Kevin Hoskins, Ph.D. '12 is a Curriculum Developer for the Choices Program at Brown University. In August of 2023, Hoskins reached out to Ph.D. Candidate in History Max Chervin Bridge to gauge their interest in supporting Choices' newest venture: a resource guide on disability history. In this spotlight, Hoskins and Chervin Bridge explain their roles in producing the guide, and how continuous collaboration between the Department of History and Choices Program has resulted in valuable resources for secondary educators in the U.S. and beyond. 

Kevin Hoskins: “I was really looking to draw on Max's expertise to lead the project to create the guide. I knew what I hoped to create—my original email to Max described the project as a Resource Guide aimed at secondary ed teachers ‘with some sort of to-be-determined balance between pedagogy, lessons, potential readings, and professional development resources’—but I did not have the expertise to be able to create it. Max really did the rest, with consultation and input from Choices staff. It is this kind of collaboration between Choices and history department graduate students—where we can draw on their expertise to create guides, resources, and lessons to share with teachers across the country—that we hope to do even more of in the future.”

Max Chervin Bridge: “Leading the project to develop the resource guide was a fulfilling opportunity to create a free, online resource around a set of histories and ideas that are vital to my daily life and my work as a teacher and scholar. My hope is that this guide is valuable not only to secondary educators, but to colleagues and the general public as well. 

Perhaps the most rewarding element of the project was the chance to present resources around disability history, disability studies, and the wider scope of disability activism and justice—including anti-ableist pedagogical resources—together in one place. Disability history can sometimes be cordoned off from this larger set of ideas and movements, but my feeling in my teaching and research is that each subset is stronger as part of the whole. This guide is a political document, and I believe that teaching about disability in the past entails political and moral commitments to disability justice in the present.”

Explore the Choices Program Resource Guide: Disability History and Studies