NEW LONDON – Superintendent Winfried Feneberg is pleased to share that Kearsarge Regional High School students recently participated in an interactive Social Studies program in collaboration with the League of Women Voters of Kearsarge/Sunapee Area.
On April 21, about 12 High School sophomores reviewed the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, and the impact the ruling had on education for all children.
The participating students have been reviewing the “Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Struggle for Black Voting Rights” case study, created by Harvard Professor Dr. David Moss, under the direction of Social Studies Teacher Curtis Roddy. Topics included segregation, Jim Crow Laws, the Ku Klux Klan, poll taxes, the “Bloody Sunday” civil rights march in Selma, Alabama, and the founding of the NAACP.
The national League of Women Voters has partnered with the Harvard Business School to deliver free civics and social studies curriculum to teachers across the country. Curriculum is based on cases presented to the U.S. Supreme Court. With support from the LWV, Roddy attended a Harvard Business School virtual conference in January 2021 to learn more about the program’s teaching methods.
Classes are taught using the Harvard Case Method Project of Teaching History, in which students move beyond textbooks and class presentations with the goal of deeper understanding of a topic.
“I am proud of my students for the effort that they put into analyzing this case study, including those who fought to make voting a universal right, and then presenting their insights to an audience,” Roddy said. “Learning through case studies is a powerful way to improve engagement, increase understanding and prompt reflection.”
“Social Studies and civics are more than dates and places,” Superintendent Feneberg said. “By deeply examining issues such as these, our students become informed, knowledgeable voters and more interested in participating in our democracy.”
