CHTL

Center Co-Sponsors Black History Month Event

CHTL — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:23:51 +0000

Honoring Black History Month: Education called key to achievement

By Hayley Kappes \ El Paso Times

Posted: 02/12/2012 11:06:58 AM MST

URL: http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_19947347

Actor Phil Darius Wallace, who portrays Frederick Douglass, says… (Victor Calzada / El Paso Times)

When actor Phil Darius Wallace steps on stage as Frederick Douglass, he feels the struggles and successes the abolitionist movement leader encountered.

Wallace performed his one-man show “Self-Made Man: The Bondage and Freedom of Frederick Douglass,” which he also wrote and produced, Saturday night at the El Paso Community College’s Transmountain Campus Forum Theatre.

About 200 people attended the performance, which was one of several events at the college commemorating Black History Month.

In the show, which he has performed for the past 10 years, Wallace portrays Douglass during his early life as a slave on plantations in Maryland until when he ran away in 1838.

The performance focuses on Douglass’ exorcism of his past demons as a slave and his finding a way to release his past by forgiving his former master and reconfirming for himself that freedom foremost is a state of mind, Wallace said.

“I believe mainly that he was able to overcome his given limitations through the power of reading and writing and utilized that same power to achieve a lot of great things in life,” Wallace said. “It’s kind of a universal lesson for all of us that we don’t have to allow for the limitations put before us to keep us from achieving our dreams and goals.”

Portraying Douglass in the show throughout the country every year is one of the ways Wallace, who lives in Memphis, Tenn., celebrates Black History Month.

The monthlong celebration of the contributions and achievements of black Americans began as a way to remember Douglass’ work to abolish slavery.”I think that it would be even better if we could learn how to celebrate African-American men and women throughout the year,” Wallace said. “It really is American history.”

Mark Norbeck, associate professor of history at EPCC’s Rio Grande Campus, in 2009 saw Wallace deliver one of Douglass’ speeches in Salem, Mass., at the same building where the abolitionist once spoke.

Norbeck called it one of the most powerful things he had ever seen and he wanted to bring that history to life for students in El Paso.

Through help from the Center for History Teaching and Learning at the University of Texas at El Paso, 400 teachers in the area were invited to the performance and encouraged to bring their students.

“The great irony of American history is that we aimed to have the freest society in the entire world and yet we brought in slavery. That’s something that we have worked hard to get over. The Civil War cost us 625,000 men dying to make them free. But after 1877 they still weren’t free. They had their rights taken away from Jim Crow laws, so the result is it took another savage time to overcome that,” Norbeck said.

Margaret D. Morgan, a history and social studies teacher at Capt. Walter E. Clark Middle School in the Socorro Independent School District, attended the performance because she wanted to learn more about Douglass. She said she admires his ability to teach himself to read and write and eventually escape slavery.

“He went on to be a very highly educated man,” Morgan said. “He’s very influential in American history, and I think students need to know that education is so important.”

Frederick Douglass One-Man Show

CHTL — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:44:54 +0000

In honor of Black History Month, Frederick Douglass is coming to El Paso!

El Paso Community College will host Self-Made Man: The Bondage and Freedom of Frederick Douglass, a one-man show written, produced, and enacted by actor Phil Darius Wallace. The show will be held on Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. at the EPCC Transmountain Campus Theatre, located at 9570 Gateway Blvd. North.

Dr. Maceo C. Dailey, Director of the African American Studies Program at the University of Texas at El Paso, will offer introductory remarks and respond to audience questions afterwards.

Teachers who attend will receive one (1) hour CPE credit from UTEP’s Center for History Teaching & Learning (www.utep.edu/chtl) and a list of great resources for teaching about Frederick Douglass, slavery, and abolition.

If you have any questions, please email chtl@utep.edu. Don’t miss out!

Announcing the History Survey Project Fellows 2012-2013

CHTL — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:31:35 +0000

FOR IMMEADIATE RELEASE

January 19, 2012

Announcing the History Survey Project Fellows 2012-2013

El Paso, Texas – The History Survey Project is pleased to announce the selection of the inaugural group of fellows for 2012-2013. Fellows were selected from a group of top local educators through a rigorous selection process and are making an eighteen-month commitment to participate in a world-class professional development experience that will improve classroom teaching.

The accepted fellows come from across El Paso and from a variety of United States History teaching environments. Martina Collins teaches at Northwest Early College High School in the Canutillo Independent School District. Eduardo Hinojos is a teacher at Socorro High School in the Socorro Independent School District where he is the CATE teacher for the Governance and Public Administration Cluster and Director for the EXCEL Academy. Michael Reese teaches at Andress High School in the El Paso Independent School District and teaches Advanced Placement® classes. Hazel Tipton is a dual credit teacher at Austin High School in the El Paso Independent School District.

The History Survey Project (HSP) aims to explore, understand, and improve the teaching of U.S. history survey courses by uniting practical experience with recent findings from the scholarship of teaching and learning. The selected fellows will receive intellectual and financial support to revise their survey courses, producing a variety of instructional materials along the way. These instructional materials will be able to be used by all faculty who simultaneously survey the past and prepare Americans for the future. The project will also bring several internationally-renowned scholars on history teaching to El Paso to instruct participants, including Dr. Lendol Calder (Augustana College), Dr. David Pace (Indiana University), and Dr. Alan Booth (University of Nottingham.

The History Survey Project is co-directed by UTEP professors Bradley J. Cartwright and Keith A. Erekson. It is a joint collaboration between the University of Texas at El Paso’s Center for History Teaching & Learning, the Department of History, and the Texas Faculty Collaborative for Social Studies of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. The collaborative is directed by Dr. Andrew Milson of the University of Texas at Arlington and is an initiative of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. The Center for History Teaching & Learning is a division of UTEP’s History Department created to promote scholarly teaching among department faculty, support teacher education among our students, and provide outreach and professional development opportunities for area social studies teachers.

For more information, please visit utep.edu/hsp, send an email to hsp@utep.edu, or call 915-747-5878.

LINKS

History Survey Project website

www.utep.edu/hsp

Center for History Teaching & Learning

www.utep.edu/chtl

Holiday Resource Room Hours

CHTL — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 22:15:19 +0000

The CHTL Resource Room will be open on Tuesday December 13th and Wednesday December 14th from 1:00 pm-3:00 pm if you need to use any of our resources or pick up a review hours slip. There are qualifying exams scheduled for December 21st and 22nd. The Resource Room will not be open again until the spring semester so please make plans now to study or pick up a slip. If you have any questions, please email Kelley at kmakins@miners.utep.edu.

Congratulations to all those graduating and have a happy holiday season!