From the March 3, 2006 Issue of The Cape Codder

Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School News

Civil Rights Seminar

Seminars are the hallmark of Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School's academic program. Based on Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, students have an opportunity to explore a content area, skill or subject matter in depth with students and teachers from other grades. Among the choices offered to students this term were seminars in forensic science, animation, culinary arts, animal tracking and mock trial.

Social studies teacher Daniella Garran's seminar on Civil Rights gained a great deal of momentum recently in observance of Black History Month in February.

Sixth-graders Jamie Fitzgerald and Hanna Morse, seventh-grader Harry Armstrong and eighth-graders Eli Powers, Jenna Kirkpatrick and Emily Davids have been exploring this nation's history of bias, segregation and prejudice in a variety of media. They have watched newsreel footage of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches. They have listened to songs of the Civil Rights Movement based on old spirituals from the days of slavery. They recently went to see Glory Road, which chronicled the story of the first all-black starting lineup in college basketball history, which went on to win the NCAA championship. They've read speeches, letters and documents as well as excerpts from the Constitution in an effort to understand how and why segregation came to exist in this nation and how it ultimately came to an end. Or, they wonder, has it ended? Students are also exploring issues of discrimination and prejudice in today's world.

These students are building a bridge - both literally and figuratively - from oppression to freedom. Using the march from Selma to Birmingham as their inspiration, students plan to construct a model of the Edmund Pettus Bridge and "pave" it with images from the Civil Rights Movement in chronological order to mark the movement's progression. Also on the bridge will be several buses in honor of the Montgomery bus boycott, which was a non-violent response to the arrest of Rosa Parks.

Inspired by the words of the civil rights leaders, like Dr. King and Malcolm X, and by the courage of individuals like the Little Rock Nine and Rosa Parks, and in the memory of victims like Emmett Till, these students are working to make sure that "justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream." - Written by seventh-grade social studies teacher Daniella Garran