Center for Midwestern Initiatives

First person narrative: Teacher fellow journeys through Great Britain

Details: Last Updated on February 21, 2012; Written by Aimee Whitescarver

Editor's Note: Aimee Whitescarver, an English teacher from Valley Springs, Arkansas, was a 2011 Fund for Teachers Fellow who travelled to Great Britain last summer. Read below for a firsthand account of Aimee's experiences. The Rural Trust's Fund for Teachers has been renamed the Global Teacher Fellowship, and the new 2012 Fellows' Class will be announced in the near future.

Aimee Whitescarver This past summer, thanks to Fund for Teachers and the Rural School and Community Trust’s teacher fellowships, I had the opportunity to go on the educational experience of a lifetime.

Each year, I pour my passion for reading--specifically British literature—into my teaching in order to show students who believe themselves to be nonreaders that literature can be fun and engaging, as well as meaningful and to teach them to appreciate literary legends of the past. Unfortunately, most students do not share my love and enthusiasm for reading—with some even of the mindset that in our digital world classic literature is irrelevant.

Therefore, I set out to Great Britain to personally discover the worlds of four literary greats, visit their old haunts, the places that inspired them to create great works of transformative literature, and then bring that knowledge back to my classroom—via digital media— in order to better appeal to students in our technology-driven world.

For my 15 day literary journey, I decided to concentrate on four revolutionary British authors that used their writing to spur change: Wordsworth, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Dickens. My journey began in Southwark, one of the oldest boroughs of London with strong literary ties. I then wended my way to Canterbury, taking the same route Chaucer’s pilgrims followed, stopping in the same villages mentioned in the Tales. Along the way I hiked a section of the North Downs—the nature paths in the area of Kent that pilgrims in the Middle Ages would have followed to Canterbury. And I discovered that while the inevitable urbanization has occurred, much of the countryside along the North Downs Way has been left reasonably untarnished, allowing me to capture a portion of Chaucer’s Tales for my students.

Youth Lens: St. Joe Community Works to Restore Historic Arkansas Depot

Details: Last Updated on February 16, 2012; Written by CMI Staff

St. Joe, Arkansas is a tiny hamlet, located on a scenic bend on Highway 65 as it meanders from Harrison to Little Rock. Home to 85 people, 41 households, and 23 families, St. Joe’s smallness belies its rich history. Once located on the defunct Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad, the community was a hub for mining, agriculture, and transportation.

Even though its heyday is in the rear view mirror, St. Joe has remained a vibrant little community, largely due to the fact that it has maintained K-12 school and a community development spirit.

In our third installment of the Rural Community Alliance’s Youth Lens series, student videographers Olivia and Isaiah Cash capture both the history and progress of this beautiful hamlet. The film features the restoration of St. Joe’s historic railroad depot and how the town’s mayor hopes the project will serve as a foundation for other revitalization and tourism activities.

Youth Lens is sponsored by the Arkansas’ Rural Community Alliance (RCA) and The Rural School and Community Trust’s Center for Midwestern Initiatives. Utilizing RCA’s multi-community Youth Empowerment Network, Youth Lens allows local students to capture the essence of their respective communities.