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06/23/2020 12:00 AMResponding to the recent civil unrest following the killing of George Floyd as well as the specific racial inequalities revealed by the coronavirus pandemic, The Witness Stones Project, Inc. (WSP) is updating its program to better tie current events to American’s history of racial oppression.
WSP co-founder and chair Dennis Culliton, a retired Guilford social studies teacher, says he plans to ensure teachers who use the tools provided by WSP curriculum and training are able to help students understand not only the history of slavery and race in the United States, but draw explicit, local connections to what is happening today.
“We’ve been very good about saying what happened in the past, but we were maybe not explicit about how that ties to the present,” Culliton said.
WSP began as a unique and in-depth process that has students engage with their community as they use primary sources and other local resources to learn about an enslaved individual who lived in their town before eventually installing a public marker of some kind, often a stone, at a place in town where that individual “lived, worked, or prayed,” according to Witness Stones’ website witnessstonesproject.org.
While Adams Middle School students have completed this project in their classrooms for the past three years, Culliton said he plans to reach out to Guilford school officials in the near future to see if WSP can offer further services or training to the district.
Interest in that project and the principles behind it drew Culliton and WSP into other school districts around the state, where they have trained teachers on both the methodology as well as larger educational ideas related to slavery and racism.
While WSP will continue to focus on local history of slavery, Culliton said he has seen how vital it is that both students and teachers understand how historical events directly create inequalities that black people still experience, from de facto segregation to deaths during the pandemic.
“Instead of saying, ‘There’s a connection,’ I believe we need to do a better job in the WSP to make that connections for the teachers,” Culliton said, “so they’re able to answer the question, ‘Why is important to learn about slavery?’”
With videos and images showing assaults and killing of black people by police playing on every news channel, and the global coronavirus pandemic disproportionately affecting minorities, both in Connecticut and around the country, Culliton said it is impossible to separate the practices of slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation from present-day oppression.
“I just can’t imagine being an 8th grade teacher trying to teach U.S. History next year after the kids went home in March and came back to a different [world],” Culliton said. “So what do the teachers need?...What can we fortify them [with] to tell that story in a truthful and meaningful way?”
Because all of this is still ongoing, Culliton said he does not have details as to what kind of tools or methods WSP will be leveraging for this purpose. He drew connections between exclusionary zoning laws and discrimination in health care—historical practices that are still in place today.
There has already been plenty of interest from schools-, both within Guilford and around the area, in the kind of work WSP is doing, according to Culliton.
Culliton said he also plans to spend a “good part” of the summer virtualizing WSP curriculum in case there are still significant restrictions on school come the fall.
“We’re ready, willing, and able,” Culliton said.
For more information on The Witness Stones Project, Inc., visit witnessstonesproject.org.