Democracy in Dialogue

Very exciting! Students' prints from DiDVE Fall 2025 will be on display for at least three months (most likely more) at the DC History Center in their Community Spotlight Corner. I saw the mock up of this exhibit. While only a few prints will be displayed, there will be a QR code linking to all prints, labels, and descriptions of the program. Stay tuned for an announcement when the exhibit opens!

We had a great final fall DiDVE day with both our virtual exchange celebration with our AR And NY friends, and then our after school final group's celebration. So much to celebrate all the way around!

For our Virtual Exchange we kicked off our celebration with a Kahoot about all three locations, followed by a share out of final projects from each school, and then a Menti to share how we described DiDVE this fall!

After school we came together to put the final touches on our prints (signatures, edition numbers, color), decided who would receive which prints, and then enjoyed some Thai food (everyone loves Thai!). :) Katherine read to us from Amanda Gorman's poem. It was such a fun semester! Stay tuned for one more big announcement.

Hoping to see everyone back for Spring 2026! Our interest meeting will be on Thursday, January 15, from 3:30-4:20 pm in W104.

Stunning! Just stunning! I am so excited by the incredible work of our DiDVE students! Every student was able to finish carving their print and printed five editions of their print!

At our final meeting on 12/18 students will sign, and number, all of their editions, decide which print will go where, and take their print home. We will also make sure that the label text for each print is complete. Way to go guys!

We will also have a small celebration as we reminisce over our semester together. I am so, so proud of all students. You have done so much!

There are more pictures in our shared album (link below) but here are a few examples! Congratulations!

A special thanks to the ADCA for supporting this project by covering artist materials and fee!

On 12/4 and 12/11, a local printmaker, Ms. Alex Huttinger, will be helping us to make our final projects. Students should plan to stay from 3:30-5:00 both days to draw, carve, print, and write for their final project.

Really exciting news--the DC History Center will display the students' final prints in their Community Corner for three months!We are very excited for these collaborations--with Ms. Alex, and continued collaboration with the DC History Center!

On 12/4 we met Ms. Alex and she helped us to start our prints! We planned, revised, and started to carve our prints. We will finish carving and print our prints next week on 12/11! Everyone has great ideas and it's exciting to see our work in action!

In our meeting on November 20 we planned for our final project. Unlike previous semesters, this time students chose one of the topics we focused on and will make a print from it. Students will work with local print maker, Ms. Alex Huttinger, to make their prints. In our meeting on 11/20 we shared what we were thinking in words and visuals, sketched out our print, and began to write our label for the print.

There is no meeting on Thanksgiving, but our following two meetings, 12/4 and 12/11 will be with Ms. Alex, from 3:30-5:00 pm in W104, working to carve, print, and write.

There will be a sharing of the prints at school, with our virtual friends in AR and NY, and the DC History Center. Our final meeting will be on 12/18 from 3:30-4:20 pm.

Our final topic for this semester was DC Emancipation with a special look at the Freedman's Memorial in Lincoln Park here in DC. Students did a great job of comparing and contrasting the Emancipation Proclamation and DC Emancipation and discussing why DC Emancipation is so important to both local and national history.

Next week we will begin to plan out our final project!

On Thursday, 11/6 we had our final field trip to the DC History Center. We went to view the Rainbow History Project collection and the Latino Festival collection! We especially enjoyed that the RHP collection shared a fun collection of buttons! Ms. Vanessa had a very special surprise for us at the end--she took us to the archives to see where history is stored! We saw a lot of cool collections there, and ended our viewing with an original Metro Map from one of the first subway cars in DC! It was definitely an excellent way to conclude our visits!

Next week we will learn about one more collection before starting to plan our final project!

During 6th period on October 30 we had our virtual exchange with our two partner schools. After a short check in to share what everyone was going to be for Halloween, we started in! We first shared the slides we made of each other's cities and we saw how many items we predicted they would put on our DC slide. It was really fun to see each group's interpretations and to share them out! After our collage exchanges, we opened the boxes sent by the other schools (and of course, they opened ours!). We had so, so much fun checking out the goodies we received from Helen Tyson MS in AR and we loved, loved, loved the large box of Bjorn Pop Corn sent by our new friends in NY! It was fun had by all! We will have our final virtual exchange on December 18. Stay tuned for more details!

