Tag Archives: Teacher Activists

Chalkboard Champion Emma Hart Willard advocates for girls’ education

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Chalkboard champion, educator, and advocate of education for women Emma Hart Willard

One of the most influential educators in American history is Chalkboard Champion Emma Hart Willard, a teacher and women’s rights advocate from New England. In a time when most women were restricted to the role of homemakers, Emma advanced the cause of making higher education available for girls.

Emma was born on Feb. 23, 1787, in Berlin, Connecticut. Even at a young age, her intelligence was evident. Even though she was a female, her father nurtured her intellectual development. By the time she was 17 years old, Emma was teaching at the academy where she had been a student. By the time she was 19 she was the principal of the school.

In 1809, Emma married Dr. John Hart, and the couple had one son together. After her marriage, Emma and her family moved to Vermont. There she opened her own boarding school for girls. She taught her young students courses in science, mathematics, philosophy, geography, and history. The experience put her in a fine position to advocate for an institution of higher learning for female students.

In 1821, Emma persuaded the leadership of Troy, New York, to sponsor the founding of an institution of higher learning for girls. The school became known as the Troy Female Seminary, the first higher education institution for women in the country. The school was an immediate success, and upper class families began to send their daughters to Troy. Her example inspired other private institutions to open their doors to girls. Emma served as the principal of Troy Female Seminary until 1838. By that time, hundreds of graduates of the school—many of them teachers—had been shaped by her philosophy.

In addition to paving the way for advanced educational opportunities for girls in New York, Emma traveled widely throughout the country and in Europe, where she advocated more schools of higher learning be established. She founded an all-girls school in similar to the Troy School in Athens, Greece. She also wrote textbooks for American history and geography. In addition, she published a volume of poetry.

This Chalkboard Champion passed away on April 15, 1870, in Troy, New York. She is interred in Oakwood Cemetery in Troy. In 1905, this amazing educator was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in Bronx, New York. She was also inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2013. The school that Emma Hart Willard founded in Troy still exists today, although it is now known as the Emma Willard School.

To read more about Emma Hart Willard, click on this link to Encyclopedia Britanica.

Teacher Winchel Bacon: Part of the Underground Railroad

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Teacher Winchel Bacon: Abolitionist and member of the Underground Railroad.

In many cases hardworking school teachers become involved in important social causes. This is true of Winchel Bacon, a schoolteacher, farmer, businessman, and politician from Waukesha, Wisconsin, who participated in the Underground Railroad.

Winchel was born August 21, 1816, in Stillwater, New York, the son of Samuel and Lydia Barber Bacon. For two years, he worked as a clerk in Troy, New York, before joining his parents in their 1837 move to Butternuts, New York. On July 4, 1838, the young Winchel married Delia Blackwell, a native of Butternuts. For four years the couple ran a farm in Butternuts, while Winchel taught school in the village during the winters.

On September 2, 1841, the Bacons ventured west. They travelled from Utica to Buffalo, New York, by steamer, and from there to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. From Milwaukee the young schoolmaster and his wife traveled west to what was then called Prairieville. This town in now known as Waukesha. There they settled for the remainder for their lives. Winchel continued to farm and teach school. From 1843, this intrepid pioneer ran a local newspaper and engaged in the wagon-making and blacksmithing business, in partnership with his brother-in-law Charles Blackwell and his friend, Edmund Clinton. In 1850 Winchel traded the business he’d built in Waukesha for a steam-powered sawmill located in nearby Brookfield.

Prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, the abolitionist schoolteacher participated in the Underground Railroad. He even sheltered at least one fugitive slave in his own home. He was also active in organizing first the Liberty Party and then the Free Soil Party in Wisconsin. In 1852, he was elected to one term in the Assembly from Waukesha as a Free Soiler. Additionally, Winchel took an active role during the Civil War. In 1863, he was appointed paymaster in the army by President Lincoln. He was stationed at St. Louis.

After the war, Winchel used his influence to establish the Reform School located at Waukesha. As an acting commissioner, he had charge of the school’s accounts and disbursed the money until the school was opened. For several years he was a trustee of the State Insane Hospital. He also served as a trustee of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum. He was president of the Waukesha Agricultural Society for several years, and also served as a member of the Chicago University’s Board of Trustees. He was also a member of the Masonic Order of the Knights Templar.

In his later years, the former teacher was afflicted with a heart condition. At the age of 78, Winchel passed away at his home on March 20, 1894. He is buried in Prairie Home Cemetery in Waukesha County, Wisconsin.

Fannie Richards: A teacher who worked for social change

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Detroit’s Fannie Richards, a dedicated teacher who worked for positive social change.

For me, one of the best characteristics of teachers is their willingness, ability, and dedication towards bringing about positive social change. A wonderful example of this is Fannie Richards. She was a Michigan schoolteacher who worked to desegregate Detroit public schools.

