Medal of Honor curriculum teaches commitment
The seventh grade Texas history students at Gunn Junior High and Fine Arts and Dual Language Academy are going first.
When the National Medal of Honor Museum opens in Arlington in March, it will offer the nation lessons in commitment, integrity, sacrifice, courage, citizenship and patriotism.
Those are the values of the Medal of Honor.
But Gunn’s seventh graders aren’t waiting until March to begin learning those lessons.
They’ve already started.
Last week, Gunn’s three Texas history teachers launched a pilot curriculum produced by the Griffin Institute, a complement to the Medal of Honor Museum established to promote the Medal of Honor’s values to help Americans and their country realize their full potential.
The curriculum is the first piece in an effort to bring the values and skills of America’s heroes to K-12 students throughout the country.
The Griffin Institute developed the pilot curriculum with a lot of help and feedback from Gunn students and teachers. Focus groups with students last year and teacher feedback over the summer helped get the “Moments that Matter” pilot curriculum ready to launch.
“We all knew that it had value,” said Gunn principal Dr. Matt Varnell. “It was about how do we make it fit in a way that’s authentic and really accomplishes the goal.”
The “Moments that Matter” pilot curriculum focuses on the value of commitment. There are nine 15-minute sessions that the three Gunn teaches will lead over six weeks.
“You have a cross-section of the Medal of Honor recipients’ stories and the values that are associated with the Medal of Honor connected to character development practices and then a set of skills that students learn across the program,” said Dr. Jacqueline Kennedy, associate vice president of education and experiences for the Medal of Honor Museum Foundation.
Kennedy, a former administrator in the Arlington ISD, visited with the Gunn teachers last week to give them their curriculum materials, including student notebooks and trading cards of the two Medal of Honor recipients featured in the curriculum.
Those recipients are William Swenson and Florent Groberg, who share their stories with the students through videos during the program.
“He [Groberg] is talking to them about his own story and how he thinks about the value of commitment and how that shows up in his daily life – not just in his service,” Kennedy said about one of the curriculum videos.
As the lessons continue, students don’t just learn about commitment, they learn practices and skills to help them keep commitments. Students will begin to identify their own values and strengths and learn how to use them to help others.
“These lessons and stories inspire and equip students with the tools to put these values into action, emphasizing the importance of becoming their best selves for others in moments that matter,” Kennedy said.
Varnell believes this curriculum is going to create moments that matter for Gunn students.
“One of the things that I think is so impressive about the way they’ve designed this program is it’s not, ‘Hey, look at these people and see these values in those people – it’s look at these people and how do those values show up in yourself,” Varnell said. “And for a kid in seventh grade, there’s nothing more important that seeing their value and seeing their worth and seeing how they could be a leader.
“This program makes sure they’re not just learning the content of Texas history or the content of the Medal of Honor values, but they’re learning how to make themselves better people.”
Bethany Turner, one of the three Gunn teachers, is enthusiastic about the potential the program has to impact the classroom and ultimately the entire school.
“I’m excited, and I think the kids are going to be into it,” she said. “It’s setting that classroom culture and then that grows into school culture.”
What’s Next?
After Gunn completes the program this year, the developers may make some tweaks to the Medal of Honor curriculum based on lessons learned and feedback from the Gunn teachers and students. After that, the Griffin Institute will make the curriculum available to more schools, with the eventual goal of launching it nationwide. And they will start to add additional “Moments that Matter” modules that focus on the other Medal of Honor values.
But what’s next for the Gunn seventh graders? They will go first again. In the spring, they will get to be the first student group ever to tour the Medal of Honor Museum after it opens in March.