Blog Post #1: Introduction and Preview

Introduction

Hello! My name is Trinity Marsh, I'm a current senior at Hawken School, and welcome to my 

official blog for my Hawken Project. Before I go into further detail about my Hawken 

Project, I would like to thank you for taking interest in following me along my journey as I 

go through the process of making the vision of my Hawken Project turn into reality! I'm very 

excited to share this special experience with you and the rest of the Hawken community and

I hope that my project will serve as inspiration for future Hawken students to come!

Idea and Inspiration

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the 

strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world." 

– Harriet Tubman

For my Hawken Project, I will be creating an African-American Studies Program that will be 

taught at Hawken School in the future! This idea came to me after I had a conversation with

my mentor while completing my requirements for the Fitness Elective during 

the first semester of my junior year. At one point during the conversation, I reflected on my 

educational experience at Hawken and while I expressed some of my favorite aspects  

about my overall experience (ie: Intensives that I took, my favorite course topics, etc.), I 

didn't neglect to express aspects that were missing from Hawken's curriculum and education 

that could have enhanced my own experience as a student. For me, the aspect that was 

missing from my educational experience at Hawken was learning about my own culture and 

history as an African-American person. During my time at Hawken, I have enjoyed learning 

about the diverse culture and history of different civilizations and cultures like Ancient 

China, Ancient India, Ancient Mesopotamia, and the Middle East, and I truly believe that I 

have become more knowledgeable and well-rounded because of this. I also feel that 

learning about these cultures have allowed me to learn a little bit more about some of my 

peers at Hawken who descend from some of the represented people that I have mentioned. 

However, when it comes to learning about African-American history in courses at Hawken, 

there was a void. The two major focal points of this learning surrounded around the 

events of slavery (1619-1865) and the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968). I've personally been

fortunate enough to have humanities and history teachers that have taught about other 

important historical events in African-American history like Reconstruction (1865-1877), the 

Harlem Renaissance (1918-1937), and the Great Migration(1910-1930; 1940-1970). However, 

due to the time constraints, we were unable to dwell in those areas and were 

forced to move onto other topics in American history. In addition to this, the only time that 

my African-American peers and I were able to actually share parts of our culture and 

history with the entire student body was during the annual Black History Month assembly in 

February that runs for less than an hour (And Black History cannot be shared in only one 

hour). So, with this knowledge, I expressed my desire for a course to be made that is 

devoted to giving more than just one hour or a couple of days to teaching African-

American culture and history and that captures the various narratives present in this 

historically marginalized group. And that's when I thought to myself that I could create this 

African-American Studies Program for my Hawken Project! 

Essential Questions/Goals for the Project

As I begin the process of creating the African-American Studies Program, the two main 

essential questions that I will keep in mind are: 1.) How can I create a program that truly 

captures the rich narratives of African-American people while also forming a structured 

curriculum that covers various topics in a timely manner? and 2.) How can this program be 

structured in way where students can not only continue the learning about African-American

culture and history inside the classroom, but also outside of the classroom? It should be 

noted that this class, while it represents the lives and voices of African-American people, is 

NOT just for African-American people. This will be a class that is open for every student at 

Hawken to take and will enrich the knowledge and experience of students, African-

American or not. And as per my thought, African-American history IS American history and 

should be treated as such and not as a subtopic or just a chapter in a novel. So, for the 

next three weeks, my mentor and I will be working both at school and via Zoom to create 

this groundbreaking program and continue to learn how to address these two main 

questions!