Learning Histories

Calling the Roll - Who's Absent? Part 1 of 7 How Big is the Back Row? Part 2 of 7 First Bell Part 3 of 7 Raising Hands, Raising Voices Part 4 of 7 Many Hands, Many Voices Part 5 of 7 Rearranging Your Own Classroom Part 6 of 7 Moving Toward the Front Part 7 of 7 Click here to download all parts in one file (Rich-Text format 48K) E-Mail Questions and Comments

African American Leadership Initiative

In the early 1990's, Memorial Hospital and Health System began a process of reevaluating their role in the community. Memorial committed to looking beyond the hospital walls and in doing so found that non-medical issues such as employment, cultural barriers, habitat, transportation and education, all impact the health status of our community. From this knowledge, a new, broader understanding steadily moved thinking away from the traditional "medical" model to a new kind of comprehensive "health" model. Therefore, the definition of health goes beyond the absence of disease and the traditional medical concept and addresses the underlying factors in quality of life, such as the environment, crime and literacy. Memorial believes that "healthy communities" actively work to improve the health and quality of life of all their residents. This philosophy has since been woven into Memorial Hospital and Health System’s mission and vision. Memorial believes that a healthy community is concerned with and addresses, not only medical issues, but the social, family, economic and environmental ones as well. But what about the effect that these factors have within the hospital's walls of Memorial’s own employees?

For many, the majority of daily waking hours are spent in the workplace, creating a kind of sub-community: a collection of individuals brought together to accomplish a common goal by utilizing their various skills. While not necessarily operating under a legal system like the greater community, there is certainly a code of conduct and behavior which is governed by the organization's upper administration and management. It could be compared to the first experience that we have as children when we are grouped with individuals who were not our family - school.

The ideal is that, by bringing all of these diverse voices and ideas to one place, not only does the student learn from the figure at the front of the room, but also from one another. Each individual gathering knowledge of cultures and practices outside of their own experience. But what about those students, who owing to placement in the classroom or innate shyness, whose voices were never heard? How is their learning affected? How many times are they brought to the head of the room as examples of exemplary work? What affect does this have on them in the long run? It is the role of the careful and conscientious teacher to be certain that every voice, from the front of the room to the quiet student in the back row, all have equal opportunity.