YSTI Spotlight: Maria Frederick
The process of teaching “hard history” is just that, hard.
When I first approached this lesson, I tried to cover too much content in too little time. Attending the Yale Slavery Teachers Institute helped me realize that while my lesson was ambitious, it lacked the depth and humanity it deserved. I began narrowing the scope, focusing on fugitive slave advertisements, especially those tied to Connecticut, which allowed my students to connect more personally with this difficult history.
One of the most impactful revision experiences during the institute was working with Jennifer Heikkila Diaz to examine and align standards. In my original lesson, I included every standard that seemed remotely connected.
I learned that this was the wrong approach. An effective lesson is not loosely connected to standards but built around them. Clarifying what I truly wanted students to learn and do allowed me to reduce a long list of objectives to four, and ultimately to two priority standards. That clarity shifted the lesson from broad coverage to meaningful exploration of the humanity behind the history.
Even after significantly paring down the lesson, two days still felt insufficient. Students became deeply engaged in exploring the Freedom on the Move database, and my co-teacher and I chose to devote an entire class period to that work. As a result, we adjusted the following day to allow time for sharing and discussion, which meant less time for fugitive slave laws. While this presented a challenge, the level of student investment made the adjustment worthwhile.
The greatest success was opening students’ minds to the uncomfortable reality of our own state’s history. I had predicted that many of our eighth graders believed Connecticut was entirely against slavery or that slavery did not exist here. That assumption proved accurate. Confronting the myth of Connecticut as a free haven and introducing its reputation as the “Georgia of the North” was an eye opening moment. By dismantling that misconception, students began to see that this history is not distant but embedded in the very places they pass every day. Their written reflections suggest they are beginning to approach history with more curiosity and a willingness to question whose perspective is being centered.
After the lessons students were asked to respond to the following question, “What surprised or interested you the most after the past two days' lessons?” Over 92% of the students mentioned their surprise that the institution of slavery was part of Connecticut’s history.
I think the thing that interested me the most was the fact that people like John Read, people
who we look up to, owned slaves as well. It was a surprise to me because I would have expected
those kinds of people to be super perfect and not do anything wrong.
Collaboration with the American history co-teacher before and after the lessons ensured the material remained connected to their study of the Constitution. We quickly realized our original graphic organizers were not meeting students’ needs and adjusted them in real time. Those revisions strengthened the lesson and will be incorporated into next year’s curriculum.
Participating in this institute has shifted my perspective on teaching. Place-Based Learning transforms history from passive consumption of facts into active investigation and inquiry. I left with a deeper awareness of how much there is to unlearn, reconsider, and reframe. Words matter. I am more intentional about using language that honors the dignity of the enslaved and highlights resistance and agency. My goal is to foster students who do more than learn what happened but to ask, “Whose perspective am I hearing?"