With all the attacks on teachers, there are times when even I begin to question things I did as a teacher. Did I really put children first? Or was I just acting like a selfish adult?
I was at Long Island University on Friday in downtown Brooklyn to tape two former charter school parents for a final segment to our movie. We were waiting in the lobby for Leonie Haimson who was doing the interview. She was a little late. And I was glad she was. A woman was walking by and said, "Mr. Scott?" I looked at her. "It's Milagros," she said.
The minute she said her name I recognized her but wasn't sure from which year (they all run together now.) "You were in my 6th grade class, right?" "5th and 6th," she said. Poor girl, suffering me for two years. Yes, it came back quickly. I only moved up with a class twice. This was the '77 and '78 class. She must be in her 40's. Oy!
I had two great years with them, especially the 2nd year when there was no need to spend a month on routines. We really got rolling from the first day back.
And she was a pleasure to have in class. She told me she still lives in the old neighborhood. I had run into Milagros when she brought her young son to our school in the 90's. "Don't you have a son," I asked? "He's 22 now."Double Oy! "And I have an eleven year old too. I've been trying to find you on Facebook," she said. I gave her my card. "Oh," I asked as she started to walk away, "what are you doing here?" "I work in the library." YES! One after another as I run into former students I find they have jobs and careers. We weren't total failures as the ed deformers would have the world believe.
She started to walk away again, turned and came back, semi-whispering: "You were my favorite teacher."
Milagros, you made my day, week, month and maybe year. And best of all – she recognized me.
While I'm bragging: Here is a comment from another former student from the class of '82. This was the same 4th grade class that Ernie Silva, the actor, was in. I wrote a review of his one man show on Feb. 27 where I made the point that the role of teachers are overrated by the ed deformers (with evil intent) and Diane P. saw it on Facebook and left this comment on the blog:
Mr. Scott,
This review brought me to tears. As our fourth grade teacher (yes, we are all about 39 now YIKES) you were probably THE most influential teacher we had. Your grace and love for each of us still lives in our hearts today. It's ok to take pride in all our successes... you are a piece in our past that shaped our future! Thank you from your 39 year-old student.
Diane P. class of 81-82
Of course in today's ed deform world, what's love got to do with it? ----------- Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.
Emily B, an 8th grade student, created an extensive project related to the Bosnian war for the Manatee County History fair.
"One of the major tings I learned was that even though tragic events happen and pass, they are never fogotten. Someone will always be affected by it, no matter how far in the past it occurred."
Emily contacted the Holocaust Center, and we were able to connect her with Selena, a survivor of the Bosnian war, living in the Seattle area. (Selena also contributed to the Holocaust Center's "Stories Among Us: Personal Accounts of Genocide" series published in the Seattle Times.)
"I chose my topic, the Bosnian genocide, for many reasons. My mom introduced the topic to me at first. As I researched more in depth, I learned how recent this event had occurred. Also, not a lot of people knew about it and I wanted to raise awareness. My last reason was it affected thousands of people only a few years before I was born."
Hi, I am a student at Hoquiam Middle School and Peter [a Holocaust survivor] came to my school and spoke about the Holocaust. I thought that was just awesome. His story made me think about how lucky I am that I was not in the Holocaust and that I got a family to give me a home and food. So I know if that ever happend to me I would just die. So thank you Peter.
That is a brief clip of Diane Ravitch addressing the Representative Assembly of the National Education Association on July 6, where she was receiving an award as the 2010 "Friend of Education."
Please keep reading.
The complete text of Diane's speech can be read here. She has given me permission to quote as much as I deem appropriate, including the whole speech if necessary.
I won't do that. You can follow the link to read the entire text if so inclined.
Let me offer some selections to at least whet your appetite, as well as offer a bit of commentary of my own.
... in all of this time, aside from the right-wing think tanks, I haven’t seen met a single teacher who likes what’s happening? I haven’t met a single teacher who thinks that No Child Left Behind has been a success. I haven’t met a single teacher who thinks that Race to the Top is a good idea.
I remind readers that the Representative Assembly passed a resolution of no confidence in Race to the Top.
And as I talk to teachers, by the end of my talk, I hear the same questions again and again: What can we do? How can we stop the attacks on teachers and on the teaching profession? Why is the media demonizing unions? Why does the media constantly criticize public schools? And why does it lionize charter schools? Why is Arne Duncan campaigning with Newt Gingrich? Why has the Obama Administration built its education agenda on the punitive failed strategies of No Child Left Behind?
Newt Gingrich - now there's a great ally for a supposedly progressive administration, eh? And during the campaign, Obama railed against NCLB, yet too much of the administration policy continues to rely on the failed policies of that approach.
I will continue to speak out against high-stakes testing. It undermines education. High-stakes testing promotes cheating, gaming the system, teaching to bad tests, narrowing the curriculum. High-stakes testing means less time for the arts, less time for history or geography or civics or foreign languages or science.
