CHARLOTTE, Vt. (WCAX) – Every year for Black History Month, the African American-owned historic Clemmons Family Farm in Charlotte releases a free edition of its school-based curriculum.
“Windows to Multicultural World is an arts-integrated African American history curriculum that explores lesser-known figures and events and topics from history,” said Kia’Rae Hanron, the K-12 arts learning director at the nonprofit Clemmons Family Farm.
Hanron says the online African American history curriculum this year focuses on the role of freedom songs in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Roy Truth, one of the collaborating artists at the Clemmons Family Farm, enjoys mixing music with history.
“To be a part of that teaching engagement to bringing my skill set and creating that space and collaborating with the kids and creating a space of just either rhythm or rhyme, it’s been great to be a part of that,” Truth said.
He says it’s rewarding to be a part of this educational experience.
“So being a part of that process of sharing information in a creative way and passing that along and seeing the reaction, engaging in with the action, it’s surprising to me to get the feedback and it tells a lot for me. It gives me a good hopefulness to it,” Truth said.
Hanron says seeing students’ reactions to this interactive learning is indescribable.
“The smiles on their faces, the joy, seeing it click, you know, when they’re like when they make that connection they’re like, ‘Oh, whoa.’ That’s just, it’s priceless,” she said.
And she wants kids to walk away with new knowledge.
“Black history, African American history is sad or hard and troubling, and there’s so much joy that exists in African American history and in American history. And so that’s what our curriculum does is that uplifts that joy,” Hanron said.
In honor of Black History Month, the nonprofit is providing free enrollment and access to the curriculum during February and March.
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