Tag Archives: African American Teachers

STEM educator Sharita Ware named Indiana’s 2022 Teacher of the Year

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Congratulations to Sharita Ware of Lafayette, Indiana, who has been named her state’s 2022 Teacher of the Year. Photo credit: Purdue University

Congratulations to Sharita Ware, an engineering and technology education teacher from Lafayette, Indiana! She has been named her state’s 2022 Teacher of the Year.

In her tenth year as a professional educator, Sharita teaches seventh and eighth graders at East Tipp Middle School at the Tippecanoe School Corporation in Lafayette. Her real-world, problem-based curriculum presents students with challenges that will help them contribute to their community. Included among the projects her students have worked on are designing prosthetic legs for Barbie dolls, building race cars, and programming robots.

Sharita also hosts after-school activities which provide students with opportunities to be innovative and creative through such programs as FIRST Lego League, the Monday Maker Hour, and March Maker Magic. “Our maker space gives kids freedom. You will have desired learning outcomes, but the way that they get to that learning outcome could be totally different from student to student and group to group,” says Sharita. “It is messy, and it’s hard for some teachers to have it be that messy. Sometimes, you think, ‘Is anything happening here?’ Kids will do projects completely different from each other, but they will learn the same thing,” she continued. “It’s pretty awesome to watch — if your nerves can handle it,” she concluded.

Sharita earned her Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering Technology from the Purdue Polytechnic Institute in 1993. She earned her Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction from Purdue University in 2013. In addition, she is certified in the Gateway to Technology program sponsored by Project Lead The Way. She worked in engineering and marketing in the private sector for a number of years before become an educator.

In addition to her honors as Indiana State Teacher of the Year, Sharita is a Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellow in the STEM Goes Rural program at Purdue University. She was also involved in the College of Technology Leadership and Innovation Advisory Board from 2014 to 2019.

Read more about Sharita Ware in this article published by Purdue University.

Teacher Dorothy Randolph Peterson promoted the Harlem Renaissance

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Teacher Dorothy Randolph Peterson was active in promoting the Harlem Renaissance and preserving African American art and culture. Photo credit: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Often, fine educators dedicate their considerable energy and passion to serving the interests of art and culture. One of these was Dorothy Randolph Parker, a New York City teacher who actively promoted the Harlem Renaissance and worked to preserve African American art and culture.

Dorothy was born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 21, 1897. She was the daughter of diplomat Jerome Bowers Peterson, who worked as the US Consul in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela for one year, and Deputy Collector for the Internal Revenue Service, including several years in San Juan, Puerto Rico. During her childhood, Dorothy lived in Venezuela from July, 1904, to July, 1905, and in Puerto Rico from July, 1913, to July, 1920.

After her graduation from a Puerto Rican high school, she completed some classes at a university on the island. In the 1920s she relocated to Harlem, where she taught Spanish and attended New York University. In Harlem, Dorothy hosted literary salons, which were in vogue in those days. She also served as an early patron of Fire!!, a quarterly journal which promoted young Black artists.

With friend and librarian Regina Anderson, Dorothy co-founded the Negro Experimental Theater, also known as the Harlem Experimental Theater, in 1929. Even writer and historian WEB DuBois was involved in the enterprise. The group performed plays written by young Black authors. At least one of these plays was written by Regina Anderson herself. The theater’s largest and most successful performance was “Wade in the Water,” in 1929. The play starred Dorothy alongside prominent Harlem Renaissance actress Laura Bowman. The Harlem Experimental Theater became an inspiration to similar theater groups all over the country, and an encouragement to Black playwrights.

Later Dorothy worked to preserve African American art and culture. To achieve this goal, she founded the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and Letters at Yale University and the Jerome Bowers Peterson Collection of Photographs of Celebrated Heroes at Wadleigh High School in Harlem.

Dorothy passed away on November 4, 1978,

 

Maryland’s Keishia Thorpe garners prestigious Global Teacher Prize

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Maryland teacher Keishia Thorpe has been named this year’s recipient of the prestigious Global Teacher Prize. She was selected from more than 8,000 educators from 121 countries around the world. Photo credit: Twitter

Hearty applause goes to high school English teacher Keishia Thorpe, who has been named as this year’s recipient of the prestigious Global Teacher Prize. She was selected for the honor from more than 8,000 nominated educators working in 121 countries from around the world.

Keshia teaches at International High School Langley Park in Bladensburg, Prince George’s County, Maryland. She is credited with redesigning the twelfth-grade curriculum for her school’s English Department, making the courses culturally relevant for her students, who comprise first-generation Americans, immigrants, or refugees. These students come primarily from countries in Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, South America, and Central America. Her work has resulted in a 40% increase in her students’ reading scores. In addition, Keishia has been successful in helping many high school students gain fully-funded scholarships. In fact, she helped seniors win $6.7 million in scholarships in 2018-2019 alone.