We see schools across America dropping physical education. We see them dropping music. We see them dropping their arts programs, their science programs, all in pursuit of higher test scores. This is not good education.
I have been told by some people in the Obama Administration that the way to stop the narrowing of the curriculum is to test everything. In fact, the chancellor in Washington, D.C., the other day announced she plans to do exactly that. That means less time for instruction, more time for testing, and a worse education for everyone.
Some of us have worried about this trend for years - I remember a group of elementary school art teachers asking their state for a test on art so their classes would not be eliminated. As it happens, my course is one in which there is a test that has high stakes - students in theory must not only pass a government course but also a state test in government in order to graduate from high school (although the latter requirement has some loopholes). Let me say that for too many students their course in government gets reduced, especially in the Spring as the test approaches, to drill and kill, practice for the test. For a subject that should excite them, because it has direct affect on their lives, they get bored and frustrated.
In speaking out, I have consistently warned about the riskiness of school choice. Its benefits are vastly overstated. It undercuts public education by enabling charter schools to skim the best students in poor communities. As our society pursues these policies, we will develop a bifurcated system, one for the haves, another for the have-nots, and politicians have the nerve to boast about such an outcome.
Public schools, as I said before, are a cornerstone of our democratic society. If we chip away at support for them, we erode communal responsibility for a vital public institution.
Bifurcated - even worse than what we have by geography, where wealthy communities have excellent public schools rich in resources and the students have access to all kinds of elective courses, and poor communities, whether in inner cities, inner rings of suburbs or the hinterlands, lacking equipment, with decaying buildings, and overwhelmed with students arriving st school with less background and current problems.
democratic society - if we really believe in it, economics would not be the sole basis on which we make arguments about our schools.
Last year, a major evaluation showed that one out of every six charters will get better results, five out of six charters will get no different results or worse results than the regular public schools. A report released just a couple of weeks ago by Mathematica Policy Research once again shows charter middle schools do not get better results than regular public middle schools.
Unfortunately, the general media coverage of the Mathematica report was badly flawed, focused on the schools that did 'better' while not including any of the caveats about even these schools. Charters COULD be used to offer alternative ways of teaching/learning to specific groups of students. Diane's next two paragraphs are very important:
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, on whose board I served for seven years, has tested charter schools since 2003. In 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009, charter schools were compared to regular public schools and have never shown an advantage over regular public schools. Charter schools, contrary to Bill Gates, are not more innovative than regular public schools. The business model and methods of charter schools is this — longer school days, longer hours, longer weeks, and about 95 percent of charter schools are non-union.
Teachers are hired and fired at will. Teachers work 50, 60, 70 hours a week. They are expected to burn out after two or three years when they can be replaced. No pension worries, no high salaries. This is not a template for American education.
NAEP is the national report card on education. It is considered the gold standard of educational evaluation. It does not show that charters do better. One reason why some "reformers" like charters is that in many states they are a way around unions, and their teachers can be fired at will.
Let me skip down a bit:
And perhaps we should begin demanding that school districts be held accountable for providing the resources that schools need. Just like No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top requires and pressures districts to close low-performing schools. The overwhelming majority of low-performing schools enroll students in poverty and students who don’t speak English and students who are homeless and transient. Very often, these schools have heroic staffs who are working with society’s neediest children. These teachers deserve praise, not pink slips. Closing schools weakens communities. It’s not a good idea to weaken communities. No school was ever improved by closing it.
Reread that please. Yes, you will read stories that supposedly focus on "high-performing" schools dealing with such students. In some cases the claims for high performance are based on selective use of data. In most cases the schools on which such focus is made get more resources (as do many charters), have longer days, etc. The "success" is claimed on the basis of test scores. What is not yet offered is any evidence that there are long-term gains in learning: that the students are developing skills and knowledge that they can apply outside of the test environment. Meanwhile we reconstitute schools. We use one of the four models approved by this administration, even though NONE has any research to demonstrate that they improve education.
There are passages about the right to unionize, which Diane supports, but which "reformers" oppose. Read this paragraph, and perhaps you will understand two things, (1) why teachers are reacting so positively towards Diane; and (2) why we feel unfairly besieged, that the playing field is tilted:
I have spoken out repeatedly to defend the right of teachers to join unions for their protection and the protection of the teaching profession. Teachers have a right to a collective voice in the political process. It’s the American way. I don’t see the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post or the pundits complaining about the charter school lobby. I don’t see them complaining about the investment bankers lobby, or any other group that speaks on behalf of its members. Only teachers’ unions are demonized these days.
Teachers, and those who support them, ARE being demonized. By constrast, Hedge Fund managers (who are making major investments in things like charter schools for tax benefits) and Wall Street Firms (who came close to destroying the economy of this nation and the international community) get bailed out with our tax dollars, continue to pay bonuses, and spend millions to prevent appropriate oversight and regulation. Then they want to have a voice telling us how we should teach, how our schools should be run.
