Midnight Teacher: Lilly Ann Granderson and Her Secret School
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A pioneer in education, Lilly Ann Granderson faced many challenges to her efforts to teach and to encourage others to pursue education. Have students discuss what education meant to Lilly Ann and to the people who learned from her, then get students thinking about what education means to them. How do they feel about their own educational experiences? Who do they think is responsible for helping them get a good education? Have students write a letter or tribute to a teacher or someone in their lives who has helped them learn, sharing how having that knowledge has affected their lives.
Questions for Discussion or Reflective Writing
What kind of learning opportunities do you think are important?
What is your idea of a good education?
What are the most important things for a school to have?
How important is access to a good education?
Where else can you go to learn?
How does education make a difference in life?
Why is it important to protect people’s right to education?
Related Teaching Resources
Mother Mathilda Beasley: Educator of Slave Children
Teacher’s Guide for Midnight Teacher from Lee & Low Books
The Making of African America Identity, Volume I, 1500-1865: Education from the National Humanities Center
Documenting the American South from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Janet Halfmann on Lilly Granderson’s legacy
Reading Is Fundamental support materials
More Titles to Try
The Art of Miss Chew by Patricia Polacco
My Teacher by James Ransome
The Upside Down Boy/El niño de Cabeza by Juan Felipe Herrera
Armando and the Blue Tarp School by Edith Hope Fine
Mary McLeod Bethune by Eloise Greenfield
Light in the Darkness: A Story about How Slaves Learned in Secret by Lesa Cline-Ransome
Booker T. Washington: Great American Educator by Eric Braun
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