SAMPLE
LESSONS:
LESSON PLAN on SCHOOL INTEGRATION
IN BOSTON AND NANTUCKET
by: Elaine Cawley Weintraub,
Ed.D
Age Level: Students:
10th-12th grade
Standards:
Meets Massachusetts Learning Standards for history. This lesson
plan addresses chronology and cause (standard 1), historical understanding
(standard 2), research, evidence and point of view (standard 3),
society, diversity, commonality and the individual (standard 4),
and inter-disciplinary learning of ethics, religion and literature
in history.
Materials Needed:
1.Timeline of the desegregation of the Boston and Nantucket
Schools from Massachusetts Studies Project website;
2. PBS film "Nantucket Rock of Changes"
which features the story of Eunice Ross and the integration of the
Nantucket High School;
3. Choosing to Participate
(published by Facing History and Ourselves, Newton, Mass.) focusing
on the story of the nine students who integrated Central High School,
Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957;
4. Resource book Race and membership
in American history, published by Facing History and Ourselves,
Newton, Massachusetts.
5. "Education and Segregation: African
Americans", chapter 4 in Deculturalization and the Struggle for
Equality, by Joel Spring, McGraw Hill, 1997.
6. Local newspaper and government
archives;
Possible additional sources:
Extensive resources in African American
history are available; biographies of Ruby Bridges, Phyllis Wheatley,
film "Keep your eyes on the prize" and the Choosing to Participate
exhibition, details of which are available on http://www.facinghistory.org.
Time Needed:
The reading and archival research and searching of internet sources
can be done, to some extent, outside of the classroom, but at least
five class periods of approximately 45 minutes will be necessary.
Methodology:
Introduce a copy of the time line to the students in the classroom
drawing their attention to the dates of desegregation in Boston
and Nantucket, and eliciting discussion about separate educational
facilities.
• Leading questions to elicit
discussion and response:
1. What might have been the motivation
of those who opposed integrated schools?
2. What might have been the disadvantage
to people of African descent in being educated in integrated schools?
3. Eunice Ross was finally admitted
to the Nantucket High School when she was in her twenties, and of
the Little Rock nine only two graduated from Central High. Is the
price of being the political pawn unbearable?
4. The struggle to integrate public
schooling in Boston led to a historic decision where Justice Lemuel
Shaw ruled that "separate but equal" a finding which later became
the basis for the Supreme Court's decision in Plessey v Ferguson
which effectively reinforced segregation in the United States. What
do you think would been Justice Shaw's reasoning, and what kind
of information would have been available to him?
• Divide students into groups
of four where they can work together to discuss the issues, respond
to the essential questions, and generate questions of their own.
• Show the film "Nantucket Rock
of Changes" (45 minutes) and distribute the story of the Little
Rock nine to the students.
• Each group should present a
list of similarities and differences on chart paper between the
cases of Eunice Ross and the Central high school students. They
should bring their list to the front of the class and present their
work, supporting their opinions factually.
• Using the charts, the teacher
should act as facilitator to prompt students to consider the issues
in Nantucket, Boston and Little Rock and decide what were the factors
working against integration and what were the factors working for
it? What is the price paid for integration in terms of human suffering
and any other potential losses?
• The teacher and students share
a guided reading of "Education and Segregation: African Americans"
noting where information is given in that reading that may answer
lingering questions, cast doubts on opinions given and extend the
classroom discussion.
Assignment:
Students write an essay or a series of poems or an illustrated journal
in the first person using the sources that have been provided and
at least two other sources to tell the story of the integration
of education in Boston and Nantucket.
Further activities:
A study of the eugenics movement and its impact on people of color
in the United States, a study of the life of Ruby Bridges (integration
in Louisiana), the Civil Rights struggle in the 1960's and 1970's
in the southern United States, a study of the Boston busing crisis
following the school integration order in the 1970's, an archival
search in one's own town, searching newspaper archives and town
meeting minutes to trace the history of school integration in one's
own district.
