Pittsfield School Panel Supports 'Culture & Community' Course

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
11:52AM / Monday, January 23, 2023Print Story | Email Story

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Pittsfield High School educators would like to offer a pilot course that covers diverse life experiences, and on Wednesday the curriculum subcommittee supported "Culture and Community."

The one-semester course is designed to provide students with language and skills to understand their own identity and the identities of others in their community, communicate effectively with diverse populations, understand privilege and bias, and take action to change discriminatory practices.

"What a gift to our students," Member Vicky Smith said.

Social studies teacher Emily Day explained that this was suggested by a student last year who wished that more people at PHS understood his background as a student of a lower socio-economic level and how it impacted his school experience.

"I'm using the social justice standards created by the organization Learning for Justice, used to be known as Teaching Tolerance," she explained. "And they have four domains that they work on: identity, diversity, justice, and action."

After exploring their own and others' identities, students will engage in a real-world justice and action project to facilitate change in their school or larger community.

Day said that another inspiration for the course was data that showed a lot of teachers wishing they had better skills with holding difficult conversations in the classroom and creating a safe space to have them.

It will include evaluations, written reflections, class discussions, research, presentations to peers, interviews, and the civics-oriented project.

There are no Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) standards for this class but it fits under the social studies framework.

"I think it is extremely valuable, especially in a community like Pittsfield, to have students explore what their actual community consists of," member Alison McGee said. "We spend a lot of time teaching students about the world, about the United States, and I've worked with many students who have not traveled outside of this area so really, truly understanding this area and being able to effective within it is really important."

She also loved that it addressed items that have come up in the equity audit and that the idea came from a student.

"I think this is great," Smith said to Day. "Knowing you and your background, not just with the (diversity, equity, and inclusion) group but also with the NAACP. Not everyone could do this."

Chair Sarah Hathaway, while in favor of the course, said that she wanted to make sure that the substance of the course also met DESE standards.

She also suggested that the class look into a monument on Elm Street that honors Henry Laurens Dawes, a controversial politician.

"It was paid for by Senator Dawes' daughter, and it has held a place of honor on a public street in Pittsfield for I think over a century," she said. "And I think we really need to question whether we want to have a public monument for Senator Dawes."

The subcommittee also approved a middle school illustrative math pilot, which is similar to a pilot that is being done in elementary schools.

Tags: Pittsfield Public Schools,

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The Round Stone Barn is 200 as Hancock Shaker Village Celebrates

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires.com
11:49AM / Monday, August 03, 2026

PITTSFIELD, Mass. – Hancock Shaker Village shared a bicentennial birthday, inviting the community to take part in the festivities.

On Sunday, Hancock Shaker Village celebrated the 200th birthday of their signature Round Stone Barn, the only circular barn ever built by the Shakers.

"The Round Stone Barn turned 200 this year," Hancock Shaker Village CEO Carrie Holland said. "It was erected in 1826, so we thought we would celebrate with the whole community. We'd do some cupcakes, and then we're lucky to work with Yo-Yo Ma's team to curate some special performances in the Round Stone Barn."

The community was invited to come to the village for free and take part in a wide range of activities including tours, live music from Ida Mae Specker Trio and Tanglewood, demonstrations, and more.

The Round Stone Barn is widely recognized as an architectural icon and agricultural wonder.

The Shakers operated a working dairy farm at Hancock until the 1950s, and the barn was originally a stable for its 52 milk cows, according to the museum's website.

It has ground-level access on all three levels so, wagons could enter on the upper level to deposit hay into the central haymow on the main floor below, then the empty wagons would be driven around the circular barn floor and exit the same door it came in, eliminating the potentially dangerous activity of backing wagons out of a barn, the website said.

The cows stabled on the main floor faced inward toward the haymow for ease of feeding and manure was shoveled through trapdoors to the cellar, where it was stored until needed as fertilizer in the gardens.

"Every time anyone comes into the timber frame, it's the very first thing that they see, and they always say, 'It's just like a photograph,' and it is," Director of Collections Kathleen Lynch said. "It's beautiful. People want to get married in front of it. We did our Christmas the festival of trees in here, and the mechanisms of it are so phenomenal."

Hundreds enjoyed music in the round barn and celebrated with free cupcakes and food trucks while listening on the history the village portrays.

"I think this is one of our most iconic buildings, and a lot of people have their own memories tied to it," Holland said. "We do baby animals here, and so there's personal history. ... But it's also a fantastic opportunity to share a bit about the Shakers, their design techniques and practices, their sort of obsession with making operations efficient, because this is used as a dairy barn, and so they created these three layers to make their operations more efficient."

"So you can talk about their innovation. Of course, they're the longstanding legacy of agriculture here. So it provides us an opportunity to kind of share the Shaker history in this beautiful space, tied to folks who have their own personal memories here as well, and it's such an impressive, beautiful spot. I have such appreciation for what it took to build this 200 years ago, and whenever we can do fun things and throw good parties here, it's a great day.""

Holland helps build momentum for the unveiling of Hancock Shaker Village's new visitor center that is planned to take place next month.

The new facility will include updated galleries, community event spaces, collection storage, and research areas for the museum's collection of over 22,000 Shaker artifacts and ephemera. The renovated building aims to enhance the visitor experience through improved orientation, expanded program offerings, closer access to collection items, and views of the surrounding landscape.

"Part of what we're also celebrating is past, present, future, and the future," Holland said. "We're very excited for expanded programming. We're opening our new visitor center, our Center for Shaker Studies, so that creates a whole new opportunity for our visitor experience, our galleries, our stewardship, and then that relates also to the programming that we can do in the historic village."

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