For Blake’s first virtual Breakfast at Blake, Middle School history teacher Raina Green and PK-12 Social Studies Department Chair Beth Calderone presented “We The People: Responses to COVID-19.” In this online session, participants experienced what it is like to be a student using interactive resources in a newly created unit in eighth grade social studies. 

As a result of COVID-19, Blake’s learning environment has transformed and required accelerated utilization of technology and information sharing as well as flexibility, creativity and nimbleness of faculty and students. Raina explained how she prepared to guide her eighth grade U.S. history and civics students through the economic, social and national impacts of the pandemic and the historical significance of COVID-19. She demonstrated some of the technology Blake students have used to learn about the global implications of the virus. Beth highlighted the numerous opportunities this pivot to remote teaching and learning has provided students and faculty alike.

Raina has taught social studies at Blake for the past 18 years after earning a master's degree in educational policy and administration and her social studies teaching licensure from the University of Minnesota. Raina earned a B.A. from Lewis & Clark College. She and her husband, David, are parents of two boys, a Blake kindergartener and a toddler.

Beth currently serves as the PK-12 social studies chair. She began at Blake in 2008 as part of the Upper School social studies faculty, teaching a range of courses from ninth grade Modern World History, Ancient Roots of Modern Thought, Global Online Academy Big History, tenth grade U.S. history, Intro to Economics, AP Microeconomics, and World Religions, as well as a recent year of teaching sixth grade humanities. She earned a B.A. in religion and the humanities at the University of Chicago and a master of theological studies with certification in the Program of Religion and Secondary Education, a partnership licensure program between Harvard Divinity School and Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is a parent of a Blake fourth grader and first grader.

In their Breakfast at Blake presentation, Raina and Beth shared their experiences pivoting to the Remote Teaching and Learning Plan (RTLP) for Blake's social studies program during the COVID-19 pandemic.