There is so much of value in the speech. By now I hope I have at least convinced you to take the time to read the entire thing.
Let me offer only a few more snippets, skipping over some very important material:
Around the world, those nations that are successful recognize that the best way to improve school is to improve the education profession. We need expert teachers, not a steady influx of novices.
One argument against Teach for America, for example. Now if those in that program actually stayed in teaching, people like Ravitch and me would have far fewer objections. The constant turnover in the schools in which they serve is unfair to those kids. The program benefits many in the TFA corps, and it certainly benefits TFA. It is not clear that the students are getting all that much benefit, and the model is not something that can really address the needs of the millions of students in inner city and rural schools.
The current so-called reform movement is pushing bad ideas. No high-performing nation in the world is privatizing its schools, closing its schools, and inflicting high-stakes testing on every subject on its children. The current reform movement wants to end tenure and seniority, to weaken the teaching profession, to silence teachers’ unions, to privatize large sectors of public education. Don’t let it happen.
The consequences of letting these "reforms" go forward unchallenged will be great damages far beyond the arena of public education. It will be further destruction of what is left of the union movement in this country. It will be increased privatization of what is left of the commons in this country/ It will be a narrowing of opportunity for too many of our young people. It will diminish us as a people as our young people receive narrower and narrower educations.
Diane urges those listening to her to be politically active, to remind people that there are millions of teachers, we vote, and so do our families, to not support anyone who is an opponent of public education.
Stand up to the attacks on public education. Don’t give them half a loaf, because they will be back the next day for another slice, and the day after that for another slice.
Don’t compromise. Stand up for teachers. Stand up public education, and say “No mas, no mas." Thank you.
Diane Ravitch received a rousing ovation for this speech. As a teacher, as a UNIONIZED teacher in a public school, I understand why.
I thought it important that as many people as possible encounter HER words, not just cursory news accounts. I think it important that voices that speak for teachers and for public schools be given as much of an audience as those who have described themselves as 'reformers' and seek to suppress or denigrate any opposing point of view.
That is why I asked Diane, a friend, if I could quote extensively. That is why Diane told me "You are free to cite or quote whatever you wish."
That is a brief clip of Diane Ravitch addressing the Representative Assembly of the National Education Association on July 6, where she was receiving an award as the 2010 "Friend of Education."
Please keep reading.
The complete text of Diane's speech can be read here. She has given me permission to quote as much as I deem appropriate, including the whole speech if necessary.
I won't do that. You can follow the link to read the entire text if so inclined.
Let me offer some selections to at least whet your appetite, as well as offer a bit of commentary of my own.
... in all of this time, aside from the right-wing think tanks, I haven’t seen met a single teacher who likes what’s happening? I haven’t met a single teacher who thinks that No Child Left Behind has been a success. I haven’t met a single teacher who thinks that Race to the Top is a good idea.
I remind readers that the Representative Assembly passed a resolution of no confidence in Race to the Top.
And as I talk to teachers, by the end of my talk, I hear the same questions again and again: What can we do? How can we stop the attacks on teachers and on the teaching profession? Why is the media demonizing unions? Why does the media constantly criticize public schools? And why does it lionize charter schools? Why is Arne Duncan campaigning with Newt Gingrich? Why has the Obama Administration built its education agenda on the punitive failed strategies of No Child Left Behind?
Newt Gingrich - now there's a great ally for a supposedly progressive administration, eh? And during the campaign, Obama railed against NCLB, yet too much of the administration policy continues to rely on the failed policies of that approach.
I will continue to speak out against high-stakes testing. It undermines education. High-stakes testing promotes cheating, gaming the system, teaching to bad tests, narrowing the curriculum. High-stakes testing means less time for the arts, less time for history or geography or civics or foreign languages or science.
We see schools across America dropping physical education. We see them dropping music. We see them dropping their arts programs, their science programs, all in pursuit of higher test scores. This is not good education.
I have been told by some people in the Obama Administration that the way to stop the narrowing of the curriculum is to test everything. In fact, the chancellor in Washington, D.C., the other day announced she plans to do exactly that. That means less time for instruction, more time for testing, and a worse education for everyone.
Some of us have worried about this trend for years - I remember a group of elementary school art teachers asking their state for a test on art so their classes would not be eliminated. As it happens, my course is one in which there is a test that has high stakes - students in theory must not only pass a government course but also a state test in government in order to graduate from high school (although the latter requirement has some loopholes). Let me say that for too many students their course in government gets reduced, especially in the Spring as the test approaches, to drill and kill, practice for the test. For a subject that should excite them, because it has direct affect on their lives, they get bored and frustrated.
In speaking out, I have consistently warned about the riskiness of school choice. Its benefits are vastly overstated. It undercuts public education by enabling charter schools to skim the best students in poor communities. As our society pursues these policies, we will develop a bifurcated system, one for the haves, another for the have-nots, and politicians have the nerve to boast about such an outcome.