After school, we met up again and shared what the virtual exchange was about for those who couldn't make it. We then previewed the collections that we will see at our last DC History Center Field trip on 11/6. The two collections featured are the Rainbow History Project and the Latino Festival. We learned about the histories of both communities in DC and are excited to look through the collections at our next meeting.

Our next meeting is our final field trip to the DC History Center. We will leave at 3:30 pm and return to Deal by 6:15 pm. Students should bring a snack, their Kids Ride Free Card, and their continued enthusiasm.

After our vibe check and some announcements we jumped into our activity. We read articles about our virtual partners' communities and created a collage slide based off of these articles. We will share our slides at our virtual exchange on 10/30.

All students received passes to come to the library during 6th period on 10/30.

We will have double DiDVE next week--virtual exchange during 6th period and then our regular meeting from 3:30-4:20 pm. We will prep for our last field trip during our 10/30 meeting. Our final field trip is on 11/6 from 3:30-6:15 pm.

This past weekend, we mailed our box to our exchange friends in AR and NY! We are looking forward t our upcoming virtual meet up when we will open each others boxes.

We sent each school:

• Free DC Sign: A campaign in DC to help us be politically autonomous!Check out this website:
• https://freedcproject.org/ A lot of people have these signs or take them to protests.One of the organizers of the Free DC Movement is a mom of a 6th grade student at Deal….she provided the signs for our boxes!
• Takis:A fave snack of ours!
• Jolly Ranchers:a popular sweet treat that Ms. Trenkle often gives out
• DC Playing Cards:Have fun playing games (We love card games)—also we chose these since they have different images of Washington, DC.
• DC History Center bookmarks:This is the museum we have been working with this semester as we learn about the histories of our diverse DC communities.
• DC Student Ride Guide:We often take the bus and/or train as students at Deal.Some of us get to school that way and home.As students of DC Public Schools, we get a card that is good for the school year, and we ride the bus and trains for free on school days.If you open the pamphlet up you can see a map of our train system.We are on the red line, and our school is at the Tenleytown stop.When we visit the DC History Center we take the train from Tenleytown to Gallery Place-Chinatown and walk about four blocks to the museum.
• Washington DC Map—we included a map of DC.We are in the Northwest quadrant, west of the Rock Creek Park.Our school is between Nebraska Ave. and Wisconsin Ave. and also bound by Chesapeake Street and Fessenden, NW.
• Mambo Sauce:This was the first suggestion to send you—Mambo sauce is a VERY DC flavor.People put it on their fries and chicken wings, but really it can go on anything!

We had our second field trip to the DC History Center on October 16. We changed the date from 10/23 to 10/16 due to a book talk scheduled for 10/23 (and thus the gallery will be closed). When we visited, we went specifically to learn about the story of education in DC. We explored the gallery to--we played the school lottery to see what would happen to us, looked at a timeline, sat in an old school desk, found Deal class photos from 1985 and 2001, learned about Armstrong High School and about Bolling vs. Sharpe. We learned so much in our short visit! For anyone that is interested in learning about DC education the gallery is free to the public and open when the DC History Center is open.

We were also very lucky to have a surprise guest! Ms. Berry, the advisor from our DiDVE partner in AR, was in town for a conference and met us at the DC History Center---and then came back to Deal with us! So fun to meet her in person and have her attend one of our outings with us!

We didn't have a meeting on Thursday, October 9 due to Student Led Conferences.

We had our first outing to the DC History Center on Thursday, October 2! We were greeted by Ms. Vanessa who gave us an overview of the DC History Center and shared the giant DC History timeline with us to give us context. We then headed in a meeting room, set up just for us! We broke into groups and looked at artifacts and documents from the DC History's Collections about the 1968 Riots and the ECTC.

Wooohoo! So great to see everyone and meet our fellow DiDVEans online in our first virtual exchange on September 30. Thank you to all who were so flexible in the day switch and time switch. I apologize for the change of date and time--Deal is a busy place! We are already looking forward to our next exchange later this month!

Agenda for virtual exchange:

Students complete Nearpod questions. Nearpod code: B8RVJ

Select group of students from each school hop on camera and introduce themselves:

1. 
   Share your name and grade and one adjective to describe you or your superpower?
2. 
   Share one aspect of your school day that is a highlight and one aspect that you hope improves.
3. 
   What is a misconception about your school or city and what do you wish people knew instead?

