Women's History Month: Our Stories

Celebrating Women's History Month this year at Kalexedy I decided to make it my mission to connect my students' personal family histories with the U.S. legislation and important milestones in Women's history. I focused on legislation that impacted women's autonomy; whether it be related to health, finance, voting, or employment. The month of March is Women's History Month in the U.S., and we celebrate International Women's Day on March 8th. As I was putting up the display for Women's History Month it became clear that the dates and milestones marked needed more context. It's one thing to say, "The 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920," but another thing entirely to acknowledge that my own grandmother was seven-years-old when women were granted the right to vote, and another forty-five years until The Voting Rights Act protected the right to vote for all women. It makes the history personal and explains a little more about my grandmother's perspective in life.

To put the history in context I had my students bring in their own family histories including all of the years that their mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers and great-great grandmothers were born (if available) in preparation for this lesson. If this information wasn't available, students could alternatively start with their own birth year (for this example a child born in 2010) and go back 25 years and reframe the assignment to say, "If I was born in 1985...." and then complete the sentence, "Mississippi belatedly ratified the 19th Amendment one year before I was born." Then a child could go back 25 more years to simulate a grandparent, "If I was born in 1960, then I would be 14 years old before my mom could have a checking account in her own name." This provides historical context an approximates generational ages without needing exact dates.

As we were going through this activity as a learning center it was fascinating to see how different life was for women just going back a couple generations. It gave them a new perspective on their own family histories and a new appreciation of what life was like before they came along.

If you would like to do this with your own classroom and students, I've attached the file compiling historical dates that I used to create the display. I printed out the dates document using different colors of paper and created a rainbow, but you can do anything you want!

Download the Women's History Month Timeline PDF:

Women's History Month Timeline.pdf

Download PDF • 278KB

Then, each student wrote (and sometimes decorated) their own personal narratives, some going into more details than others, and we posted them on the bulletin boards for families to read at drop-off and pick-up.

The objective for this activity is to connect those nebulous names and dates highlighted in Women's History Month to their own family and provide context for legislation affecting their own family's autonomy. (Be prepared for hard questions and discussions regarding historical legislation!)

Our bulletin board updated with students' personal narratives connecting their family histories to Women's History Month.

From Angela Fairbanks, Owner :

It is interesting to see my own children comprehend how much has changed for women in my lifetime. As a woman owned business, I know that it wasn't until 1988 (yes, I already existed then) that The Women's Business Ownership Act was signed into law. This allowed women to own and operate a business without needing a male co-signer for a loan. Access to capital is still vastly unequal for female entrepreneurs, but women have found ways to still be successful (<--- check out the stats, its impressive!). I believe exposing all the kids to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial opportunities is important. It is my joy that we can do this with the expectation that their ideas are what distinguishes them.