Weston Dean Eastman (February 22, 1948 - March 13, 2025) was a nationally known educator and writer who instituted numerous innovative "hands-on" classroom teaching approaches and helped initiate a number of collaborations between numerous historical archives and public schools.
Eastman received many awards and honors during his long career.
Recognition The National Junior Chamber of Commerce selected Eastman as one of the Outstanding Young Men of America in 1982. From 1987 to 1991 Eastman served as grant reader/evaluator for the Commission of the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution, chaired by former Chief Justice Warren Burger. In 1989 he was selected as the John F. Kennedy Presidential Award Winner, "Outstanding Teacher on the Theme of the American Presidency" and as the Massachusetts Christa McAuliffe Fellow in 1990. Eastman was featured in the book I Am a Teacher by David Marquis (Simon & Schuster). In 1991, he was selected by the Disney Channel as one of 36 teachers in the nation to receive the American Teacher Award. He was featured on the Disney Channel on November 24, 1991. In 1991 Eastman was featured on NBC's Today Show for his work with homeless students, and was introduced on NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He also appeared twice as a guest on Tom Bergeron's WBZ TV Show "People Are Talking". He served as a grant reader/evaluator for the United States Department of Education from 1992 to 1994. In 1992 he helped develop, research, and host a ten-part series on immigration for Massachusetts Educational Television (MCET). In 1996, Eastman's local history class was featured in an article "History Close to Home" in the fall 1996 issue of Teaching Tolerance, published by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In 2001 Eastman was featured in the PBS series "Only A Teacher: The History of Teaching in the United States". In 2004 he was selected as the first annual Preserve America Massachusetts History Teacher of the Year. In 2005 the National Park Service awarded him the Prince Saunders Education Award for Exemplary Contribution in the Field of African-American Historical Research.
In 2005 Eastman appeared as a contestant on ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as part of a special tribute to America's teachers.
Eastman was a recipient of Harvard University's Derek Bok Prize for Public Service.
Eastman was the recipient of the Drake University Alumni Achievement Award in 1991, and Drake's School of Education's Outstanding Alumni Award in 1994. He was a visiting professor of education at Drake from 1994 to 1995, and was a guest lecturer in 2005 and 2010. He was profiled in Drake Blue (Winter 2005).
Of Eastman, Pulitzer Award winner in American History Bernard Bailyn stated "I have never seen creative imagination so wonderfully at work in high school teaching"
Eastman was selected for both Marquis Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World for almost 20 years.
He is an elected fellow at both the Massachusetts Historical Society and Colonial Society of Massachusetts, and served an eight-year term as one of eight members of Adams Family Papers Administration Committee from 2005 to 2013. He also served on the boards of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), the National Teacher Source Advisory Group from 2004 to 2005, and the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union Education Steering Committee from 1990 to 2010.
In 2017 Eastman received the Nelson Marquis Who's Who Lifetime Achievement Award.
Eastman is the co-creator of primaryresearch.org, which was founded in 1999 to highlight and benefit the endeavor of local history study among public school students.
In 2019 Eastman received the James E Stewart Torch Bearer Award, presented by the Montford Point Marines of America Association, for humanitarian service and historical research and writing in the field of African-American history.
Life and education Eastman was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts on February 22, 1948, the son of Weston D. and Harriet Eastman. Eastman attended the Andover, Massachusetts Public Schools and, while a student at Andover High School, was a member of the Latin Club, a library assistant, won third place in the science fair, and won 8 athletic letters in football, indoor track, and outdoor track. In his senior year, Andover High won the Massachusetts All-Class Track and Field Championship. Eastman placed in the 200-meter dash and was a member of the 800-meter relay team that placed second. His classmates at Andover High included Tonight Show host Jay Leno and Emmy Award-winning soap opera writer Lorraine Broderick.
Eastman attended Drake University from 1966 to 1970. He was a member of the Bulldog Track team as a freshman. Eastman graduated from Drake in 1970 with a BSE in Social Science. He was the recipient of the 1991 Drake University Alumni Achievement Award and the 1994 Drake University School of Education Outstanding Achievement Award.
Eastman received an MSE and Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study at Springfield College (1976, 1977).
In 2000 he received an ALM degree with a concentration in Government from Harvard University. Under the guidance of thesis advisor, Stephan Thernstrom, a recipient of the Bancroft Prize in American History, Dean's topic was "The Influence of Immigration on the Development of Civic Education in the United States from 1880-1925".
Eastman was selected for Who's Who in the World and Who's Who in America in every year from 2000 to 2015. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award by Marquis Who's Who in 2017. In 2018 Eastman was awarded the Albert Nelson Marquis Who's Who Lifetime Achievement Award.
Eastman died on March 13, 2025, in Vero Beach, Florida, after a battle with cancer.
