Making the Unique, Universal - Hooray For Monday

June 10, 2024

By Michelle Welk, Marketing & Communications Specialist

Listen to this week’s Hooray For Monday podcast to hear Michelle’s conversation with Eleanor Brosowsky, a 23-24 Real World History student, who shares her reflections on the course — and for an announcement from Cosby Hunt, Real World History creator and instructor.

Inspired Teaching’s Real World History program is consistently praised by student participants. They say it has enabled them to connect with peers they would otherwise never meet; helped them better understand the world and the communities around them; and sharpened their critical thinking, time management, and professionalism skills.

Real World History instructor and Director of Youth Programming at Inspired Teaching Cosby Hunt with Real World History students during a tour of Washington, DC cultural landmarks.

Quotes from students include:

“This is the best class of my junior year.”

“It is a much more in-depth and interactive history course than regular classes … and it’s taught by two very exuberant, professional, and overall excellent teachers who take time to form relationships with their pupils.”

“This class has shown me how meaningful connections to our neighbors, and especially our elderly community members, can be.”

In addition to being a credit-bearing course offered to DC high school students, Real World History was created to serve as a model of the Inspired Teaching Approach in action. For nearly a decade, feedback like that above has proven that the learning experience can be authentically engaging, academically rigorous, and joyful. And that is something that all educators can replicate for students everywhere.

In this week’s Hooray For Monday podcast, you can hear more about Real World History from current student, Eleanor Brosowsky, a 10th grader at School Without Walls in Washington, DC and finalist in the National History Day competition for her website on the Evian Conference. For high school students in DC that may be interested in taking the course in the 2024-2025 school year, more information and the application are available here.

Here are three ways to bring the lessons of Real World History into your classroom and activities to get you started:

Center Student Expertise

The Real World History curriculum includes participation in National History Day, a nationwide project-based contest for students in grades 6-12. Instructor Cosby Hunt gives students a theme — this year’s was “Turning Points in History”— but they are empowered to interpret and execute that prompt in whichever medium, with whatever historical focus, they choose.

Graffiti Board

Let Students be Teachers

Profile Pages

Get Hands-On

From their oral history projects in the fall to 100-hour internships in the spring, Real World History students have ample opportunity to apply what they’ve learned in theory to what they’ll do in practice. Fully engaged students are engaged intellectually, emotionally and physically.

Escape Rooms

Let Go of Deliver

Take a Break and Move

Celebrate the Learning Process

The oral histories students capture are archived at the DC Public Library; their work throughout the semester — researching, interviewing, editing, transcribing — lives on far beyond their time in the Real World History and serves an important role in recording DC history for the whole community to appreciate and learn from.

Make Praise Meaningful

Scribe’s Record

What Will They Learn?

For additional insights, resources, and information on Inspired Teaching teacher and youth programming, subscribe to the Hooray For Monday newsletter!

Hooray For Monday is an award-winning weekly publication by Center for Inspired Teaching, an independent nonprofit organization that invests in and supports teachers. Inspired Teaching provides transformative, improvisation-based professional learning for teachers that is 100% engaging – intellectually, emotionally, and physically. Our mission is to create radical change in the school experience – away from compliance and toward authentic engagement.

Listen to This Week’s Episode of Hooray For Monday

InspiredTeaching · June 10, 2024: Making the Unique, Universal

Dr. Michelle Edwards

Director; Founder & CEO, The Idari Collective

Dr. Edwards is the Founder and CEO of the Idari Collective. Idari means leadership in the Yoruba language. The Idari Collective is a coaching, mentoring, and consulting firm whose mission is to come alongside leaders, especially Black women leaders, so that they will thrive in leading their personal and professional lives.

She is a native Chicagoan and a career educator who found her way to the East Coast as a resident principal in New Leaders, Inc. during its inaugural year in Washington DC. She also served as a principal in Anacostia at Orr Elementary for almost a decade. Michelle returned to New Leaders in 2013 as the Director of the Emerging Leaders Program. Dr. Edwards served for nearly seven years as the Executive Director at Live It Learn It, an experiential learning nonprofit located in Washington, DC that partners with schools and cultural institutions to create and deliver experiential learning opportunities for Black and Brown elementary-aged students.

She earned a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania and received a Certificate in Executive Nonprofit Management from Georgetown University. Michelle is a graduate of Creative Results Management, where she was trained to coach. Dr. Edwards also advocates for social justice and racial reconciliation as a leader of the DC Unity and Justice Fellowship, a new 501c3 in Washington, DC where she serves as the inaugural Board Chair. She is a trained Urban Missionary, a proud, 25+ year-member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and the mother of two adult sons, Darren and Dante.

