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Virginia middle school teacher celebrates HBCUs for Black History Month

Mr. David Wickham teaches history at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia.

WASHINGTON — A local Fairfax teacher is showing his appreciation for Historically Black Colleges and Universities for Black History Month. His posts on Twitter are getting a lot of attention.

Mr. David Wickham is an outstanding middle school history teacher and soccer coach at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. For the month of February, he has been wearing different HBCU T-shirts to class every day, and not only that, he posts pictures of himself in the shirt to social media with notes about famous alumni from the school. 

Mr. Wickham told WUSA9 that he had the idea while teaching remotely. He wanted to think of interesting ways to engage his students. He said he started getting shirts from the schools' stores and it grew from there.

"I'm learning a lot too," Wickham said. "Different lesser-known stories that really should be told."

Mr. Wickham said he's been wearing shirts for a lot of different units in his class. His students are responding well, he says.

"I've started with when was it established, notable alumni and notable faculty and that's kind of where we go, giving a little spotlight or highlight to these schools that more people should know about," Wickham said. 

He says he hopes his T-shirts will help encourage his students to discuss HBCUs.

"I want them to tell more people. More and more people will be educated and learn about HBCUs and know about these lesser-known stories, these lesser-known people that deserve to be in the curriculum, that deserve to be in text books, and deserve to be heard of," Wickham said.  

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