Bridging Historical Worlds: Translating Africa & Byzantium World into Fifth Grade Harlem Classrooms

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

This panel examines public historical memory and educational access with its community-to-classroom partnership that translated the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s landmark exhibition Africa & Byzantium Exhibition into a fifth-grade instructional lesson plan at Sisulu-Walker Charter School of Harlem, the first charter school in New York State. Through collaboration between museum educators, students, and school leadership, the initiative explored how major cultural institutions can connect African historical scholarship to middle school classrooms serving African-American communities to strengthen their historical identity and diasporic consciousness.
Africa & Byzantium was the first major exhibition to highlight the artistic, religious, and commercial connections linking North and East Africa to the Byzantine world from the fourth through the fifteenth centuries. By centering regions such as Tunisia, Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia as sites of intellectual, artistic, and political innovation, the exhibition challenged traditional narratives that position Africa as peripheral to the ancient and medieval world.
The panel brings together three perspectives that shaped the initiative: First, a Met docent involved with the exhibition will discuss how its curatorial framework informed the development of age-appropriate pedagogical strategies for elementary students. Second, a high school student who served as a Research Assistant Intern at the Met will reflect on bridging museum scholarship and classroom instruction through a near-peer teaching model implemented at Sisulu-Walker. Finally, the Principal of Sisulu-Walker will examine the institutional dimensions of building sustainable partnerships between cultural institutions and community schools, including curricular integration and the importance of historical representation in student identity formation of African American students.
Together, the panel argues that museum exhibitions on African history are not solely scholarly interventions, but educational resources capable of reshaping public memory and expanding how students understand Africa and their place within the African diaspora.

Sub Unit

• 111th ASALH Annual Meeting and Conference

Chair

• Channing Moore, The Spence School

Individual Presentations

• Curating Africa for Young Audiences: Translating Africa & Byzantium into Elementary Pedagogy - Karen Pelaez, Metropolitan Museum of Art

• Near-Peer Teaching and Diasporic Learning: Bridging Museum Scholarship and Harlem Classrooms - Channing Moore, The Spence School

• Institutional Partnerships and Historical Representation: Building Sustainable Pathways Between Museums and Community Schools - Michelle Haynes, Sisulu Walker Charter School of Harlem