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Mary Gilbertson: a teacher at Weaver (video in three parts, with trancript)

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@ Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library

Biggs, Julian Glascock, Baylis

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Mary Gilbertson, English teacher at Weaver High School, is interviewed outdoors; she is sitting on grass. Gilbertson talks about her teaching style, extracurricular student support, the racial issues that have been brought up by students, and how she has supported student voice and action in the school setting. Gilbertson discusses how, rather than a teacher-to student relationship, she establishes one that is person-to-person, in which she values and reflects a learning process that takes into consideration each individual student in her classroom. She doesn’t focus on preparing students for college, even if she does have students work on the activities that would support their doing reading and writing in college. She believes that the key is to make literature relatable to students so that they develop their skills in expressing and communicating their ideas. She talks about an experience she had during a discussion of King Lear, when a black student finally expressed his feeling that the opportunities available to a white man such as King Lear are not the same as those available to a black man. Although she has been told that as a teacher she is not supposed to talk about race, Gilbertson feels that teaching is irrelevant if you cannot work the realities that students come to the classroom with into the curriculum. She believes that through literature, students are able to leave her class with a range of options and possible solutions to problems they face, instead of deciding to do something that may get...
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Video
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Video Recordings Color
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Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library

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Connecticut Digital Archive