Teaching career Eastman started teaching in the Beverly, Massachusetts Public Schools upon graduation from Drake University in 1970. He taught social studies at Memorial Junior High School and at Beverly High School. He retired from teaching in 2006.
Coaching In addition to teaching, Eastman was a successful track coach. From 1970 to 1981 he coached at Beverly High School, Springfield College, Salem State College and the University of Massachusetts Lowell. While at Springfield College from 1974 to 1976 he was a Graduate-Assistant Track and Field coach under legendary coach Vern Cox. From 1975 to 1980 he coached eight Division II NCAA Track and Field All-Americans. From 1980 to 1983 Eastman served as Goodwill Ambassador for the United States Department of State, coaching Track and Field in Mexico.
Eastman coached track and field for fourteen years on a number of levels, including high school, college, and internationally. Early in his coaching career, he was fortunate to come under the tutelage of Fred Wilt, an Olympic runner, Sullivan Award winner and a respected coach. From 1970 to 1981, in conjunction with teaching, Eastman coached at Beverly High School, Springfield College, Salem State College, and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. While at Springfield College (1974–1976) he was a Graduate-Assistant Track and Field Coach under coach Vern Cox. From 1975 to 1980, Eastman coached eight Division II NCAA Track and Field All-Americans. During the summers from 1980 to 1983, he served as Goodwill Ambassador for the United States Department of State, coaching Track and Field in Mexico.
Eastman had a number of coaching opportunities that he was unable to accept due to family health responsibilities. These opportunities included an offer by the Nigerian Government in 1974 for a two-year contract to serve as Head Track and Field Coach that included the 1976 Olympic Coach position. In 1978, Eastman was offered the position of National Track and Field Coach for Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). In 1982, the Nation of Cuba invited Eastman to conduct a number of coaching clinics in Cuba.
Amongst numerous clinical and workshop presentations, Eastman was published in a number of track and field-related journals, including Scholastic Coach, Track Technique, and The Journal of Physical Education and Recreation.
Beverly High School In the 1980s, Eastman and Beverly Social Studies Coordinator Anthony Witwicki shared a vision of a social studies lab: a room set up on the same principles as a science or language lab, and a place where students could get hands-on training. A stipend of $15,000 that Eastman received as a recipient of the Massachusetts Christa McAuliffe Fellowship helped bring to fruition the social studies lab vision he shared with Witwicki.
With the help of archaeologist Steven Pendery, Eastman created an interdisciplinary Archaeology course that included a first-of-its-kind 20x15 foot field training "sand box" with 3,000 artifacts buried in four levels representing periods in American history - late Woodland, Colonial, Victorian, and Modern-Day. The course included a classroom laboratory for artifact analysis and cataloging.
The program also included a four-week summer program for special needs students.
Due to school budget limitations, Eastman and his students created their own textbook for both Archaeology and Architecture.
In the days before wide-use of the Internet and its later manifestations of blogs, podcasts, and social media, Eastman attempted to connect students to the broader world of scholarship through cutting-edge technologies available at the time. He initiated a national social studies video exchange where High School Social Studies classes created videos featuring the local histories of their community. One of Eastman's classes composed a 20-minute video on Boston's Freedom Trail. Other videos produced by his students included ones on The Alamo, The Second Great Awakening, and the Chicago Stockyards. This exchange provided student-created videos to participating schools for free.
Eastman initiated a Community Outreach Genealogical Service where his students volunteered to interview and videotape multi-generational families about their memories, including pictures and documents, at no cost to the families. One copy was given to the participating family, and the other became part of a Beverly Genealogical Video Archive.
He established a teacher job bank for summer employment in collaboration with the Beverly business community. It connected physical education teachers with summer job opportunities as fitness instructors, business teachers with various corporations, and science and math teachers with technical employers. Teachers had opportunities to try new endeavors like flower arranging or work in art galleries.
Eastman created a colonial gravestone research program called "Tiptoeing Through the Tombstones". Students were given opportunities to research and analyze the evolution of New England gravestone symbols (such as ‘death heads’, ‘cherubs’, and ‘urn and willow’). They studied inscriptions, borders, finials, and styles popular in New England from approximately 1680 to 1820. For each colonial cemetery they visited, students filled out seriation charts to document the rise and fall in prevalence of various gravestone styles and types of inscriptions. Students considered whether and how these changes reflected shifts in Puritan religious beliefs.
Students were also asked to carefully analyze gravestone art for evidence of the distinct styles of individual gravestone carvers. Although carvers did not leave initials, students came up with a way to identify them, by making lists of stones that exhibited similar designs, along with the name of the deceased and year of death. They were then able to find (in many cases) the names of carvers in wills left on file at the Massachusetts State Archives, as often there were bills listed by the executor of payment to a particular gravestone carver.