End with "What are you working on next/currently in DiDVE class?

Our meeting this week focused on getting ready for our field trip next week. Next week we will be looking at the DC History Center's collections on the 1968 Riots and confrontations between the police and communities and ECTC's successful fight to keep out a federal highway through local neighborhoods, specifically Brookland.

Students completed a 3-2-1 after learning about the Riots which will help fuel our observations, analysis, and discussion next week. After learning about ECTC, students made six word stories to describe the committee. Two examples of our six word stories were:

• They tried to keep us down
• The freeway was stopped by protests.
• Preventing separation to bring others together!

We ended our meeting with making an intro video for our peers in Arkansas and New York. We were sad to miss the virtual exchange but are looking forward to our make up date!

This week we started our time with a vibe check and then a show and tell of objects! After our discussion of archives last week, students were asked to bring something from their own archives at home to tell us about them! (Pictures coming!)

Students shared their objects with us in person and then.... shared an object from the Smithsonian Collection via Learning Lab that they connect with and how. You can view these objects in our Padlet at: https://padlet.com/atrenkle/didve-objects-of-us-ge34t9r0qdgqk0dn

It was great to meet with everyone on Thursday! After going over the focus, components, and logistics of the club, we did a short get to know you activity: a collective, "I am From" poem. It will be typed up soon but in the meantime, here it is, each line read in their own voice. What a great group we have!

Remember: Next week, bring in something from your own archive at home---to share with the group! We will have a show and tell of sorts and then look at objects in the Smithsonian's Learning Lab. We learned about an archive (and the many forms of materials in an archive), and its purpose, as we get ready to work with the archival material at the DC History Center!

Come learn about DiDVE Fall 2025 edition! This Fall we will partner with a middle school in Springdale, Arkansas and a middle school in Stone Ridge, New York. We will also work with the DC History Center and their collections to explore DC’s diverse communities. Our culminating project will have students design and make their own linoleum print of a social justice topic from our studies this fall. We will be joined by DC native, Deal alum, Social Justice Printmaking founder and artist, Alex Huttinger.

Action Items:

• Complete the consent form (below) and permission slip (below) and bring it to our next meeting (9/18/25);
• Sign up for the newsletter at: https://tinyurl.com/DiDVEfall2025

• Share this information with your parent/guardian and have them complete the newsletter link as well.

• ·See you in W104 on Thursday!

Please bring your Kids Ride Free Card for our museum outings.

The Club will end at 4:20 pm unless otherwise noted.

1. Sasha Habyarimana

2. Naomi Cannon

3. Ryleigh Jones

4. Liv Werman

5. Chloe Tilghman

6. Ava Weinstein

7. Henrik Fiet

8. Marie Schofield

9. Magdalena Glenn

10. Sadie Rosenthal

11. Ava Silson

12. Katherine Glenn

13. Jake Rich

14. Emily Burnett

15. Neiloy Afrin

In 2026, the United States turns 250 years old, and as the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex, the Smithsonian is ideally positioned to contextualize our nation’s complex history with all its challenges and opportunities. It is in this spirit that the Smithsonian proudly launches Democracy in Dialogue, a unique cultural storytelling project bringing together teachers and students from diverse communities to engage in discovery, dialogue, and reflection.

To this end, centering local stories within a broader national narrative illuminates the indispensability of the human voice, in all its variety, in ensuring a robust democracy. A core component of Democracy in Dialogue is the virtual exchange. Never has the need been greater, perhaps, in giving teachers and their students opportunities to form authentic partnerships around the stories emanating from their respective communities, stories that feature needs and solutions, that capture perseverance and resilience, and that celebrate transformation. Indeed, we know that students benefit from the opportunity to interact with their peers from different settings. Their curiosity is piqued and their awareness expanded. We also know that teachers grow their practices in powerful ways when they collaboratively design and try out interactive instructional methods, grounded in inquiry. These important processes, all emerging from this exchange model, help to build essential civic dispositions, where communication, collaboration, and perspective-taking are held at the center.

Check out this article in SmartBrief about the DiDVE program! Be sure to see if you can find our Alice Deal students featured in the article! https://www.smartbrief.com/original/how-the-smithsonian-connects-classrooms-bridging-distances-across-america

Checkout out our DiDVE 2024 experiences!