Program brings lessons together

The program was a backdrop to classroom lessons.
By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR.
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
YOUNGSTOWN -- Black History Month came to an end Tuesday, and pupils at one city school closed out the month with music, historic readings and art -- all with an educational basis.
The gymnasium at Sheridan Elementary School was decorated with photos of civil rights leaders, lists of little-known black history facts, and a replica of a Montgomery city bus, a reminder of the Montgomery bus boycott in the 1950s. Pupils from various primary grades took to the stage in the afternoon to sing or read facts about the history of blacks in the United States.
One part of the program featured a reading about some of the inventions by blacks through the years. Pupils held examples of each item.
Kiara Ballinger, a 10-year-old fifth-grader, said those inventions are what she will most remember from the program. Kiara, who wore orange and black African garb, said she learned of things in everyday use invented by blacks, and she was fascinated by stories of Harriet Tubman, who led many blacks out of the South during slavery.
Bringing it all together
Steve Pappas, school music teacher, said the learning aspect is what the program was all about. He said the program was based on what the pupils already had learned in class.
"This was a Black History Month program that incorporated all parts of the curriculum," he said. "It was somewhat of a culminating event."
Pappas said every pupil in the school worked on the program over the last seven to eight weeks.
The overall goal of learning seems to have worked for pupils such as Demond Belton, an 11-year-old fourth-grader, who performed in a skit about Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat for a white person in Montgomery, and read facts about Thurgood Marshall, the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice.
Demond said the most memorable points of the program are the hardships of blacks from years gone by and how they managed to "work it out" despite those hardships and challenges.
Jasmine Jennings, an 11-year-old fifth-grader, said she learned facts about people in black history she had not heard of before the program. Tameka Carter, an 11-year-old sixth-grader, said will remember facts about Tubman more than anything.
jgoodwin@vindy.com