Carol Raney seeks to instill love of knowledge
It was George Santayana who said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That sentiment fuels Carol Raney’s work as a teacher at Russellville Elementary School and as a Master Teacher for the Alabama 200, the state’s bicentennial celebration.
Raney describes herself as a resource for teachers and anyone who would like to know more about Alabama and its individual factions.
“My goal is to instill in children the need to learn from the past and, as a result, be better citizens in the future,” Raney said.
One way she does that is in the classroom – not just her own classroom, either. She said soon she will be co-teaching with Melissa Greenhill, another teacher at RES, on the topic of civil rights. Raney has ordered a backpack from the Alabama Bicentennial organization that is full of lesson plans, activities and resources to use with the students.
“It shows the students the importance of primary sources and gathering information,” Raney said. “We’ll have an activity using a primary document from the civil rights era that shows what life was like back then for African Americans.”
She is also co-teaching with Russellville High School history teacher Kim Burney on a Breakout EDU immersive learning activity on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
“They’ll have to solve things about his assassination to break out of the boxes,” she explained.
Raney said she hopes helping students learn about the past of the United States, Alabama and local history will encourage them to make good decisions that will shape a better world.
“Alabama has made a lot of changes in the past 200 years, but we need to do a better job with doing the right thing and knowing about the past of ourselves and our state,” she said.
That is the direction she is taking when it comes to her work as a Master Teacher for the bicentennial. She said each of the 12 Master Teachers have different approaches to the institutes that they hold each year, and hers is focused on celebrating and learning from the past.
“It might not be a popular point of view, but maybe we haven’t learned as best we could from our mistakes in the past,” she said.
For the 2018 learning institute she is preparing, her theme is people from the area, like Native Americans and early settlers as well as figures from the Civil War and Civil Rights eras.
“There are things even today that we haven’t learned when it comes to our treatment of people, especially those who are different than us,” Raney said.
Raney has been traveling North Alabama to learn information to help people in the community and educators – because she said she believes the two are not separate entities. “The schools and communities need to be involved with each other and work together,” Raney said.
She said she hopes her efforts have a lasting effect on students and that they learn good social skills, a solid work ethic and problem-solving skills that will help them build a better future.
