Minnesota Humanities Center K-12 Education Initiative

The Humanities Center invested in building targeted partnerships with districts for greater, deeper, and more strategic systems change. At the same time, the Humanities Center continued to offer high quality, humanities-focused learning opportunities, both in-person and online, for individual educators.

Legacy funds supported the following K-12 Education Initiative programs between July 1, 2011 and December 31, 2013:

In-Person Absent Narratives Professional Development ($88,676.30)
The Humanities Center created, conducted, and supported cultural and educational programs which encouraged exemplary teaching and provided opportunities for teacher renewal. These professional development offerings emphasized humanities content as expressed in literature, history, and cultural studies to understand Absent Narratives as human experiences. In-person professional development inspired educators to incorporate Absent Narratives into their classrooms at the curricular level.

Education Convenings and Summits ($59,855.45)
The Humanities Center brought leaders in the field of education together to discuss how we can meet the educational needs of all Minnesotans. Education convenings and summits focused primarily on how schools and organizations can view the cultures and languages of non-majority children and youth as assets and identifying ways participants can work collaboratively to utilize these assets in the fight to close the achievement gap in Minnesota classrooms.

Online Absent Narratives Professional Development ($12,401.87)
Knowing that many educators are unable to attend in-person workshops, the Humanities Center worked to make available learning opportunities that individuals could take online on their own schedules. Legacy funds supported a portion of these online offerings and webinars.

School Partnerships ($30,212.89)
The Humanities Center worked to build partnerships with school districts in Minnesota that would allow educators to go deeper in their Absent Narratives learning. Legacy funding supported a portion of the work with Saint Paul Public Schools, Minneapolis Public Schools, and Northwest Suburban Integration School District.  The Humanities Center also explored new partnerships and collaboration possibilities with a variety of schools and districts, both in the Twin Cities metro area and beyond.

Absent Narratives Resources ($90,351.55 – total of resources below)
The Humanities Center created and made available educational resources which supported and encouraged exemplary teaching. Legacy funds supported these Absent Narratives Resources from July 1, 2011 – December 31, 2013.

• Bdote Memory Map ($3,127.40)
  The Bdote Memory Map is a geography-based, digital media resource for Dakota people to express connections to traditional places and to help non-Native citizens to see Minnesota from an indigenous point of view. The Bdote Memory Map is an introduction to some traditional Dakota sites in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area focused on the bdote, or confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers. This resource helps teachers bring into their classrooms, in an authentic and real way, the significance of the Bdote area, learning from Dakota people the significance of their relationship to the place we now call Minnesota.

• African American Anthology ($36,414.19)

The African American Anthology tentatively titled One Hundred Years:  An Anthology of Minnesota’s African American Writers will be a comprehensive collection of the literary works of African Americans who have spent significant portions of their lives living in the state of Minnesota. This unique anthology will document the progression of the literary voice of African Americans of this region of the Upper Midwest. Through a competitive process, works have been selected for inclusion in the anthology that will span subject matter and styles that make the Midwestern African American voice special.

• Absent Narratives Resource Collection ($33,947.06)

The Absent Narratives Resource Collection is a free, searchable database of more than 500 videos, discussion guides, and books that help to restore relationships and amplify community voices. These narratives engage, heal, connect, explore, and strengthen the learning experiences of all Minnesotans. Legacy funds supported both the creation of additional resources for the collection and continued improvements to and maintenance of the online platform.

• MN Original Events and Activity Guides ($16,862.90)

The Humanities Center partnered with tpt to create educator guides for nearly every artist featured in a MN Original episode. These guides help fulfill the program’s mission to make the arts more accessible and to inspire creative expression beyond the broadcast and web. An Evening with tpt’s MN Original is designed to celebrate and learn from Minnesota’s creative community. At each event, an artist from tpt’s award-winning weekly series MN Original engaged participants in an interactive discussion reflective of the artist’s work. From July 1, 2011 to December 31, 2013, Legacy funding supported three MN Original events attended by 156 people:

• November 15, 2012 – An Evening with tpt’s MN Original: An Evening with E.G. Bailey and Shá Cage
• February 28, 2013 – An Evening with tpt’s MN Original: An Evening withTa-coumba Aiken
•  November 14, 2013 – An Evening with tpt’s MN Original: An Evening with Said Salah Ahmed

Between July 1, 2011 and December 31, 2013, $6,658.69 in Legacy funding supported the exploratory phase of new K-12 Education Initiative program design and development.