Both the private BASIS school, and the public PS 676 are Red Hook schools that helped celebrate Black History Month this past February.
The 5th grade read “Brown Girl Dreaming” by Jacqueline Woodson, an excerpt from Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid and poems like “Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes and “At the Cemetery, Walnut Grove Plantation, South Carolina, 1989” by Lucillie Clifton.
BASIS’s 7th grade read poetry from notable black authors like Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou.
The 8th grade analyzed the work of Amanda Gorman, whose poem was read at Biden’s inauguration. Gorman, who is only 22, is on her way to becoming one of our great poets.
The 9th grade Honors Literature class viewed a production of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing with an all-Black cast. This was a modern production directed by Tony Award winner Kenny Leon.
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The play was set in contemporary Georgia with an election race underway. Rivals battle out and revenge is sought in this comedy of romantic retribution and miscommunication.
In AP English Language, students read “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr. and “Narrative of Olaudah Equiano.” In AP English Literature, the students read “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, who was an author and filmmaker who portrayed racial struggles in the early 1900s in the south.
BASIS has incorporated live performance as well to add to their cultural experience. On February 12, there was a West African dance performance by the Hayiya Dance Theater.
Hayiya is based in Macon, Georgia and their mission is to educate, entertain and engage the community by providing opportunities for cultural arts, enrichment and exposure.
Samantha De Leon, a 4th grade teacher, led a project during the National School Week of Action.
“We had discussions around racism, its history and its present manifestations,” De Leon said. “We then developed our ideas about truth, justice, activism and healing. Our project was creating rock paintings that bring awareness to an injustice or inspire others to be change-makers.”
Polly Kertis is the eighth grade teacher who made the decision to incorporate Gorman’s remarkable poem from the inauguration into her class in honor of Black History Month.
When Kertis was listening to Gorman’s poem, she knew that it was special and could relate to her students.
“I felt really excited when I heard her recite it, and she just really stood out as a powerful person,” Kertis said. “The fact that she is so young started to make me feel like she could be really directly inspiring to eighth grade students. I also think her style of writing and speaking is really accessible to eighth grade students.”
Kertis knew that she was going to include the TED Talk by Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as part of the introduction to the reading of the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.”
After hearing Gorman’s poem during Biden’s inauguration, she thought it would be a great companion to Adichie’s TED Talk.
She has included that TED Talk in her instruction the last few years. Adichie’s TED Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” is about stereotypes. Adichie warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.
“I think her poem is so hopeful that it feels productive to include it in the midst of a lot of the challenges and difficulties,” Kertis said. “I wanted to make sure that I was including a voice of hope alongside the more challenging and potentially depressing material that we were discussing. My students are really aware of BLM and the activism around Black Lives Matter.
Kertis was pleased with how much her students enjoyed Gorman’s poem and how much it resonated with them.
“They usually do not like poetry, honestly, but they were really excited about this poem and many of them got chills at that last line, and it was so powerful,” Kertis said. “That is a great moment for a teacher because I could be like ‘you really felt something there, let’s unpack why. ‘Let’s unpack show she did that.”
Kertis got the inspiration for how she would bring the 22-year-old’s poem into the classroom from Carol Jago. She writes an education column for the Los Angeles Times, and Kertis used many of her suggestions that she wrote in her column when she had her students analyze the poem.
One aspect that really appealed to the eighth grade teacher about including this poem was that they were going to start a persuasive writing unit soon, so “The Hill We Climb” had extra relevance.
The TED Talk that Gorman gave, “Using Your Voice As A Political Choice” was included as well as her poem. The eighth grade students were able to notice and realize what a powerful speaker she is.
“We have been learning about rhetorical devices that add rhythm to what you are saying, and they were able to find those in not just her TED Talk but also in her poem,” Kertis said.
She added that when approaching poetry they start with lines or words that stand out and then they delve deeper into what the poem is doing.
There were a few questions she asked the students when they analyzed the poem. They included: What is so effective about this poem? What stands out to you and why does it stand out? What are ways you could incorporate this into your own writing?
She wanted them to think about how they could incorporate themes, devices and what they learned from Gorman’s poem into their persuasive writing, academic writing or when they are just talking to others.
