Books launch lesson on Ruby Bridges for second-graders
WINSLOW TOWNSHIP, N.J. – The second-graders gasped as they returned from another class. Why was their teacher, Ms. Jennifer Dolbow, having her picture taken under all those bright lights?
“Ms. Dolbow is a superstar!” one boy exclaimed. Ms. Dolbow guided her pupils to their seats, and explained it was their work, not hers, that had brought so much attention to their classroom. She asked her students if they remembered the big box of books that had arrived, especially the one they read about Ruby Bridges.
Dolbow, who has taught for 21 years since graduating from Glassboro State College (now Rowan University), is a humble person who does not like being singled out, said her principal, Mrs. Tamika Gilbert-Floyd. But it was Dolbow’s lesson about Bridges, the New Orleans first-grader who was singled out for the wrong reasons, that had brought attention the class at Winslow School No. 3.
Dolbow turned an initial $100 grant from Phoenix Advisors LLC into five new $100 prizes to be used by colleagues at her school. Her grant package showed how she leveraged her purchase of non-fiction books into a curriculum for Black History Month, which incorporated important discussions about what makes everyone different.
“Everyone at Phoenix appreciated Ms. Dolbow’s enthusiasm for bringing the curriculum to life – that came through in her presentation,” said David B. Thompson, founder and CEO at Phoenix Advisors LLC. “Her ability to get her students to think on their own impressed the selection committee, and we hope to inspire similar projects in our next round of grants.”
Ruby Bridges, the granddaughter of Mississippi sharecroppers, was one of handful of first-graders selected by the New Orleans public schools in 1960 to attend previously all-white schools. She ended up being the only African-African child in her school, and for an entire year received one-on-one instruction from a teacher who hailed from Boston. Her daily arrival at school, flanked by four federal marshals, was made famous in the 1963 Norman Rockwell painting, “The Problem We All Live With.”
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Dolbow knew when she received the initial $100 Phoenix grant that she would select non-fiction books and that her project for the additional grants would involve New Jersey’s core curriculum standards. Ruby Bridges’ story let her span both language arts and social studies, covering several requirements at once. Working with Gilbert-Floyd, Dolbow developed a lesson that asked the students to compare young Ruby’s experience with that of President Barack Obama. “We put ourselves in Ruby’s place. We talked about doing something where you’re uncomfortable, or where you’re doing something for the first time.”
And, the students have written letters to the real Ruby Bridges, who at 58 travels to classrooms across the country.
From the start, the grant generated excitement, Dolbow said. “When the box of books arrived, it was like Christmas,” she said. Other books have been used in other lessons, and students check them out of the classroom library to read for individual projects.
The event is fostering a love of reading among Dolbow’s second-graders, Gilbert-Floyd said. “The excitement Ms. Dolbow has jumps off onto the students.”