Public schools, as I said before, are a cornerstone of our democratic society. If we chip away at support for them, we erode communal responsibility for a vital public institution.
Bifurcated - even worse than what we have by geography, where wealthy communities have excellent public schools rich in resources and the students have access to all kinds of elective courses, and poor communities, whether in inner cities, inner rings of suburbs or the hinterlands, lacking equipment, with decaying buildings, and overwhelmed with students arriving st school with less background and current problems.
democratic society - if we really believe in it, economics would not be the sole basis on which we make arguments about our schools.
Last year, a major evaluation showed that one out of every six charters will get better results, five out of six charters will get no different results or worse results than the regular public schools. A report released just a couple of weeks ago by Mathematica Policy Research once again shows charter middle schools do not get better results than regular public middle schools.
Unfortunately, the general media coverage of the Mathematica report was badly flawed, focused on the schools that did 'better' while not including any of the caveats about even these schools. Charters COULD be used to offer alternative ways of teaching/learning to specific groups of students. Diane's next two paragraphs are very important:
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, on whose board I served for seven years, has tested charter schools since 2003. In 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009, charter schools were compared to regular public schools and have never shown an advantage over regular public schools. Charter schools, contrary to Bill Gates, are not more innovative than regular public schools. The business model and methods of charter schools is this — longer school days, longer hours, longer weeks, and about 95 percent of charter schools are non-union.
Teachers are hired and fired at will. Teachers work 50, 60, 70 hours a week. They are expected to burn out after two or three years when they can be replaced. No pension worries, no high salaries. This is not a template for American education.
NAEP is the national report card on education. It is considered the gold standard of educational evaluation. It does not show that charters do better. One reason why some "reformers" like charters is that in many states they are a way around unions, and their teachers can be fired at will.
Let me skip down a bit:
And perhaps we should begin demanding that school districts be held accountable for providing the resources that schools need. Just like No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top requires and pressures districts to close low-performing schools. The overwhelming majority of low-performing schools enroll students in poverty and students who don’t speak English and students who are homeless and transient. Very often, these schools have heroic staffs who are working with society’s neediest children. These teachers deserve praise, not pink slips. Closing schools weakens communities. It’s not a good idea to weaken communities. No school was ever improved by closing it.
Reread that please. Yes, you will read stories that supposedly focus on "high-performing" schools dealing with such students. In some cases the claims for high performance are based on selective use of data. In most cases the schools on which such focus is made get more resources (as do many charters), have longer days, etc. The "success" is claimed on the basis of test scores. What is not yet offered is any evidence that there are long-term gains in learning: that the students are developing skills and knowledge that they can apply outside of the test environment. Meanwhile we reconstitute schools. We use one of the four models approved by this administration, even though NONE has any research to demonstrate that they improve education.
There are passages about the right to unionize, which Diane supports, but which "reformers" oppose. Read this paragraph, and perhaps you will understand two things, (1) why teachers are reacting so positively towards Diane; and (2) why we feel unfairly besieged, that the playing field is tilted:
I have spoken out repeatedly to defend the right of teachers to join unions for their protection and the protection of the teaching profession. Teachers have a right to a collective voice in the political process. It’s the American way. I don’t see the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post or the pundits complaining about the charter school lobby. I don’t see them complaining about the investment bankers lobby, or any other group that speaks on behalf of its members. Only teachers’ unions are demonized these days.
Teachers, and those who support them, ARE being demonized. By constrast, Hedge Fund managers (who are making major investments in things like charter schools for tax benefits) and Wall Street Firms (who came close to destroying the economy of this nation and the international community) get bailed out with our tax dollars, continue to pay bonuses, and spend millions to prevent appropriate oversight and regulation. Then they want to have a voice telling us how we should teach, how our schools should be run.
There is so much of value in the speech. By now I hope I have at least convinced you to take the time to read the entire thing.
Let me offer only a few more snippets, skipping over some very important material:
Around the world, those nations that are successful recognize that the best way to improve school is to improve the education profession. We need expert teachers, not a steady influx of novices.
One argument against Teach for America, for example. Now if those in that program actually stayed in teaching, people like Ravitch and me would have far fewer objections. The constant turnover in the schools in which they serve is unfair to those kids. The program benefits many in the TFA corps, and it certainly benefits TFA. It is not clear that the students are getting all that much benefit, and the model is not something that can really address the needs of the millions of students in inner city and rural schools.
The current so-called reform movement is pushing bad ideas. No high-performing nation in the world is privatizing its schools, closing its schools, and inflicting high-stakes testing on every subject on its children. The current reform movement wants to end tenure and seniority, to weaken the teaching profession, to silence teachers’ unions, to privatize large sectors of public education. Don’t let it happen.
The consequences of letting these "reforms" go forward unchallenged will be great damages far beyond the arena of public education. It will be further destruction of what is left of the union movement in this country. It will be increased privatization of what is left of the commons in this country/ It will be a narrowing of opportunity for too many of our young people. It will diminish us as a people as our young people receive narrower and narrower educations.
