On November 29, students learned about Montgomery County’s history of enslaved people, which is a continuation of last year’s lesson, Remembrance and Reconciliation.
Remembrance and Reconciliation surrounded learning about landmarks related to African-American history in Montgomery County (MoCo). It wasn’t just a lesson for MCPS; it was a whole month of contributing to enslaved African-American history within MoCo.
This year, students continue to learn about MoCo’s history with enslaved people. This new lesson was taught during Wolverine Wednesday and has a follow-up in some social studies classes.
“It should not only be about the past but make a correlation to where they [students] can see it in their time because they think it’s done [the discrimination] but it’s not,” teacher Dr Shelia Shipmon-Friedli said.
Students were shown different landmarks and locations in MoCo and read about them. Glen Echo Park, where this year’s prom will be, had a protest involving a sit-in on a carousel while the park was segregated.
Social studies teacher Lauren Squier said, “as a history teacher, I hear ‘Why am I learning about this? It doesn’t apply to me.’ Everything from this lesson applies to them directly since locations are potentially down the road from where they live and grew up.”
It’s important that students can make connections to their communities. One way to do that is to learn about the place where they grew up. Many students think slavery only happened in the very deep South, but that is not true. It also happened here in MoCo.
“I like that Montgomery County Public Schools is showing this through a mandatory thing rather than treating it as optional learning. When watching the video I was surprised that they didn’t shy away from stating the harsh reality of MCPS’s segregated schools. They also talked about the MoCo segregated racist background by talking about lynching while also showing evidence,” senior Aarju Karki said.
There was no shortage of surprised reactions from the students. The county is making true steps towards being inclusive.
“I was honestly surprised to see the segment however I did like the fact that MCPS is sharing the truth about the history of our school system. I think It was more informative and MCPS should make more segments about it,” senior Rina Nasser said.
“I was very surprised by the information in the video. I knew that Maryland was a state with slaves but I didn’t expect it to be quicker than other states to desegregate and implement Brown v. the Board. I also find it interesting that the schools that are currently more populated with white people are the schools that were one of the first to be desegregated,” senior Fortune Claude said.
It’s very important for not only students but our community to know our history to better understand where they have grown up for years.
