Katherine Wilhelm

2025 Yale & Slavery Teachers Institute Cohort Member

I am a high school history teacher at Highlander Charter School, a small school in Providence, RI. Highlander, named after the civil rights school in Tennessee, focuses on using innovative practices in education to create social change. Many of my students are interested in exploring injustices of the past, but too often, our focus drifts to the American South or federal legislation. I’m interested in further developing students’ understanding of how Rhode Islanders participated in the institution of slavery and how some Rhode Islanders resisted slavery. My unit focuses on the centrality of slavery in the colonial Rhode Island economy and the abolitionist movement that emerged at that time, and I look forward to furthering my own understanding in this program.