NPC Awarded a Teaching with Primary Sources Regional Grant

In 2022, we received a grant from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Partner Program to expand on our "Dialogues on Racial Justice" initiative. The Library’s TPS Regional program promotes the widespread, sustained, and effective use of primary sources from the Library of Congress by increasing access to the Library and to TPS program resources.

Our project was designed to develop Paideia Seminar plans based on Library of Congress materials. These seminar plans are intended to help educators learn to talk about race with candor and empathy. Our partner in this work was the District of Columbia Social Studies Content and Curriculum Group. The goal of the project was to create the “Seminar Plan Collection for Social Justice,” an electronic library that was completed at the end of 2022 and made available for all educators across the country to use free of charge.

According to NPC Director Terry Roberts, "This project was designed to help educators practice both the skills and habits of mind that allow them to have increasingly candid and empathetic conversations about race. Because schools play such an important part in preparing the next generation to take their place in society, the ability to talk about race with openness and civility is extraordinarily important. The role of the Paideia Seminar in this work is key because the facilitator of these dialogues creates the conditions for the participants to think and speak for themselves rather than teaching what or how to think."

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution, is the world’s preeminent reservoir of knowledge, providing unparalleled integrated resources to Congress and the American people. Founded in 1800, the Library seeks to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections. The TPS Regional program grants awards to organizations that design and deliver projects using Library of Congress materials for specific educational goals in formal or informal settings. To learn more about the Library’s TPS program and other resources available to teachers, visit this site.