Diane urges those listening to her to be politically active, to remind people that there are millions of teachers, we vote, and so do our families, to not support anyone who is an opponent of public education.
Stand up to the attacks on public education. Don’t give them half a loaf, because they will be back the next day for another slice, and the day after that for another slice.
Don’t compromise. Stand up for teachers. Stand up public education, and say “No mas, no mas." Thank you.
Diane Ravitch received a rousing ovation for this speech. As a teacher, as a UNIONIZED teacher in a public school, I understand why.
I thought it important that as many people as possible encounter HER words, not just cursory news accounts. I think it important that voices that speak for teachers and for public schools be given as much of an audience as those who have described themselves as 'reformers' and seek to suppress or denigrate any opposing point of view.
That is why I asked Diane, a friend, if I could quote extensively. That is why Diane told me "You are free to cite or quote whatever you wish."
Created by students in John Boselman's Humanities class at High Tech High School, in Chula Vista, California. Mr. Bosselman was one of more than 50 teachers participating in the Holocaust Center's pilot project for the "Everyday Objects: Artifacts from Washington State Holocaust Survivors" poster series and curriculum. These materials helped to inform his students.
What is the cost of war to humanity and to the human body? This project was exhibited at Festival del Sol on March 25, 2010
In 1961 the Soviet Union, in Eastern Germany, constructed a wall that would divide the world into two. In the east, communism and the Soviet Union, while the west “democracy” and the United States battled throughout this Cold War. This wall became the symbol of the division between these two countries and their ideology that ultimately brought the world the closest it has ever been to annihilation.
We asked our students to create their own Wall, focusing on the conflicts of the 20th and 21st century. Each panel of the wall is an answer to their own essential questions and their own perspective on the cost of the war, both to society and to us biologically as humans. It is our hope that this Wall of Resistance is a symbol of how close humanity has come to its annihilation, whether that be of the human race as a whole, the individual human body, or even the individual human cell.
One of the student art pieces, entitled "Work Sets You Free," focuses on World War II and the Holocaust. Mr. Bosselman describes it: On the left side of the project is a creative representation of World War II the Home Front in America and the use of propaganda, especially by Walt Disney. The right side of the project is the students' depiction of the Holocaust. You can see the contrast between the two sides, Donald Duck on one side, and the silhouette of a human on the other.
Students from Lisa Kreiger's class at Kalles Junior High School in Puyallup, designed two Holocaust quilts, which they recently donated to the Holocaust Center. These quilts were inspired by the class's Holocaust unit and were created to honor Susie S., the Holocaust survivor who spoke to their class in April.
Says Kreiger of the unit, "We examined the unit from the perspective of the theme of justice and injustice and the role of the bystander in helping, as well as the role of discrimination and propaganda in genocide."
Students were moved by what they learned in the unit and from Susie, a member of the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau.
Both quilts are on display at the Holocaust Center. Thank you for all of your hard work Kalles Junior High!
Caroline Nelson, a student from Ann Gilbert’s class at Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bellevue won Honorable Mention in the 7th and 8th grade art category in the 2010 Jacob Friedman Holocaust Writing and Art Contest.
Her art piece was one of 750 entries that dealt with the question: How would your life be different if people were more respectful and tolerant of each other’s differences? How does change begin with you?
The contest was sponsored by the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center
Caroline's explained her art work as follows: "All these girls helped me take this picture. It took plenty of planning, but we all got together to take the picture.
What if the world did that? If the whole world got together to help another country, I would think that, by rising as one, we’d fix that country’s problem.
I asked several girls what their main heritage was. I wrote the names of all the different [heritages] onto shirts.
I was amazed by how many different [ones] we had at our school. I was amazed how all of them were my friends. That’s how change starts with me."... Read full article
A pair of Cedar Heights Middle School students earned prizes in the Jacob Friedman Holocaust Writing and Art Contest held by the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center.
Both students, Laylan Tahir and Lucas Reider, are eighth graders in Sylvia O’Brien’s class at Cedar Heights.
“Students across the district, around the state and across the country study the Holocaust to learn about our world, past and present,” O’Brien explained via e-mail. “Many Kent students have spent several months studying the Holocaust and will attend three speaker symposiums. The Washington State Holocaust Research Center, located on Mercer Island, sponsors a contest each year to help further this study.”*
This year the focus was on Anne Frank, who often looked out at a chestnut tree she could see from her hiding place, and a sapling from that tree will be planted in Volunteer Park in Seattle. Tahir won first place in the seventh and eighth grade writing category.
“Her essay compared her mother, who was a survivor of the Saddam Hussein regime and genocide of the Kurds, to Anne Frank,” O’Brien said.
