Meet the Team: Cedric Josey, Culture & Societies Instructional Specialist
Here at Eagle Rock, Societies and Cultures is our equivalent of Social Studies, and Cedric Josey, who has taught in middle schools and high schools in Massachusetts, is our new culture & societies instructional specialist.
While his new position makes Cedric the person on our campus primarily responsible for curriculum objectives related to world and U.S. history, physical and cultural geography, U.S. government, and civics, it’s his love and pursuit of original works of music that we’d like to highlight in introducing him to the Eagle Rock Community.
Cedric’s love of music began while singing in a church choir as a child, and he later remembers driving his neighbors a bit crazy while learning to play the saxophone. So, years later, when he found himself living alone in a New Bedford, Mass., apartment, he picked up a guitar and quietly learned to play and write music in order to avoid disturbing those around him.
Most impressive, while working with Destination New Bedford — an effort of the City of New Bedford’s Office of Tourism and Marketing to highlight that seaside town’s unique attributes — Cedric wrote and produced a song called “Being in New Bedford,” that was used extensively in the city’s promotion efforts. (Scroll to the end of today’s post for a video featuring Cedric performing this song himself).
Beyond his love for music, and in addition to teaching in public middle and high schools, Cedric has worked with the Youth Corps within the State of Massachusetts’ Trustees of Reservations, which owns and cares for more than 25,000 acres across the Bay State. There, he provided youth in his community with an opportunity to learn in-depth leadership skills in an outdoor environment during the summer months. Ask him about it and Cedric will tell you it was an opportunity for him, as an African American male, to mentor youth in a way that highlighted an alternative path to success — outside of what society or peers might suggest.
For today’s post, we asked Cedric to fill us in on some additional details of his life and career to date, and here’s what he had to say: Continue reading…