I try to bring history to life for them in a variety of different ways.”

Christopher Stanley

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, educators across the country have struggled to find ways to carry out their educational curricula in ways that actively engage their students.

But for Christopher Stanley, a Warren resident, volunteer firefighter, former Town Council member of 20 years and a social social studies teacher at Ponaganset High School in North Scituate, the pandemic merely added another layer of complexity to his already unique brand of immersive instruction.

Stanley was recognized recently by The Henry Ford, a group of historical attractions located in Dearborn, Mich. that “explores the American experience of innovation, resourcefulness and ingenuity that helped shape America.” He was listed as a first-place recipient of their “Innovation Nation” series, an accolade granted to just 20 educators nationwide.

“Kids, for the most part, learn best if they’re doing something,” said Mr. Stanley during a recent interview. “It’s one thing to teach history out of a book - it’s kind of dry, kind of dull. They might have trouble grasping it. I try to bring history to life for them in a variety of different ways.”

For example, when a student expressed interest in the class taking a field trip to visit the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. following a screening of Ken Burns’ “Vietnam” documentaries - utilizing electronic media is another method Mr. Stanley endorses highly to pique the natural curiosity within adolescent minds - he told the student that he would do her one better, “and bring the wall to you.”

What followed was a multi-year-long process of shoe leather fundraising, grant applications and the second annual iteration of a cash-raising event that should make all of Warren proud - a huge, traditional style New England clambake. The result of the immense effort was not only getting the Moving Wall, a half-sized replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, to set up at Ponaganset in November of 2018, but also securing guest speakers, including local veterans and Tim O’Brien, author of bestselling “The Things They Carried,” to come to the school the following January to talk about their experiences in Vietnam.

The two most recent projects spearheaded by Mr. Stanley - which brought him the national recognition - related to exploring race relations in America, and commemorating the upcoming 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The former was uprooted from its original timeline by COVID, but was eventually held in October of 2020, following the tumultuous summer of police violence that led to record-breaking public protests and demonstrations throughout the nation. The result, Mr. Stanley said, was a valuable discussion including local black leaders that facilitated a better understanding among the mostly-white student body of Ponaganset of how race factors into many aspects of everyday life for people of color.

The latter, which was held in April of 2021, sought to bring the horrific reality of September 11th into clearer context for a generation of students who were not yet born when the events unfolded nearly 20 years ago.
“There are certain days that are just burned into the memory of America,” Mr. Stanley said. “That’s one of them, and they weren’t there for it. They weren’t alive and didn’t experience it. I thought it was important to put them in the shoes of all of us that day.”

He was able to bring in firefighters who were at Ground Zero to speak to students, including FDNY Lt. Joe Torrillo, who was gravely injured after being caught up in both tower collapses during the rescue effort, as well as a large collection of artifacts pulled from the wreckage. The multi-day event was offered in-person to all social studies students at Ponaganset, but was also live-streamed to the entire school and made available to students and families watching from their remote learning setups at home.

The sweat equity necessary to pull off these types of transformative projects, and perseverance to see them through to completion despite obstacles, whether that be a mountain of necessary fundraising or a once-in-a-century global health crisis, led to Mr. Stanley’s nomination and eventual selection as a recipient of the award.

But he won’t paint the picture like that. All Mr. Stanley hopes is that he’s able to make some sort of positive impact on the young people shuffling through his class in their educational journey.

“In a lot of ways I think we were all innovative over the last two years,” he said.

And he isn’t done, either. He’s already planning the next one, which involves a land acknowledgment project involving historical markers being installed throughout the Ponaganset campus that provide more information about the Nipmuc people that originally inhabited the area. It seems no matter the subject at hand, Mr. Stanley will always try to find a way to turn it into something larger than pages in a text book.

“My wife is a teacher and sometimes scratches her head, like ‘Why do you have to go so big?’” He said. “A lot of the times I feel I have to because of the content that I’m teaching. I’m trying to bring it to life for them and make sure it’s in their living room and living and breathing for them and that they become better citizens…Hopefully that's a positive thing and they learn from it and the community benefits from it.”