Jill Cross, Dean of Curriculum and Instruction at TMI Episcopal, was one of 22 educators chosen to take part in The Seat of War and Peace, a summer teacher institute taught by the education staff of Ford’s Theatre and the National Park Service from July 21-26, in and around Washington D.C.

The selective program takes teachers of English and social studies to monuments and memorials about the Civil War to help educators better understand and teach about the different ways America has remembered aspects of conflict. Participants visited the African-American Civil War Memorial to the United States Colored Troops, the Emancipation Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial, learning about the historic and political context of each.

Teachers study each as primary sources and return to their schools prepared to share their knowledge with colleagues and to engage with students in discussions of these and other memorials in their own communities.

Cross plans to share these perspectives and experiences with TMI department chairs and individual teachers. “I learned about a lot of new resources to share with teachers,” Cross said. “I’d really like to look at our curriculum as a whole and see how some of this material can be weaved into our ongoing discussions around informed action.” She also plans to add some elements from the program to TMI’s eighth-grade trip to Washington D.C. “in order to better integrate the story of Reconstruction into the D.C. experience.”

One of the most visited sites in the nation’s capital, Ford’s Theatre reopened in 1968. Operated through a partnership between the Ford’s Theatre Society and the National Park Service, Ford’s Theatre in the premier destination in the nation’s capital to explore Abraham Lincoln’s ideals and leadership principles. For more information, visit http://www.fords.org.