The ending point of the lesson and conversation around the youngest poet laureate was thinking about how her language tools could help empower them to communicate their own ideas.
Gorman’s Super Bowl poem about pandemic heroes was not discussed in class, but it was a coincidence that this poem was recited right before The Hill We Climb was discussed.
After the students discussed and analyzed Adichie’s TED Talk, Gorman’s TED Talk and her inspirational poem, they moved onto reading the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.” Kertis teaches this memoir every year as part of her persuasive writing unit.
“We look at it in the context of an empowered, marginalized author,” Kertis said. “We have {previously} read To Kill A Mockingbird and it feels important to be reading something from the perspective of a marginalized person and not just about marginalized populations. Students feel hungry for that after reading To Kill A Mockingbird.”
The class reads Douglass’s memoir in the context of social justice but the teacher also believes it’s a powerful example of persuasive writing for the students. This memoir, which was originally published in 1845 in Lynn, Massachusetts, also leads to a discussion of the historical context of slavery.
Douglass’s memoir is the most influential piece of literature that fueled the abolitionist movement (ending of slavery).
Kertis thinks that Gorman’s poem and her TED Talk offer talking points that help to contextualize and frame the Douglass narrative.
“I think the reminders in Gorman’s poem and in her TED Talk about poetry or any form of written communication really being political, because literacy was not always available to everyone in this country,” Kertis said. “I think that feels like a productive foundation for embarking on reading the Douglass narrative. It’s also understanding the courage that it takes to communicate in writing and the political power that writing can have.”
Kertis’s students takeaway is that black voices and figures should not be limited to being highlighted during Black History Month.
“They are saying that they feel frustrated that there is just one month that black voices are celebrated,” Kertis said. “Many of my students have brought it up that there should not even be a Black History Month because that assumes that discussion of this is limited to a single month.”
Celebrating black voices is not limited to just Black History Month in Kertis’s class.
According to Kertis, due to the events of last spring and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, this has been the best recognition of Black History Month at the school after increasing efforts in previous years.
BASIS is on a hybrid schedule, which means that they have half the kids in person at the beginning of the week and the other half are in person at the end of the week.
“It is such a hard year for schools, but I am grateful that we have figured out a way to see our students safely in person at least part of the time,” Kertis said.
At PS 676, The Red Hook Neighborhood School the programming has been different from BASIS but like them there has been a wide array of activities and instruction during the month.
Each grade has done projects and drawn pictures in various forms related to what they were learning about, and these projects have been displayed in the classrooms and hallways for the school to see.
“The students are very proud of their work and we are very proud of them,” parent coordinator Marie Hueston said.
The school, which shares its building with Summit Academy, has a bulletin board that changes themes depending on the month. In November it was Thanksgiving. In December and January there was a gingerbread man.
The kids are now welcomed into school with a Black Lives Matter sign.
Projects for the PS 676 students have been hands-on and they have been able to use their imagination when reflecting on the black heroes.
The youngest kids studied black heroes like Garrett Morgan and Benjamin Banneker, and they created projects based on their inventions.
Morgan is known for inventing the gas mask, the three-position traffic signal and the first hair straightener. Banneker is credited for building the first wooden clock, and due to the attention he received for this he started his own clock repair business.
The kindergarteners learned about various black heroes from the past and created art projects about them. Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947, is a civil rights icon is portrayed on the opposite page.
The first grade is learning about the Black Lives Matter movement. They have each received a copy of the book “I Am Every Good Thing” by Derrick Barnes and Gordon C. James. They have gotten to read this book thanks to a donation from DonorsChoose.
The second grade discussed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech. This speech, which was delivered during the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, called for the end of racism and civil rights.
The second graders at PS. 676 did a project about their own personal dreams for the future and one of their dreams was to be a doctor. Their finished projects are displayed in the hallway of the school.
Third graders wrote papers on President Barack Obama, four-time track and field gold medalist Jesse Owens and civil rights activist and poet Maya Angelou.
On February 11, adding to the Black History Month experience, Hueston and others gave out winter break activity packets including a Black History coloring book and crayons. Expanding beyond the overall theme of the month, they were also given Lunar New Year coloring sheets and a Valentine’s Day activity.
New projects and art work has been posted on the Friends of PS 676 Facebook page for the community to see.
