regional Humanities Center develop teacher seminars to supplement and complement state administered professional development programs.  To insure that these seminars are different from the institutes which the state humanities councils and the National Faculty already offer, we will focus on interdisciplinary regional topics, new pedagogical approaches, and direct connection to academic conferences (see below).  In these seminars, following the concept of making the humanities more immediate and accessible, the RHC will sponsor hands-on historical tours and workshops within the five-state region.   Possibilities might include bus tours of Civil Rights sites, digs led by local archaeologists, tours of “living culture” conducted by folklorists, and workshops on how to produce videos or collect oral histories.  In addition, the RHC website will offer databases of the innovative curricular ideas generated in these and other seminars so that teachers who have already taken part in these events can integrate the new approaches they have learned into their lesson plans.  The RHC website will also provide an information clearinghouse for innovative humanities programs for K-12 already in existence such as motivational/at-risk/drop-out programs (4th grade and up), early childhood education programs, after-school programs, and folklife and cultural programs in the schools.

To better the chances of student success, the RHC will strive to involve whole families in nontraditional literacy programs, stressing the power of narrative to knit together extended families, even entire communities. A centerpiece of the RHC’s K-12 literacy plan will be “Students Making History,” a multidimensional community history program in which students engage in research in local archives, audio- or videotape interviews, which they transcribe and edit, incorporating them into research papers.  Projects have ranged from histories of families, neighborhoods, churches, and local businesses to stories of segregation, integration, and immigration.  In posting their transcripts on the Internet, students not only learn valuable web authoring skills but provide a service to the community.  With the advent of video editing on the computer, students can even make their work available in documentary form through the world wide web.  Because students choose topics connected to their own lives, they immerse themselves in the practice of history rather than merely reading about it.

            Even the best teachers need time outside the high-pressure environment of daily teaching to conceive of new ways to present their material.  Toward this end, the RHC will provide an exciting intellectual environment where Master Teachers share successful classroom applications and collaborate on developing new curricula and pedagogical practices. These teachers will receive grants from the RHC to enable them to return to their communities and present these innovations to their colleagues. 

             Because K-12 educators rarely interact professionally with their counterparts at the college level, the RHC will provide opportunities for cross-pollination by promoting teacher participation at academic conferences in the five-state region.  We will create a competition for small grants to encourage research by K-12 teachers on local history, folklore, musical heritage, oral histories, or other humanities related topics.  In addition, the RHC will encourage academic institutions in the region to send calls for papers and other publicity materials to school districts throughout the region when they are hosting a major humanities conference.  We will suggest that conference planners include special forums for K-12 teachers such as panels focusing on curriculum development tied to the conferences’ themes. To insure that educators will have the financial resources to attend these meetings, we will supply travel grants to K-12 teachers.

            The Regional Humanities Center will provide grants to individuals and institutions to conduct interdisciplinary research on K-12 education that demonstrates the quantifiable improvements in reading, writing, and skills development resulting from humanities education.  Other areas of investigation might include social/political considerations such as the difficulty of change because of the legacy of slavery and segregation, the psychology of learning, or the system-wide impact of learning disabilities that result from exposure to toxins.  The RHC could also investigate ways to improve the relationship between teachers and parents from communities that do not traditionally participate in the school system. 

            Many programs recognize the need for retention plans for at-risk youth but overlook the many teachers who leave the profession because of the stresses they face. We need to conduct research on the effect of humanities related activities for both at-risk students and teachers, including participating in storytelling circles; creating joint oral history collections; performing in community-based living arts theater; and writing poetry, stories, and journals about their experiences under the direction of an experienced writer. 

            The RHC education committee is seeking the most creative minds in education, searching out the best practices already in use, and finding ways to disseminate these ideas as widely as possible.  We need to demonstrate that the humanities are not ancillary embellishments to a math- and science-based curriculum, but necessary and valuable in themselves.  By forging connections between teachers, families, communities, and the larger region, we hope to stimulate active, lifelong learning.