Reporting Helps Milwaukee High-Schoolers Analyze Black Maternal Mortality

Theodore Frank is a world history teacher at Milwaukee Marshall High School in Wisconsin. Frank created the lesson plan “How is Reporting a Form of Community Education?” as part of the fall 2024 Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellowship “Making Connections to Global Health Stories,” reaching 150 students. 

At the conclusion of the Fellowship, Frank shared the following reflections on his experience developing and teaching the lesson.

What is the focus of your lesson plan, and why did you write this lesson for your community?

I work in an urban school that is more than 98% BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and people of color] and more than 86% free/reduced lunch in Milwaukee, a minority-majority community. My students overwhelmingly have the potential to be faced with the issues faced by women of color during childbirth. My daughters will also face these issues if they decide to have children when they get older.

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How did you build this lesson with your community in mind?

I wrote this lesson partially to inform my students of potential issues they may face during pregnancy, but also as a girl dad who does not want his own children to face the pregnancy and childbirth trauma experienced by many women of color. As a teacher, I approached this lesson with the idea that my students should be aware of potential issues they may face in the future, or have already been exposed to (at least one of my students is a parent, and there are other students in the school who have children). 

The issue of maternal mortality is one issue that hopefully all women will be able to avoid, but women should be aware that the potential issues they may face during childbirth have solutions and strategies to help them avoid life-threatening problems. These are discussed in the articles we reviewed as a class. 

Maternal mortality is not unique to Milwaukee; it is an issue faced in other American cities with women of color.

What did your students learn while engaging with this lesson?

My students could not believe the disparity in the rates of maternal mortality in the United States. Their comments included: “I can’t believe that,” “How can that be?”, and “That's B.S.” 

Students also learned the role of a doula in delivery and other resources that may help during pregnancy and childbirth. Academically, students used skills including note-taking, synthesis of ideas, creating a finished product, public speaking, and civil discourse.

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What did you learn by creating and teaching this lesson?

My takeaways from this project were that students are much more invested when an issue affects them directly, and that even though this was not a topic normally seen as one that is one of those “difficult conversations,” it was an area that was out of my area of expertise from a health standpoint, even if the specific topic was not difficult for me to discuss.

Underlying areas of slavery, racism, and the ongoing discrimination, the topic of maternal mortality may lead to rich discussions, as the background of some of the medical practices that led to the disparity is still present.