Arlington School & Family Magazine March/April 2018 | Page 25

Goodman’s Guest List
By Kenneth Perkins
Every February, Goodman
Elementary welcomes to its campus
what one might call an impressive
and extraordinarily iconic guest list.
This year is no different.
There’s Muhammad Ali and
Michael Jordan, for starters, ballet
star Misty Copeland, journalist Ida B. Wells, world-
acclaimed performer Josephine Baker, and the Black
Panther himself, Huey P. Newton.
There’s even a rocking Jimi Hendrix with this guitar at
the ready.
At Goodman, you can say that Black History comes
alive. Almost literally.
For the past several years, every third-grade student
receives the assignment to research, create and present
on African Americans who have made significant
contributions to society in politics, literature, the arts,
science, sports, religion, civil rights or anywhere else
they might find them.
What makes these projects unique is that they come with
usual written papers and posters with cutout photos. Yet
standing next to the presentations are well-crafted dolls
made out of plastic bottles and Styrofoam and yarn or
even feathers, whatever might make, say, Malcolm X
look like Malcolm X.
The dolls pretty much dominate the school, staring back
at visitors from a large trophy case and stored along
hallways so that students who walk by can see them.
Third-grade teacher Tarri Miller is the architect of this
annual Black History event where the creations look
eerily like the real thing. It’s all about the details.
There’s Frederick Douglas and the hair made of lots of
cotton balls (it almost looks combed). Josephine Baker
is wearing pearls, Stevie Wonder has on shades, and
Matthew Henson with his fur.
Just as unique is Miller’s insistence that the students dig
deeper to find African American contributors.
For instance, no Dr. Martin Luther King or Ruby Bridges
among this bunch.
Henson, in fact, was the first
African-American Arctic explorer
who also served as a navigator and
craftsman with Robert Peary, who,
as history would have it, routinely
earned most of the accolades, such
as being the sole discoverer of the
North Pole. Henson was not just
along for the ride, the presentation explains.
“We have Medgar Evers down the hall, and we have the
Queen of Sheba,” Miller said. “Everyone knows about
Dr. King and Rosa Parks. But not everyone knows that
before Rosa Parks there was Claudette Colvin.”
Colvin was just 15 when she, like Parks would do months
later but with the backing of Dr. King and others, refused
to give her bus seat to a white passenger. She would later
serve as plaintiff in the landmark legal case that helped
end segregation on Montgomery, Alabama, public buses.
One student presented Toni Stone, the first women to play
in a men’s professional baseball league when she signed
up with a Negro League team. For Josephine Baker,
Miller said the students were shocked to learn, “she
wasn’t just this performer. She was a spy during the war.”
While this is only a third-grade project, it envelops the entire
school. The dolls are impossible to miss along the hallway.
It lures them in to read the poster boards and papers.
The third-grade teachers like the educational intangibles
to the project. It’s not just about learning of African-
American heroes. It’s about learning to do research, to
write and to use cognitive skills.
Before they select their subject, the students work on
folders where they have researched and write about four
people. From there comes their specific research project
where they talk about their personal life, the early years,
their contribution, even maps showing births and deaths.
Picking a favorite is always too difficult, but it’s clear that
Miller is fond of the Thurgood Marshall project, which
shows the first black Supreme Court Justice as a very
young lawyer, sitting at a desk made out of Popsicle sticks.
“It’s well done, well thought out, original,” Miller said.
Or, in third grade lingo, “Just really cool.”
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