Session 2 transcript, 2020-10-20

Item

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This is the second session of a life history interview with Cosby Hunt, a career educator, native Washingtonian, and creator of Real World History at the Center for Inspired Teaching. In this interview Cosby Hunt discusses some early memories but mainly focuses on his adolescent years and high school experience. He talks about a variety of subjects including: visits to Danville, Virginia, to visit his father’s family, his mother’s parents in Boston, Massachusetts, his interest in painting as a young man, developing a Black identity in high school, his favorite teachers from St. Albans, his first experiences with loss as a high schooler, and the death of his mother when he was 23 years old.

Dates

Creation: 2020-10-20

Creator

Hunt, Isaac Cosby, III, 1971- (Person)
Peterson, Max (Person)

Language of Materials

English

Biographical / Historical

Isaac Cosby Hunt III (b. 12/11/1971) is a high school history teacher in Washington, D.C., and a native Washingtonian. Cosby is the only child of Isaac Cosby Hunt Jr. and Elizabeth Dollie Ravenell Hunt. Cosby grew up in the Hawthorne neighborhood of D.C. and attended Lafayette Elementary School and St. Albans School before graduating from University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Upon completing his undergraduate degree, Cosby began his teaching career by joining Teach for America in 1993. After teaching social studies in Hancock County, Georgia, for two years, Cosby enrolled in a graduate program at the University of Georgia and earned his master's in education. Upon graduating from UGA, Cosby returned to Washington, D.C., to become a public school teacher and taught at Bell Multicultural High School (now CHEC - Columbia Heights Education Campus). Cosby taught at Bell for thirteen years before joining Center for Inspired Teaching in the summer of 2010. After three years of working with D.C. high school teachers through Center for Inspired Teaching, Cosby developed and piloted the Real World History program, an after-school, honors history course available to high school students in D.C. Public Schools, in the fall of 2014. In SY 2019-2020, Cosby returned to full-time teaching and began working at Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter School in Anacostia. Cosby earned his National Board Certification in 2006 and has received many awards throughout his teaching career, including District of Columbia History Teacher of the Year in 2008 and National History Day Teacher of the Year in 2019.