AHF’s 2009 SUPER (School and University Partners for Educational Renewal) Teacher Program calendar concluded September 28-29 with a follow-up meeting to this summer’s teacher institute “Slavery in America: Public Amnesia, Historical Memory,” held June 28-July 3. A partnership project of AHF and the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH), with additional support provided by the Rosa Parks Museum at Troy University Montgomery and Old Town Alabama, the Institute and two-day follow-up took place in Montgomery and brought 21 elementary and secondary teachers from across the state together with 22 scholars and specialists from the ADAH to explore the history and legacy of African and African-American slavery in Alabama and the greater U.S.

Session topics included: “Slavery and Alabama’s Political and Economic Development,” “Challenges and Complexities of Teaching Slavery,” “Slavery in Africa,” “The Transatlantic Slave Trade,” “Slavery and the Atlantic World,” “The Interstate Slave Trade,” “The Amistad Story: A Literary Perspective,” “The Master/Slave Relationship,” “Day-to-day Life and Resistance in the Slave South,” “Enslaved Women,” “Slavery in the City,” “Textiles and Technology,” “Abolition and the Proslavery Argument,” “Slavery and the Civil War,” “Emancipation and Reconstruction,” “The Struggle for Civil Rights: The Unfinished Civil War.”

Additionally, there was a panel discussion addressing how myth becomes fact, a tour of significant sites in downtown Montgomery, and seven workshops focusing on practical applications and integrating primary sources in the classroom. Participants received CEUs, numerous texts, which were assigned readings prior to the summer Institute, CD Powerpoints of almost all sessions and a CD of historic documents and artifacts from the ADAH’s vast holdings.

Thanks to the passionate and dynamic teachers and presenters who made SUPER 2009 a success on multiple levels. Special thanks to lead scholar, Timothy R. Buckner, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History, Troy University; Ed Bridges, Ph.D., Director, ADAH; Susan DuBose, Education Specialist, ADAH; and Georgette Norman, Director, Rosa Parks Museum, Troy University Montgomery.

A second, weeklong SUPER Teacher Institute was held in Birmingham. The Institute, “American Literature: From the Puritans to the Civil War,” held July 13-17, was led by Gale Temple, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English, UAB. Two one-day immersion workshops for French (Birmingham, June 16) and Spanish (Huntsville, July 30) language teachers, were conducted by Catherine Danielou, Ph.D., Associate Professor of French and Associate Dean, UAB School of Arts and Humanities, and Barbara Domcekova, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Spanish, Birmingham-Southern College, respectively.

Annually, AHF conducts 2-3 weeklong institutes and 2-4 one-day workshops in various locations around the state, serving 80-120 teachers. For more information on SUPER, click here. To learn of SUPER 2010 institutes, be sure to read AHF’s Winter/Spring issue of Mosaic.

Written by: Thomas B.

A summary of the Institute and its aim follows:
For generations, Southerners have made the effort to remove the protection of slavery as a primary cause of the Civil War; going so far as to deny the evidence presented in ordinances of secession as well as state constitutions and the Confederate Constitution itself. The veneration of the Civil War as the romantic “Lost Cause” has influenced how school boards have selected texts, how teachers have chosen to teach, and most importantly, how students have come to understand the history of their country, region and state.

The ultimate goal is for us to move away from modern political assumptions and get ourselves and our students to think historically about how the influence of slavery has shaped America.

This historical blind spot is not just the creation of a national obsession with the Civil War. Scholars and the public alike have welcomed discussions about race in Alabama, but for the most part only by focusing on the Civil Rights Movement. No one denies the importance of that struggle, but the brightness of the light shined upon the mid-twentieth century has left the efforts of enslaved men and women in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in relative darkness.

The purpose of this institute is to provide teachers in the state of Alabama with a deeper understanding of the simultaneous development of freedom and un-freedom and importance of the enslaved as well as history of the state, region and nation. The ultimate goal is for us to move away from modern political assumptions and get ourselves and our students to think historically about how the influence of slavery has shaped America.

Institute sessions will include an overview of slavery in a broad world-wide context, as well as the effect of the transatlantic slave trade on the formation of the American colonies, the contradictions inherent in founding a nation of liberty wherein twenty percent of its population lived as slaves, and the implications that this had for the history of Alabama. Click here for session topics and a list of lead scholars.

As with all SUPER Institutes, participants are expected to complete a hefty amount of directed reading prior to the beginning of the program. This year, for the first time, participating teachers will benefit from a blog set up by Dr. Buckner exclusively for teachers to share with each other and Dr. Buckner their ideas, questions, impressions regarding the readings and thoughts about other Institute-related topics prior to the June 28-July 3 program, and afterward to the follow-up workshop in September.

For more information about this program, other 2009 SUPER institutes, and the SUPER Teacher Program, in general, please contact me directly at 205.558.3997

Significant support for this Institute is provided by Old Alabama Town and the Rosa Parks Museum & Library at Troy University Montgomery. Application turnout was strong, as expected, with 4th-12th grade teachers of a surprisingly broad range of subjects applying. The Institute is now fully booked with a waiting list!

Written by: Thomas B.