Boston Museum Partners with Mass 2020
on Summer Teacher Institute

Sixteen educators from Boston, Cambridge, Malden, and Revere will visit Plimoth Plantation, the Paul Revere House, and various other trails and sites throughout the city this summer as they take part in a unique institute for educators sponsored by the Boston Museum .

The institute is the product of a partnership between the museum and Massachusetts 2020, the educational non-profit that envisioned the state's Expanded Learning Time (ELT) initiative. ELT is empowering public schools and communities across Massachusetts to redesign their school day/year, expanding the school schedule by at least 300 hours per year to improve student outcomes in core academic subjects, broaden enrichment opportunities, and improve instruction by adding more planning and professional development time for teachers.  There are currently 18 Expanded Learning Time schools in eight districts across the Commonwealth, with eight more schools in four additional districts slated to join the ELT network in fall 2008.

"Massachusetts 2020 is eager to collaborate with The Boston Museum on its 2008 Summer Institute for teachers working in ELT schools," said Emily Raine, Partnerships Manager for Mas sachusetts 2020. "We see the Summer Institute as a unique opportunity to achieve three of Massachusetts 2020's goals for ELT schools:

1. Access to high-quality professional development which will support teachers in designing, implementing, and assessing project- and standards-based curriculum;
2. Building a network of ELT schools and a professional learning community of ELT educators that provides a forum for cross-school collaboration focused on strengthening instructional practices; and
3. Connecting ELT educators directly with community resources and institutions that could lead to partnerships across multiple ELT schools in the years to come."

The institute, called "People of the Bay," will focus on the cultural geography of the region. Teachers will study a series of historic encounters between the peoples of Massachusetts Bay, learning about the shared histories of various ethnic and cultural groups in the region, from the meeting of natives and newcomers in Plimoth Colony to the clashes that shaped and reshaped the ethnic identities of Boston neighborhoods. The institute will conclude with strategy sessions designed to help teachers use institute content in the ELT context as well as integrate the lessons of local history in culturally diverse classrooms.

The institute's core content themes are as follows:

¨ Encounters: mobility and transformation in the migration experience.

¨ Identities: Boston 's role in creating a sense of regional and national identity for new arrivals, the process of assimilation and adaptation, social geography and the creation of neighborhood/community identities.

¨ Ethnic Conflict/Succession: zones of identity, turf battles, changing demographics in Boston and other communities.

¨ Family & Household: the view from the home space, its spiritual and religious dimensions, the pressures it confronts from the wider society, parallel lives among different ethnic groups and historical periods, "upstairs/downstairs" household narratives.

The "People of the Bay" Institute will be coordinated by the Boston Museum development team in association with American History Workshop President Richard Rabinowitz. Dr. Rabinowitz is one of America 's leading public historians and also a consultant to the Boston Museum.

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