Teaching Slavery and Race: Engagement Techniques for Secondary Grades

January 27, 2022 ~ 7:30pm ET

At any age, students need guidance when learning about slavery. Educators can help older students find relevance in and emotional connections with the content. Students need to understand why the people of the past are important to today, and how they, students, are empowered towards agency and action in their own lives. This webinar will explore how to:

• establish a brave, calm, and respectful space for students to take intellectual and emotional risks to discuss the content
• help students make connections with historical actors and narratives to build deeper understandings
• build dialogue with effective questioning techniques to engage students with the content

Kristin Gallas has worked in museums for over 20 years. She facilitates workshops for museums and historic sites on developing comprehensive and conscientious interpretation of slavery and speaks regularly at public history and museum conferences. She is the author of Interpreting Slavery with Children and Teens at Museums and Historic Sites (Rowman & Littlefield, September 2021), and co-editor, with James DeWolf Perry, of Interpreting Slavery at Museums and Historic Sites (Rowman & Littlefield, January 2015), among other publications on best practices in the interpretation of slavery. She developed the Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of Slavery‘s public history efforts and oversaw the design of workshops for educators. Kristin holds a bachelor’s degree in secondary history education from the University of Vermont and a master of arts in museum education from George Washington University. She has led the education and/or interpretation departments at the Montana Historical Society, the USS Constitution Museum, and currently at the Tsongas Industrial History Center. Kristin has also developed programs for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Shelburne Museum and consulted with Mount Vernon and Martha’s Vineyard Museum on exhibit development.