09/23/2025
Over the summer, Social Studies Adolescent Education-History dual major Josiah Carnegie experienced a unique opportunity to see Public History in action in New Orleans.
Josiah participated in the 2025-2026 Fighting For The Right To Fight: The African American Experiences In World War Two summer teaching workshop in New Orleans at the National World War Two Museum. This is a teacher development workshop for a limited number of teachers and pre-service teachers chosen from a national applicant pool. Key supporters for Josiah in the application process were Caitlin Goodwin (a high school social studies teacher at Cortland High School and adjunct professor of AED 310: Writing in the Social Studies here at SUNY Cortland) and faculty advisors of the C.U.R.E. program for undergraduate students intending to teach in urban school districts after graduation.
The workshop, which took place from June 22nd to the 28th, mostly included professional teachers. It was a special honor for a teacher-in-training to participate. At the summer workshop, Josiah and other successful applicants learned about African American stories that are left out of many mainstream narratives of the war and American history. About his experience, Josiah shares that he used AI technology to "talk" to Romay Davis, a former member the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion who passed away in 2024. In addition, he participated in a group visit to the Whitney Plantation, a highly-esteemed museum that tells the complex histories of slavery at antebellum sugar plantations.
Josiah concludes, "My experiences through the museum were both professionally and personally transformative because they allowed me to interact with more than forty historians from around the country and zoom out the historical lens to look at the war from a variety of perspectives."
Josiah will implement lessons learned from the workshop into his own teaching. He is currently preparing a lesson plan based on lessons learned at the museum that he will present to fellow SST-HIS majors. He plans on student teaching in Spring 2026 and hopes to one day teach in the city of Syracuse. Reflecting on his teaching goals, Josiah says, "Throughout my past few years at SUNY Cortland, I have developed an understanding of the negative effect stereotypes and public policies have on students from marginalized and oppressed urban environments. On the journey to addressing the persistent issues found in the K-12 school system such as poverty, identity crisis, and lowered expectations, I have analyzed awareness of my own identity to understand cultural bias to support students from all cultures and backgrounds."
Congratulations to Josiah on such a wonderful honor!