Keishia says, as an immigrant to the United States herself, she has personally experienced the struggles of underprivileged students. She came to this country from Jamaica on a track and field scholarship. With her twin sister Dr. Treisha Thorpe, Keishia founded a non-profit organization called US Elite International Track and Field, Inc. The organization strives to help at-risk student-athletes from around the globe connect with college coaches to access fully-funded scholarships in the US.

“Every child needs a champion, an adult who will never ever give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists they become the very best they can be,” asserts Keishia. “This is why teachers will always matter. Teachers matter,” she continues.

As part of her Global Teacher Prize, Keishia will receive a $1 million from the Varkey Foundation. In addition to this recognition, Keishia earned a Medal of Excellence from Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland for her work in influencing equitable policies in education. She also garnered the National Life Changer of the Year in 2018-2019 award, an honor given to teachers who inspire and go above and beyond for their students and exemplifying excellence, positive influence, and leadership.

Chicago teacher Marva Collins earned national recognition

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Chicago schoolteacher Marva Collins earned national recognition for her innovative teaching methods. Photo credit: ricochet.com

Many talented educators come from humble backgrounds, yet manage to make the most of their modest beginnings. Such is the case with Marva Collins, a Chicago educator who earned national recognition for her innovative teaching methods.

Marva Delores Knight was born August 31, 1936, in Monroeville, Alabama, the first of two daughters born to businessman Henry and Bessie (Nettles) Knight. Raised in the heart of the segregated South, Marva attended a one-room school house and learned first-hand about the substandard educational opportunities offered to African American students. Nevertheless, her father expected her to study hard and succeed.

As a young woman, Marva attended Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia. After college, she taught school for two years. In 1959, the young woman moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she met and married draftsman Clarence Collins. The couple had three children. For the next 14 years, while raising her family, Marva worked as a substitute teacher in the Chicago School District.

Marva became concerned with youngsters she believed were not being served well by the school system, so in 1975 she withdrew $5,000 from her retirement account and founded a private school on the second floor of her home in the Chicago neighborhood of Garfield Park. Thus was born the Westside Preparatory School. Only a few students enrolled, but the dedicated educator resolved that her school would be open to any student who was not succeeding in the larger school systems, particularly low-income children, and those who’d been diagnosed with irremediable learning disabilities. At the end of the first year of the school’s operation, every student enrolled in Westside Prep earned test scores significantly higher than they had scored in previous years.

Marva’s methods became known as the Collins Method. Her program centered on phonics, math, reading, Language Arts, and the classics. She was also a big believer in the Socratic Method, which emphasizes learning through asking questions and engaging in dialogue with peers. “The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another,” Marva once said.

The talented educator and her innovative school quickly became a national story, featured in stories in the magazines Time and Newsweek and in television news programs 60 Minutes and Good Morning America. In 1982, the story of Marva’s life and school were the subjects of a television movie starring powerhouse actors Cicely Tyson and Morgan Freeman.

For her pioneering teaching methods, Marva was honored with the Watson Washburn Award from the Reading Reform Foundation (1978), the Jefferson Award for Public Service (1981) and the Humanitarian Award for Excellence. Marva also received the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Monroe County Heritage Association during Black History Month (1994). In addition, she was awarded honorary doctorates from Amherst, Dartmouth, and Notre Dame. President George W. Bush honored the chalkboard champion with the National Humanities Medal (2004). To read more about this amazing teacher, click on the link for www.biography.com or the link For the Kids’ Sake.

Sadly, Marva Collins died of natural causes on June 24, 2015, in Beaufort County, South Carolina. She was 78 years old.

Black History Month inaugurated by teacher Carter Godwin Woodson

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Carter Godwin Woodson, the American school teacher who created Black History Month, an annual celebration of the many outstanding contributions African Americans have made to our country. Photo credit: Public Domain

This February, socially conscious teachers all over the United States are launching their classes into Black History Month, an annual celebration of the many outstanding contributions African Americans have made to our country. But did you know that Black History Month, itself, was the brainchild of a brilliant American teacher?

Educator Carter Godwin Woodson is credited with organizing and advocating annual Black History Month celebrations in American schools. He is also recognized as the first African American born of enslaved parents to earn a PhD in History. Admittedly, these are noteworthy accomplishments. But there is so much more to this brilliant man’s life story than is usually publicized.

Did you know that, as a youngster, Carter was forced to work on the family farm rather than attend school? Nevertheless, he taught himself to read using the Bible and local newspapers. He didn’t finish high school until he was 20 years old. Did you know that Carter once worked as a coal miner in Fayette County, West Virginia, and then later went back there to teach school to the children of Black coal miners, serving as a model for using education to get out of the mines? Did you know that Carter taught school in the Philippines, and then became the supervisor of schools, which included duties as a trainer of teachers, there? And did you know that he was one of the first to study African American history, to collect data, oral histories, and documents, and to publish his findings in a scholarly magazine he published, The Journal of Negro History? 

To read more about this fascinating historical figure, check out my book, Chalkboard Champions.