The Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy: Engaging a Curriculum and Pedagogy.

Abstract

THE FANNIE LOU HAMER National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy is a coalition of friends who share a vision of the potential of education. One of the concerns that united us initially was a belief that the college students we teach manifest an empty cynicism regarding American democracy, its history, and its potential for reform. We perceived that our students did not understand our national history as one of struggle and transformation. The Civil Rights Movement is a classic example of the ways in which coalitions of local citizens can hold America accountable to its promises. But we realized that by the time we meet our students as undergraduates, their perceptions of history and politics are fairly fixed. We knew we needed to influence students earlier in their intellectual lives and to do so meant that we must work with the teachers who instruct them. Founded in 1997 at a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for College Teachers, the Hamer Institute conducts seminars and workshops for K-12 teachers and students that feature the role