The following is an excerpt from the entry: Do you know the story behind my face? What do you see when you look at me? Do you see a typical teenage girl? Are you going to judge me without knowing me? I am a thirteen-year-old Kurdish girl; Anne Frank was a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl. They say there is no such thing as perfection. Although I believe that if people had more respect and tolerance for one another, that saying would definitely be proven wrong. The world would be better.
Reider won third place in the seventh and eighth grace art category. Inspired by Anne Frank’s view of the tree from her hiding place, he created a picture of the chestnut tree reaching through the earth spreading tolerance and change, respect and peace... Read full article
*The Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center is located in downtown Seattle.
My name is xxxxx xxxxx, and I don't think you will remember me. But I met you four years ago when you came to xxxx High School and spoke in our auditorium. I am a senior now and I am taking a Holocaust and Genocide class, and for that class we had to read a book about a genocide and I chose to read your book.
Hearing your story once and reading it has made a huge difference in my life, because of hearing you my freshman year for my senior project I held an event called Camp Darfur in order to raise the awareness of the genocide going on in Sudan. Not only did I design postcards to be sent to President Obama but I also designed t-shirts and sold them to raise money for the millions of refugees. Overall I raised about $500 and sent it to an activist I worked with throughout my project, and she made sure that it got to a refugee camp and they used it for educational purposes.
And I just wanted to let you know how grateful I am that you were able to share your story at my high school, without hearing your story I think I wouldn't be the same person I am today.
For I went through a lot of troubles throughout my four years of high school but in every rough moment I had it just made me think of you and how I couldn't give up, I couldn't forget and I needed to stay strong so I can tell people of what happened during the Holocaust and all of the other genocides I am learning about. I also got your signature and the number that they tattooed on you written on a piece of paper, and that paper has never left my room.
I have met three survivors of genocides in my life so far and I have all of their signatures (yours included) and I wouldn't really like to get them tattooed on my body so I will never be able to forget about the stories I've heard and the horrendous crimes that people have been committing for such a long time now.
I don't think I can tell you thank you enough, you've really made a deep impression on my heart and there will always be a place for you as well as all of the other victims from the Holocaust in there.
One of my stories that I want to share with you is how I was close to committing suicide my junior year and I was about to swallow a bunch of pills when I looked over and saw your signature on my bulletin board and I felt extremely ridiculous for even thinking about committing suicide. Because I realized that if you can make it through the Holocaust and all those camps and the hardships that you went through then it means that I too can overcome the hardships in my life. You gave me hope, inspiration, and a new outlook on life. So I just wanted to send an email to you, wanting you to know how much gratitude and appreciation that I have for you. Thank you so incredibly much.
With love,
xxxxx xxxxxx
*Recently, Alter Wiener, a Holocaust survivor and member of both the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau and the Speakers Bureau of the Oregon Holocaust Resource Center, received this letter from a student. Alter Wiener is the author of From A Name To A Number.
Seattle University Spectator By Richard Kaiser Published: Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Photo: Candace Shankel The Spectator
Magda Shaloum was joined by her son Jack to speak in Pigott auditorium. Shaloum is a member of the Speaker’s Bureau of the Washington State Holocaust Resource Center.
With support from her son and cane, Magda Shaloum makes her way up the stage and the spotlight settles on her. She settles into her seat, she adjusts her sleeve buttons and pulls her skirt closer to her feet. She looks down, then forward to an eager au- dience as she begins to tell her story.
Shaloum is a Holocaust survivor who came to Seattle University on behalf of the university’s Jewish Student Union (JSU) April 21 in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day earlier this month. Magda shared her experiences from life in the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Muhldorf, a slave labor camp in Bavaria, Germany... Read full article
On March 18 and 19 the Holocaust Center offered two programs in the Tri-Cities area.
"Stories from a Holocaust Survivor - Frieda S." and "Creating Change: Teaching about the Holocaust and Genocide."
Almost 300 individuals from the community came out on a Thursday evening to hear Frieda share her experiences.
The following day, 35 teachers from around the region attended the intensive all-day teacher seminar. Sessions included: an overview of the Holocaust, rescue and resistance, camps and ghettos, and a special presenation by Dr. John Roth "Situating the Holocaust in a Genocidal World."
The Holocaust Center sincerely thanks the Red Lion Hotel for their sponsorship. Thank you also to the Shemanksi Foundations, the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, and the Claims Conference for generous funding to make these programs possible. And of course, a big thank you to Jennifer Gilliland and Kiona Benton-City High School for hosting these programs and presenters Brad Veile, Stephen Pagaard, and Dr. John Roth.
Literature teacher Linda McGowen wants students to see what they read is often more than a story - she invited Holocaust survivor Tom L to her classroom.
Talking about the Holocaust is hard, emotional work, says teacher Lisa McGowan. But she believes it’s important work.
That’s why she devotes about a month of every school year to exploring the historic tragedy through literature with her sophomore English students at Tacoma Baptist High School. She also helps students understand how what happened during the 1940s relates to their world today.
