Paul Huard to help design curriculum on Ukraine
By Jim Flint for Ashland.news
Ashland High School teacher Paul Huard will participate in a Harvard University-sponsored program to develop curriculum that can be used in U.S. schools to teach students about the global significance of Ukraine.
He joins a group of six American teachers selected through a competitive application process by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard.
They’ll work with American and Ukrainian historians from both the Davis Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Lviv Center for Urban History in Lviv, Ukraine, as part of the curriculum development project “On Ukraine.”
Huard is excited about working on the project.
“The chance to help explain Ukraine’s significance in terms of modern and contemporary history to students in my classroom and across the country was too good to pass by,” he said.
Wartime volunteer
He heard about the project from a colleague with whom he worked as a volunteer in Poland and Ukraine.
He spent most of his summer breaks of 2022 and 2023 as a volunteer — first in Poland, then in Ukraine as a humanitarian worker in the war-torn region.
He helped refugees crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border find social services, loaded and delivered food and other necessities in Ukraine, and raised money for small-scale relief organizations.
“I developed deep empathy not only for the wartime plight of the Ukrainian people, but also for their longtime resistance to Russian skepticism regarding whether they are a ‘legitimate’ people,” Huard said.
Fiercely proud
He found the Ukrainians he met during his time volunteering in the region to be fiercely proud of their independence and culture.
“If I can help accurately educate young people about the importance and distinctiveness of the Ukrainian experience, then I honor Ukrainians,” Huard said.
Working with refugees was both a challenging and emotional experience.
“I made many Ukrainian friends and heard their stories,” he said.
Huard laments the fact that many Americans are ignorant of world events.
“Mark Twain once wrote, ‘God created war so Americans would learn geography.’ Well, I am a teacher. I concentrate much of what I do on teaching my students civic responsibility,” Huard said, “which includes being an informed voter.”
He wants students to understand who they elect can influence events not only locally or in the United States, but throughout the world. That belief was a motivating factor in his applying for the fellowship.
Spring, fall work
In addition to assigned reading, program participants will attend three virtual sessions this spring and summer during which they will become familiar with resource materials, select which to use in their curriculum, and create teaching materials in consultation with each other and regional experts.
Access to the Lviv museum’s Ukrainian experts for consultation and advice will be available during that period.
The final details of the curriculum will be determined and shared at an in-person workshop on Harvard’s Cambridge campus in November.
Huard approaches the project with the goals of learning, collaborating and keeping an open mind.
“A rural school teacher from Southern Oregon like me doesn’t normally receive that kind of opportunity,” he said.
Huard teaches social studies and English language arts in Ashland High School’s humanities department. He currently teaches advanced placement U.S. history and sophomore English classes. Huard is also a freelance reporter for Ashland.news.
Reach writer Jim Flint at jimflint.ashland@yahoo.com.
Related stories:
‘Where I’m needed the most’: Ashland teacher to spend summer in Ukraine (April 5, 2023)
Dispatch from Ukraine: Far from home, not far from the front (July 1, 2023)
Dispatch from Ukraine: Building may be shaken, but spirits aren’t (July 6, 2023)
Dispatch from Ukraine: Comforting the afflicted — and getting some in return (July 23, 2023)
Dispatch from Ukraine: Mother and daughter felt a need to help and built sanctuary for women and children fleeing war (Aug. 4, 2023)
