connections

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea One way to examine a teacher’s personal connection to their students’ community is to ask them to create a hand-drawn map, based on memory, of the neighborhood where they teach. My study found that teachers whose maps represented personal ties to the community, including local businesses or cultural spaces, were observed to be more skilled at making connections to the everyday experiences of their students. This supports previous research that shows the more connected teachers are to their students’ neighborhoods, the more authentically they can incorporate local resources, history and concerns into their classroom teaching. For example, they might incorporate interviews with students’ families into an Englis...

Alexander Hamilton has received a resurgence of interest in recent years on the back of the smash Broadway musical bearing his name. But alongside tales of his role in the Revolutionary War and in forging the early United States, the spotlight has also fallen on a less savory aspect of his life: his apparent complicity in the institution of slavery. Despite being a founding member of the New York Manumission Society, which sought gradual emancipation of New York’s enslaved population, Hamilton benefited from slavery – both personally and by association. As a historian of early America and Northern slavery, I study how Colonial-era figures like Hamilton fit into America’s long history of enslavement, and how slavery fueled networks of power that have lasted through the ages. A life entwin...

Tag: connections

South Central LA Teachers With Personal Ties To The Neighborhood Made Better Connections With Students

The Need For Reparations Today – What Alexander Hamilton’s Deep Connections To Slavery Reveal