West Nottingham Faculty Member Receives National Recognition

COLORA, MARYLAND – Through endowed funding from West Nottingham Academy’s Cameron Fund, Mr. Rusty Eder, long-time faculty member and resident school historian, attended a three-day seminar on “Religious Freedom and Constitutional Government” directed by Ashland University’s Teaching American History project and hosted at George Washington University. His efforts at several such seminars, combined with the research while completing his Master of American History and Government degree have led to him being chosen as the sole teacher representative for the state of Maryland recognized by Ashland University. Eder’s project is posted on the Teaching American History project’s website.

The article, entitled Invoking God While Respecting Freedom of Conscience: The Careful Speech of Our First Presidents, explores the work Mr. Eder did on his master’s capstone project, which focused on the religion clauses of the First Amendment and their meaning to American leaders during the early republic. In the classroom application of his research, Eder’s students examine key public statements of our first four presidents. These carefully composed, formal speeches — “as opposed to their letters to friends, which more likely expressed their personal religious feelings” — should “reveal how they interpreted the Constitution while holding the highest office for which it provides.”

Questions about the founders resonate at West Nottingham Academy, a private boarding and day school in the Maryland tidewater town of Colora. Opening in 1744, the school educated two signers of the Declaration of Independence: Benjamin Rush, a Pennsylvanian who became a friend and physician to John Adams, and Richard Stockton of New Jersey, who became Rush’s father-in-law. Yet despite the school’s eighteenth-century origins, most students arrive in Eder’s class sharing “the monolithic view of the founders’ religious principles held by most Americans today.”

Eder points out to students that, in fact, the founders lived at a time much like today: Christians of different sects held a range of views. Indeed, this diversity of belief had provoked violent civil and international conflict in Europe. The founders’ decision to prohibit religious establishment and to allow free expression of religious faith arose in large measure from their determination to avoid the conflicts of the old world.

When students read and analyze primary documents, Eder says, “they really learn — and they figure out how to learn — how to think critically.” The Master of American History and Government program gave Eder new primary resources for this kind of teaching, while pushing him to do his own analysis. It did not urge a particular reading of history, except in that it gave him a strong foundation in the Constitution and the views of the founders. “The program tells teachers: ‘Here are the documents. Think about them. And think about what you are doing. Make your teaching count.’”

Congratulations, again, to Rusty Eder, for your contributions to the teaching and learning at West Nottingham Academy.

West Nottingham Academy is a diverse, student-centered day and boarding school for students in 9th through 12th grade and post-graduate. Since its founding in 1744, the West Nottingham has prepared students for the challenges of college and life through a curriculum grounded in the liberal arts and sciences, and a commitment to the intellectual, spiritual, and social growth of each student.

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~ West Nottingham Academy