Meag Campos

Project Manager

With over ten years of experience in education, Meag Campos is dedicated to making learning accessible for all students and to supporting their social-emotional growth. Her career spans working with elementary through high school students, during which she has served as a Teacher, Learning Specialist, and Instructional Coach.

She holds a Master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on literacy leadership from the University of New Orleans. Her passion for education is matched by her love for reading and exploring the world with her husband and two sons.

Micaiah Anderson

Community Outreach Specialist

As a Community Outreach Specialist, Micaiah is responsible for program promotion and outreach support for Inspired Teaching events and workshops. Micaiah has a passion for collaborating with community members to build-power and connect. She is an educator with a heart for youth and has experience supporting students fight injustices within their schools and communities. She has a BA in Political Science from, the real HU, Hampton University & anticipates graduating in May 2024 with a Masters of Arts degree in Educational Policy Transformation from Georgetown University.

AUTONOMY

"I want to have a say in what happens to me."

Autonomy is the need for independence; the ability to make choices, to create, to explore, and to express oneself freely; to have sufficient space, to move around, and to feel unrestricted with opportunities to exercise free will.

Brady Maiden

Speak Truth Faculty

As Speak Truth Faculty, Brady helps to lead one of our model youth programs. She provides training and support to high school students as they lead and engage in Speak Truth discussions on issues important in their lives. Brady has her Master’s in Public Policy from George Mason University and her BS in Political Science from Northern Arizona University. She is passionate about community, equity, and coalition building recognizing that learning and growing with the community at large is how we continue to be impactful.

What brings you joy in life?

I find joy in spending time with my friends and family and meeting new people. I like going to concerts and festivals, and finding new books to read.

The Learner’s Cycle, Wonder-Experiment-Learn, and the Teacher’s Cycle, Observe-Plan-Instigate, comprise Inspired Teaching’s approach to engaging students in inquiry-based learning.

When they are engaged in the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, students are immersed in learning. They take the lead in designing authentic learning experiences around their own interests and their school’s standards of learning. Each discovery leads to a new question which in turn leads to more wondering and more learning. In the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, Learn is not a destination or an endpoint; it is a deeper understanding, leading to a deeper wondering and new possibilities that create new entry points to further exploration. The cycle continues because what students have learned generates more wonderings that require more experiments that foster more learning – and on and on.

The Observe-Plan-Instigate Cycle is the work of an Inspired Teacher. While a student is expected to follow the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, the teacher joins them on the learning journey while following their own cycle of Observe-Plan-Instigate. This cycle ultimately serves to ensure an inquiry-based atmosphere is at play in the classroom.

Jaqueta Abbey

Teaching and Learning Specialist

Jaqueta is the Teaching and Learning Specialist for Inspired Teaching. In addition to her current role with Inspired Teaching, Jaqueta is a first-grade teaching assistant. Her background features a variety of traditional and non-traditional experiences in the field of education, including working as an adjunct professor, teaching summer reading programs to children and adults, and tutoring children in the foster care system. Jaqueta earned a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an M.A. in Interactive Media from Elon University.

What brings you joy in life?

Creative self-expression! In addition to my passion for storytelling, I love dancing of all kinds. I've studied belly dance, bachata, and Brazilian Zouk among other styles. I also enjoy glass fusing, crocheting, photography, and cross stitching. These art forms allow me to express myself and build connections with other people at the same time. I think life would be a lot less vibrant without artists and storytellers!

Michelle Welk

Communication & Marketing Specialist

As Communications and Marketing Specialist, Michelle is responsible for finding and creating new ways to highlight Inspired Teaching and promote its programs in order to expand and deepen the organization's impact. Michelle has worked in communications in an array of settings, from creative agencies to state politics to national nonprofits. She has a BA in Journalism from Temple University in Philadelphia and is passionate about education, access, and equity.

What brings you joy in life?

My son, the beach, making a persuasive argument and good food!

Max Peterson

Real World History Assistant Teacher

Max received his Bachelor’s degree in History and African American Studies from Boston University in May 2016. He has worked in museum curation at the Museum of the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Max has worked with young people of varying ages from young children to young adults transitioning to college.

Feedback and Accountability

We grow through feedback and an understanding that the quality of our work is a reflection of what we are learning, but the shift to remote learning this spring disrupted a lot of the tools teachers were used to using to evaluate student growth. How might we do things differently this fall? Participants in this workshop will explore ways to bring meaningful assessment into the virtual and/or socially-distanced classroom and approaches to student feedback that strengthen motivation, and build relationships and achievement.