Educators Use RARE’s Documentary Film in Seattle School Curriculum!
“Showing RARE’s documentary, Roosevelt High School: Beyond Black and White, to my 11th-grade IB History of the Americas classes has really enhanced students’ understanding of how Seattle fits into the history of school desegregation,” says Ingraham High School teacher Noah Zeichner.
“The kids especially appreciate that they are learning about the experiences of students in a school just a few miles away.”
Zeichner, a veteran teacher who worked at Chief Sealth International High School for many years before coming to Ingraham in 2017, has broad experience in selecting curriculum.
He picks materials that stimulate active discussions among students about critically important issues. One of those issues is racial equity, and in particular Seattle’s own history of attempted school desegregation to overcome past injustices such as redlining and discriminatory housing policies – legacies that linger and affect Seattle’s demography today.
“Before seeing the film I wasn’t aware that the issues surrounding school desegregation and racism were such a part of my city’s history.” – Rocco, an Ingraham senior who took Zeichner’s class last year
Another current senior, Azura, shared that “It helped me understand how pervasive redlining has been in Seattle.”
Zeichner shows the 30-minute film in the context of a unit on Civil Rights and Social Movements.
In 11th grade, students at Ingraham examine the history of school desegregation and re-segregation in the United States. He prepares for the sho”wing by teaching the legal history of school desegregation, including the Brown v Board of Education decision, along with several court decisions that preceded it. Students examine the challenges around the implementation of Brown.
They learn about the 1966 boycott of Seattle Public Schools, the integration of Little Rock Central High School, and the busing program in Seattle. Zeichner follows the film with a class discussion about how students perceive the issues in the film within their own school community.
RARE is proud that its film is being shown in classes at Ingraham HS, and wants to encourage other schools in Seattle, both middle and high schools, to use it in a similar way: embedded in the curriculum of courses related to civil rights, history, ethnic studies, and education.
The documentary, which has been shown five times on KCTS, Seattle’s local PBS affiliate, can be downloaded from RARE’s website. Also available are ready-to-use curriculum materials and discussion questions.
The film is also used productively by PTSA groups, community forums, school assemblies, faith communities and other gatherings to discuss past and present issues about education and racial equity.