It felt as though you could almost touch the sparks of ideas flying in Katonah Elementary’s fifth grade classrooms. It was exciting enough that Lisbeth Arce’s eighth grade students were visiting to share their presentations on the Civil Rights Movement. What made it extra empowering was that the fifth graders were midway through their own research into the same events!
The inter-grade level exchange, organized by instructional coaches Melissa Brady and Alison Porcelli, led everyone to a deeper level of learning.
Porcelli highlighted the impact that the eighth graders’ knowledge and passion had on the younger students. Arce agreed. “It was truly a privilege to see both the age groups so deeply involved in learning and sharing,” she said.
Emmett Till. Brown v. Board of Education. Ruby Bridges. The Little Rock Nine. The March on Washington. The eighth graders presenting in Lynn Garofolo, Craig Jettelson, Geneve Patterson and Erin Davies’ classrooms gave succinct overviews of the pivotal events and courageous change makers in the American Civil Rights Movement.
A Civil Rights Movement bulletin board in the fifth-grade hallway featured some of the same concepts that the older students were discussing. Segregation. Desegregation. Equality. Fairness. Discrimination.
With gravitas that reflected the significance of the topics, the older students highlighted facts and quotes that resonated with them the most—bringing hope for today into the study of the past.
In the presentation on Bloody Sunday, the civil rights march in Selma, Alabama, during which marchers were attacked by state troopers, the eighth grader noted that the marchers were beaten, but kept going. One of the marchers was John Lewis. His skull was fractured; he later served in Congress.
“If you have a goal, keep working towards it,” she said. “There will be hard things along the way, just keep trying.”
Each presentation included time for a Q&A, and for the fifth graders to share the topics they are researching with the middle school students.
“Of all of the events you researched, which impacted you the most?” one of the fifth graders asked the eighth graders.
“It is one storyline,” the student replied. “Everything connects.”