Dr. Todd Mealy teaches Modern American History, IB History and AP Government to McCaskey students in grades 9-12. But it’s his work outside of the classroom that could change the way students learn about an American icon.
Mealy founded and serves as executive director of the National Institute for Customizing Education, NICE, which was selected by The King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, to update the curriculum on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his philosophy for schools and organizations across the country. Established by his widow Coretta Scott King upon his death in 1968, The King Center is an educational and community nonprofit devoted to honoring Dr. King’s legacy.
“Personally, I’m really proud that we’ve gotten our institute to a point where the MLK Center is looking to us to help them write curriculum that’s going to have a global impact,” Mealy says. “We get to write a curriculum that pulls on previously unsurfaced documents and be able to tell his story through the voices of thousands of teachers.”
The curriculum, called “Nonviolence 365,” consists of three modules. The first covers Dr. King’s life from his birth to his assassination in 1968. The second focuses on Dr. King’s philosophy, six principles of nonviolence. The third module looks at Dr. King’s vision of a “beloved community.”
“We get to reconstruct his life in a way that no one else has done,” Mealy says. “What the curriculum is supposed to do is use King’s story to help students and leaders solve problems, working with people that don’t see the world the same way as they do and come to compromise in a nonviolent way.
Mealy is collaborating with Dr. Steffany Baptiste-Bosco, senior director of curriculum at NICE and assistant principal at Fair Lawn High School in New Jersey.
Mealy is in his second stint teaching at McCaskey High School. He began his career here in 2001 and taught for six years. He returned this school year.
“I’ve been very fond of this place,” he says of McCaskey. “For years I’ve been trying to come back.”