When Nick Neiderhouse was growing up, he said lessons about Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., didn’t entail who he was or why he mattered. Instead, students were primarily given descriptions of Reverend King’s actions on specific dates and where they occurred.  

But now as principal of Wayne Trail Elementary School in Maumee, Mr. Neiderhouse said educators now are delving more into not only who Reverend King was, but how his life can serve as an example for people today.

“That’s been kind of a shift from what we used to do to what we’re doing now is getting students to understand the relevancy piece of it,” Mr. Neiderhouse said. “... Why does this matter? How will they use it later in life?

“The big thing is we’re trying to apply our learning and immerse kids in those concepts, so they can not just learn it but then do it. The learning and doing piece is really what we’re trying to do here.”

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For Scott High School special education teacher Trevor Black, discussing Reverend King with her students can be challenging because there is such a generational gap between his life and theirs. To many students, the civil rights movement he championed is more like a movie and not real life, she said.

But the recent marches and walkouts spearheaded by teenagers in response to school shootings has been a great example of how Reverend King’s message and methods still live on.

“They’re so far removed from that, and so they don’t incorporate it like it’s life to them,” Mrs. Black said. “So the way I do it is I compare it to something they have experienced. ... I have to find something that is tumultuous or really impressionable for them that they’ve lived through to show them how intense that period was.

“I try to make it as real for them as possible. I try to act it out, we do skits and role playing. Sometimes it gets pretty intense.”

Mrs. Black is a Scott graduate, but she grew up in North Carolina and distinctly remembers the Woolworth sit-in and the four students who walked out of North Carolina A&T to sit in a “whites only” section of the restaurant.

“I remember the National Guard coming in and shutting down the whole town,” Ms. Black said. “My brother was supposed to have a birthday party and he couldn’t have it because we were on a curfew.”

The lessons go beyond Reverend King. Eighth-grade students at All Saints Catholic School in Rossford created videos on lesser-known African American trailblazers such as Hattie McDaniel, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.

At Wayne Trail, students applied the lessons outside of the classroom by volunteering their time on Martin Luther King Jr. Day at Under One Roof Food Pantry, Sunshine Creating Community Center, and with the Maumee Police Department as part of Serve Day.

“Our [district] mission talks about being a contributing member to the community and beyond, and I think that aligns directly with Martin Luther King’s ideals of being a servant and being leaders and making a stand for what they believe in,” Mr. Neiderhouse said. “The motto that we apply to our school, especially for Diversity Week or Feed My Starving Children event and also our Serve Day, we used his quote, ‘Everybody can be great because everybody can serve.’”

Wayne Trail has carried a super hero theme throughout the school year, and Mr. Neiderhouse said Reverend King’s life and mission fit with that.

“He was a real-life super hero that had an impact in society,” He said.

In contrast, Mrs. Black said she strives to impart on her students that Mr. King wasn’t a super hero in the sense that he performed deeds beyond those of everyday people.

“Any one of them can be the next Dr. King,” she said.

Contact Jeremy Schneider at jschneider@theblade.com, 419-724-6082, or on Twitter @j1schneider.

First Published April 4, 2018, 5:00 a.m.