Fannie Richards was born on October 1, 1840, in Fredericksberg, Virginia. Her parents were free African Americans. As a young child, Fannie’s family moved to Toronto, Canada, where Fannie was enrolled in school. When she grew up, Fannie traveled to Germany, where she worked with innovative educator Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel to develop the first kindergartens. When she completed this work, Fannie returned to the United States and settled in Detroit, Michigan.

Always eager to learn new skills, Fannie enrolled at the Teachers Training School in Detroit. After her graduation, she became passionate about educating the African-American community of Detroit. Even decades before the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, Fannie was advocating desegregation in Detroit schools. In 1863, while the Civil War was still raging, she opened a private school for African-American children in Detroit. A few years later, the Detroit Public School system opened a school for Black children, and when Fannie learned the school board planned to open a second school, she applied for a teaching position. In 1869, she was hired to teach in Colored School #2, the first African American teacher to work in Detroit Public Schools.

To Fannie’s delight, in 1871, the Michigan State Supreme Court ordered the integration of Michigan schools. That same year, the school board transferred Fannie to the newly desegregated Everett Elementary School. She taught there for 44 years. Fannie was known for her devotion to the children, using modern pedagogic methods, and maintaining a high standard of scholarship.

Fannie Richards retired in 1922 after more than fifty years as an educator. This chalkboard champion passed away on February 13, 1922, at the age of 81. She is buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit.

To learn more about Fannie, click on this link to the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.

Freedom Schools founded in 1964 helped southern African Americans vote

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Freedom Schools were opened in southern states as part of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. The most famous ones were established in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964.

One of the most interesting type of schools I have ever studied about are Freedom Schools. These unique schools were temporary alternative schools opened in southern states as part of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. The most famous ones were established in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964.

Freedom schools were the brainchild of New York math teacher Bob Moses. Under his direction, the schools were organized and staffed by White political activists, teachers, and college students. They came from all over the United States to participate in the endeavor.

The goal of the summer program was to empower the disenfranchised African American community to register to vote and to exercise their Constitutionally-guaranteed rights to political participation. Volunteers also hoped to help bridge some of the gap created by educational neglect. The neglect had long been rampant in states ruled by Jim Crow laws. Both Black and White citizens realized that only through education and participation in the democratic process could African Americans ever hope to improve their lot.

The enterprise was not without danger. On the first day of Freedom Summer, three volunteers involved in the program—Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney—disappeared. They were investigating the firebombing of the church facility in Mississippi designated for their voter recruitment activities. Six weeks later, the badly beaten and bullet-ridden bodies of the three missing men were discovered buried in an earthen dam in nearby Neshoba County, Mississippi.

To learn more about freedom schools and Freedom Summer, click on this link to the History Channel.

Teacher Lori Aldaheff becomes advocate for school safety after her daughter is slain

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Lori Alhadeff

Health and physical education teacher and coach Lori Alhadeff  became a tireless advocate for school safety after her daughter, Alyssa, was slain in the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

There are many examples of fine educators who have devoted their energies to activist pursuits. One of these is Lori Alhadeff, a health and physical education teacher whose daughter was slain in the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. In the wake of this tragedy, Lori has become an activist and outspoken advocate for  gun control.

Lori Robinovitz was born on February 11, 1975, in Hillsborough Township, New Jersey. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Health and Physical Education from the College of New Jersey, a public university in Ewing, New Jersey. She completed her Master’s degree in Education at Gratz College, a private Jewish university located in Melrose Park, Pennsylvania..

Once she earned her degrees, Lori taught for four years in New Jersey’s Union Township School District. There she also coached volleyball, softball, and cheerleading. She also worked for one year for the Windward School where she taught children with dyslexia and language-based learning disabilities and coached cheerleading. After she married Dr. Ilan Alhadeff and had three children, Lori became a stay-at-home mother and devoted many years to coaching soccer.

Tragically, Lori’s 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa Alhadeff, was one of 17 students and teachers killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on February 14, 2018. The next day, Lori appeared on CNN where she made an impassioned plea to President Donald Trump to increase school security. But Lori was not content to merely talk. She founded a nonprofit organization she named Make Our Schools Safe with the goal of providing safety strategies designed to meet the specific needs of each school. These strategies include installing metal detectors, bullet-resistant glass, and additional fencing and gates. The month after her daughter was killed, Lori traveled to Tallahassee to work towards the passage of Florida Senate Bill 7026, legislation which provided some statewide gun control and school safety measures. She also participated in the March for Our Lives rally in Washington, DC.

In August, 2018, Lori was elected to the Broward County School Board, which serves the sixth-largest district in the country. When the votes were counted, she had earned a whopping 65% of them.

Lori Alhadeff: a true Chalkboard Champion.