“These kids are the last generation who will be able to hear the (survivor) stories firsthand,” McGowan said.
In time, all the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps will die. Then, only the young people who have heard or read their stories will be left to remember.
McGowan’s sophomores read “Night,” the haunting memoir by Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. They learn about propaganda and stereotyping, how the Nazis employed the techniques, and how the techniques appear in modern media. They produce art projects that relate to themes from the Holocaust. They write essays and submit them to a scholarship contest.
McGowan said growing up as a white girl on the Colville reservation in Eastern Washington helped shape her views on the importance of teaching teens literature that focuses on social justice.
Although she spends a lot of time on the Holocaust, she also has her students read other works that explore inequities throughout world history. Read article...
COEUR d'ALENE -An 82-year-old Holocaust survivor who escaped the grip of a Nazi German extermination camp in 1943 told students Friday at Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy he speaks out about his experiences to tell the world what happened.
"When you come face to face with a survivor, history comes alive," Thomas "Toivi" Blatt told students. The school has 550 students in grades six through 12.
"Having been born into the wrong religion was a deadly sin," Blatt said.
Blatt participated in the revolt at the extermination camp Sobibor, which was located near the present-day eastern border of Poland. The camp had gas chambers and was sited near a railway line in a wooded, and thinly populated area, he said.
He broke out of Sobibor during the prisoner revolt in October 1943, when there were about 600 prisoners in the camp. Approximately 300 prisoners escaped during the revolt, as they killed guards, cut through barbed wire, and ran through the minefield surrounding the camp, he said.
Many were killed by guards, gunmen perched in towers on the compound, and land mines. Blatt, as he sought freedom, was betrayed by a farmer who had hid him for a time, shooting the boy in the face. The bullet remains lodged in Blatt's jaw to this day, he said.
Blatt was 15 years old when he arrived at the camp, and was there for six months, he said. Today, Blatt lives in Santa Barbara, Calif.
He told the students to "accept, understand other groups," regardless of their religion, race or other differences.
In difficult times, he said, "Don't look on someone else to blame." ...Read complete article
A lot of us in education policy get lost within our own locus of control. In my case, it's all about teachers. After all, teacher quality is the strongest school-based indicator impacting student outcomes.
Sounds good, right? Yes, and no.
While it is inevitable that one focuses on what one can control professionally, it is important to have a sense of the bigger picture. That goes for us in education. After all, research has shown that the influence of schools on student outcomes pale in comparison to family and social factors outside of schools' direct control -- especially, but not only, in the early years of childhood. So while it is critical that we concentrate education policy efforts around attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers, we also must attend to a variety of factors outside of schools that impact students' ability to learn and succeed.
This report (Promoting A Comprehensive Approach to Educational Opportunity) from Cross & Joftus, funded by the Mott Foundation, provides an important reality check to our typical tunnel vision. It also provides a series of recommendations to better coordinate a largely fragmented web of federal programs focused on children. It reminds policymakers and high-level government managers -- who have responsibility for interdisciplinary public policies -- that they need to think holistically and work in concert.
The dominant assumption of American educational policy is that schools, by themselves, can fully overcome the impact of social and economic disadvantage on children’s development into thriving citizens.
The ... No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) ... perpetuated and gave further credence to the assumption that schools could fully mitigate the impact of low socioeconomic status on students’ achievement and that schools were also the chief cause of poor performance.
First, since at least 2000, there has been a broad scientific consensus that “virtually every aspect of early human development, from the brain’s evolving circuitry to the child’s capacity for empathy, is affected by the environments and experiences that are encountered in a cumulative fashion, beginning in the prenatal period and extending throughout the early childhood years.” As James Heckman, a Nobel Prize economist, wrote, “Life cycle skill formation is a dynamic process in which early inputs strongly affect the productivity of later inputs [especially schools]. Put another way, “education” does not begin or end at the schoolhouse door, and the “education” that children receive before they enter school significantly affects their success after they go through that door.
Second, the evidence does not support the view that the substantial gap closing that had occurred by the mid-1980s was entirely the result of schools, though schools did indeed contribute.
Third, despite the ongoing debate about whether or not schools alone can level the education playing field, the federal government has long been engaged in a schools-plus approach.
My girlfriend was my first rescuer. She was all of 15 years old. I will always remember her courage.
- Hester K. was 13 years old when her hometown in Holland was occupied by the Nazis in 1942.
(Photo: Hester, back row in the middle in a blue sweater, at Lake Washington Girls Middle School)
Yesterday Hester spoke to Lindsey Mutschler's students at Lake Washington Girls Middle School in Seattle.
Ms. Mutschler arranges for a survivor from the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau to come and speak to her students each year. This year they also used a Holocaust teaching trunk and plan to (again) participate in the Holocaust Center's Writing and Art Contest. (Each year LWGMS has seen an overwhelming number of winning entries.)
