Teaching the Underground Railroad: A Summer Institute
Making the Underground Railroad come alive and inspiring our communities can be situated in education courses and teacher in-services done through the universities. In particular, Schools of Education that prepare future teachers can link our college students to local community historical sites in order to preserve the legacy of the Underground Railroad. Understanding and investigating local
history is a powerful teaching tool. To research local history enables students to reflect about American history in new ways. It can foster debate, it can help to retell history, and it can provide new insights into the importance and significance of history. For us who are engaged in promoting the significance of the Underground Railroad, education courses can connect the stories of individual sites to the bigger picture of the UGRR story. For ten years, I taught a summer institute at Northern Kentucky University for classroom teachers in collaboration with local school districts as well as historical sites in Kentucky and Ohio. Come to this session and hear how it was organized, collaborations among local historical sites, school field trips to local heritage museums it inspired, and the impact it had not only on classroom teachers but their elementary, middle and high school students. Every year, the course had
maximum capacity enrollment. This highly successful summer institute also used technology to showcase the narrative and interpretive nature of history. We can discuss how to replicate it with other heritage sites with the cooperation of schools.
Denise Dallmer is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Education at Indiana University East. Before coming to IU East she was a faculty member for fifteen years at Northern Kentucky University where she taught a graduate level course for teachers about the Underground Railroad. As part of a faculty research grant, she travelled to Senegal and Goree Island to work with teachers there. She collaborated with WCET (PBS affiliate) to write curriculum entitled, “Safe Passage”. She holds an undergraduate degree in International Studies from Miami University and a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University
history is a powerful teaching tool. To research local history enables students to reflect about American history in new ways. It can foster debate, it can help to retell history, and it can provide new insights into the importance and significance of history. For us who are engaged in promoting the significance of the Underground Railroad, education courses can connect the stories of individual sites to the bigger picture of the UGRR story. For ten years, I taught a summer institute at Northern Kentucky University for classroom teachers in collaboration with local school districts as well as historical sites in Kentucky and Ohio. Come to this session and hear how it was organized, collaborations among local historical sites, school field trips to local heritage museums it inspired, and the impact it had not only on classroom teachers but their elementary, middle and high school students. Every year, the course had
maximum capacity enrollment. This highly successful summer institute also used technology to showcase the narrative and interpretive nature of history. We can discuss how to replicate it with other heritage sites with the cooperation of schools.
Denise Dallmer is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Education at Indiana University East. Before coming to IU East she was a faculty member for fifteen years at Northern Kentucky University where she taught a graduate level course for teachers about the Underground Railroad. As part of a faculty research grant, she travelled to Senegal and Goree Island to work with teachers there. She collaborated with WCET (PBS affiliate) to write curriculum entitled, “Safe Passage”. She holds an undergraduate degree in International Studies from Miami University and a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University