Education Professor Wins Community Excellence Award
06/05/2015
By Karen Angelo
Assoc. Prof. Pat Fontaine shows future teachers how to bring history to life by using historical places in Lowell as the backdrop to learning.
One of these special locations is the Hawk Valley Farm, connected to the Varnum family since 1660. She developed lesson plans and planned a field trip for her students and 16 third graders that they tutored, a learning activity she will continue every semester.
This is just one of the ways that Fontaine connects education with the community and historical places in Lowell. In acknowledgement of her excellence in cultural heritage and historic preservation, the Lowell National Historical Park (LNHP) and Lowell Heritage Partnership presented Fontaine with the Community Excellence Award.
“We are fortunate that the university is situated in Lowell, the premier industrial history city in America,” says Fontaine, who teaches future secondary history and elementary social study teachers in the Graduate School of Education. “Lowell has many stories, including its colonial history represented by Hawk Valley Farm— unfortunately, not too many locals know about it.”
The Hawk Valley Farm fulfills the state history standards that address American colonial life. Students can see and identify colonial markers at the farm, including stonewalls and prime agricultural soil.
“Jane Calvin of the Lowell National Historical Park invited a Wampanoag whose narrative was about the importance of legend in the Native American oral history. The telling of legends is part of the third grade curriculum,” says Fontaine.
She was also recognized for spearheading the exhibit “Lowell, a City of Refugees, a Community of Citizens,” a collection of artwork and oral histories from Cambodian refugees who arrived in Lowell in the 1980s. She created a healing garden located in Clemente Park, in the Lower Highlands, where the majority of the Khmer population resides.
“I hope that these exhibits help us all remember our roots, where we came from, and, as a community, empathize with each other to appreciate our differences and similarities,” says Fontaine.