Black History Month at Godwin

The month of February is nationally known as Black History Month in which we remember the important events and figures of the past who belonged to the African American community.  Here at Godwin many teachers are taking the month into their own hands by doing activities in their class that they feel demonstrate an appreciation of the African American culture.

Twentieth century teacher Chris Pearson invited vice principal Sandra Justice, math teacher Thomas Hoy, and longtime custodian Thomas Threat to come in and share their experiences and recollection of the Civil Rights era and racial tension as a whole.

I think it was a really good experience for the students because it allows them to put a face to the stories and a time period they never knew,” said Pearson.

Last year Pearson did the same activity with his 20th century classes. However, this year Hoy was invited to share his experiences as well.  This was done to add a white person’s perspective to the class.

“It was really interesting listening to their stories.  There were many things I didn’t know about some of the employees here at Godwin,” said Sophomore Harry Trippeer.

Another lesson was done by math teacher John Fletcher with all of his freshman classes.  At the beginning of the class he showed a short video about the presence of racism in sit coms.

Fletcher then proceeded in showing the class an episode of the Cosby show.  It was explained to the class that the show was the first to portray an African American family in a positive light.

“The Cosby Show was more about a family that happened to be African American rather than an African American,” said Fletcher.

The show helped relate African American families with other families because it was evident that they shared many of the same issues and experiences.

“The Cosby Show was before my time so it was cool seeing the effect it had on America when it first came out,” said freshman Preston Hutchison.

In English teacher Dale Svor’s class, they discussed Richard Wright’s Black Boy and the changes in the civil rights movement from the time it was written until now. English teacher Mary Mordica showed a documentary on Nelson Mandela to a few of her classes.

Many other classes discussed African Americans that were pertinent to their specific subject. Some physics classes discussed influential African American physicists and many Spanish classes completed activities regarding important Afro-latinos in history.