The Holocaust Center thanks Ms. Lindsey Mutschler and the LWGMS for their incredible work and commitment to Holocaust and genocide education.
300 4th and 5th grade students crowded into the Seattle Public Library's Microsoft Auditorium to hear speakers bureau member and Holocaust survivor Robert H. share his story.
All of the students are participating in the Seatle Public Library's Global Reading Challenge. The Global Reading Challenge this year includes the book Vive La Paris, a story about a young African American girl and her witty piano teacher, who is also a Holocaust survivor.
Students came from across Seattle - Orca Elementary, Roxhill Elementary, and Beacon Hill Elementary schools.
Special thanks to Mary Palmer, Children's Librarian and head of the Global Reading Challenge at the Seattle Public Library for her dedication and organization of this great event.
The Children of Willesden Lane is the true story of Lisa Jura, a young girl who escapes Nazi persecution on the eve of World War II. This Web site offers resources to help you teach the book to middle and high school students.
"I like it because it provides so much for the beginning and seasoned teacher. The book is an easy read and tells a great story. The website is layered with lesson plans, videos, and great material. My students really like this book and always find something to connect them to the personal crisis of the Holocaust. I like it because it is a true story!!" - Teacher, Tacoma
Last week at school several recent graduates came by to say hi and told me how much ahead of their peers they were in the field of the Holocaust and genocide studies. I think several just thought it was normal to have the kind of classes you and I provide.
K. (a student) came by also. She had declared her major at NYU - genocide studies!!! She wants to work at an NGO to solve local conflicts in developing nations. Ok, I almost cried when she told me that... Some days I wonder about teaching and if I make an impact at all. Many times I am simply guessing at what the teens will respond to. I do my best, but still I wonder where I could do better - it keeps me up at night. But then, just when I need it, a student will come by and tell me how much something we talked about in class meant to them. In K.'s case, it was the movie "The Courage to Care." She was truly touched by the tragic stories, but filled with hope at what one person can do - if they act.
You and I and providing the experiences that allow students to cultivate the moral responsibility to respond in the moment and not be a bystander. And today, when we both celebrate the season of miracles in our faiths, I thank our God for the blessing he has given me in the Center.
Nick Coddington
- Nick Coddington is a teacher at Charles Wright Academy in Tacoma. Prior to his position as a teacher, he was a career intelligence officer for NATO where he specialized on conflict intervention and conflict resolution strategies. His work in the Balkans from 1994-2005 provided him with a first-hand account of the complexities with predicting and responding to genocide. Nick is an Alfred Lerner Fellow with the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, and has won numerous awards for his teaching including the the 2007 Robert I. Goldman Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education, the 2008 Spirit of Anne Frank Award, and the 2009 Facing History and Ourselves Margot Stern Strom Teaching Award. Nick serves on the Holocaust Center’s Education Advisory Committee and is a frequent presenter at the Holocaust Center’s teacher seminars.
Nick will be giving a presenation on rescue during the Holocaust at the upcoming teacher seminar on January 29 in Seattle. One of his former students will also be sharing an interactive website she created and used as her entry for the History Day Contest. She placed 4th in the region. More information on this seminar can be found at www.wsherc.org.
Joseph J., wasn't sure what to expect when he learned that a Holocaust survivor would be coming to speak to his school in Montana.
Klaus S., a survivor of Auschwitz and member of the Holocaust Center's speakers bureau, shared his story with the Montana school back in 2001.
Last month, Klaus received a hand-written letter in the mail from Joseph:
October 4, 2009
Dear Mr. Stern,
I am writing you to say thank you. When I was a junior in high school, about 9 years ago, you came to tell us all your story of survival during the Holocaust. I just want to tell you that you became a personal hero of mine that day. You taught me that life is a precious gift from God and that love endures all and neither should be taken for granted.
Words really cannot describe how much I appreciate you sharing this part of your life with me and everyone else that day. Education is the key to preventing atrocities like this from happening again and you inspired me to dedicate a large portion of my life to studying the Holocaust and stories like yours so that someday I can share that knowledge with future minds.
Before I end this short letter I would again like to say from the bottom of my heart Thank You, Thank you for the gift of knowledge, thank you for sharing your story with so many people and touching so many lives.
Last Monday I traveled with a member of our Speakers Bureau, Eva C., to Highline High School in Burien. Eva's presentation is unique in that she performs a play of her life titled, "A Staged Memory." I and the 30 high schools students were truly impressed with Eva's performance - indeed at times we felt we were with her in 1930s Germany!
Often times students ask our speakers, "Did you ever see Hitler?" Eva is the first speaker I have heard who could answer yes. As part of her play, Eva reenacted how she and her mother apprehensively stared into a store window to avoid looking at Adolf Hitler in a parade; however, they still could see his reflection.
Bravo to Eva and all the members of the Holocaust Center's Speakers Bureau!
-Lauren Bianchi, Office Manager and Speakers Bureau Coordinator
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The Children of Willesden Lane