Longing

Wow! It's been a year since we came together and I find myself thinking about all of you so much. Risha's birthday just passed and I had so many wonderful memories of wings and beer and churches and sweets. But, it's not the same separated from those who helped make the memories.

I am right now sitting in Lake Tahoe working in a Tech Liaison Development Retreat. To my utter joy I found myself hugging Pam Bodnar and Gail Desler. And still the longing to share time with all of you again surrounds my soul. I will do everything I can to be in Philadelphia. I want to catch up, reconnect, and renew with you.

Be well all!

To my friends....

I come to you with a heavy heart today. The last few weeks have been the most challenging of my career and life. After much soul-searching, prayer, and deliberation, I have decided to leave my teaching position at McCool. Unfortunately, I've learned far too much about politics and some of the downsides of teaching in a very small community/school over the recent weeks. This decision comes with mixed emotions. I'm planning to stay home with my youngest daughter and that is exciting. On the other hand, I will really miss the students and being in the classroom. I'm going to pursue other passions such as writing and photography. Please keep my family in your prayers as we make this transition in our lives. I will remain active in the Writing Project network and I look forward to continuing to hear from all of you.

I'm traveling to Washington DC in two weeks with a small group. I'm so excited to visit the USHMM for the first time.

I wish everyone continued success!
~Danielle

to all those still checking in

I’m reading a book titled Outcasts United: A Refugee Soccer Team, an American Town by Warren St. John. I found the book when I treated myself to a mid-day trip to Barnes and Noble after an early doctor’s appointment for my second of three levels of casts for my wrist, which I broke several weeks ago. I took a seat in the café section and began to read, and within the first chapter found myself doing the ugly weeping that comes when I read those books that I can’t quite describe, but are filled with historical suffering. This leads me on a tangent –why the hell aren’t history books written more like this? Anyway, luckily there wasn’t a crowd, but when I finally stopped and went to pay, the check-out lady noticed my ugly face and asked if something was wrong or if she could help me. Somehow, in those situations when I don’t think I should be embarrassed by my all too uninhibited emotion, I am.


Well, the book is really good. The town is Clarkston, Georgia (check out the town website - I bet they aded those welcomes after the book came out), to the east of Atlanta. Beginning in the early 1990s it was designated a refugee settlement center. The story is basically about an old, white southern town struggling against the diversity forced upon itself, focusing on a refugee soccer team, named the Fugees, coached by a Jordanian woman.


On page 184, eventually the author comes around to explicitly discussing theory, which I found extremely interesting, since I’m not only interested in working harder, but also working smarter. So, he quotes Steven Vertovec, who wrote a paper titled, “New complexities of cohesion in Britain: Super-diversity, transnationalism and civil-integration.” I haven’t read the whole thing, only skimmed it, but St. John (the author of the soccer book) does a neat job of boiling it down to three points (of which I’m sure it’s more complicated).


Here’s my attempt at a paraphrase of a paraphrase:
3 step process for building connections among the super diverse: (1) “consider all the categories an individual belongs to” – and in doing so all the larger more defining categories that separate people usually dissolves; this made me think of the identity web (I think that’s what it’s called) that we did in the seminar; (2) “recategorization” – into which people classify themselves by their similarities rather than their differences, thus redefining “the categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’; and (3) “mutual differentiation” – where the various groups begin to respect the other groups and individual identity is respected, building an interdependence among the groups.


That might be a lame attempt, but I still wanted to share it. I think it has a direct relation to what we’re all trying to do. I’m still thinking of ways to work my kids through the process without much diversity present within our classroom. I do the identity web (that’s what I call it), and then allow that to lead us to discover who that excludes and why, and then examine our attitudes and beliefs about “us” and “them” or “self” and “other”. I can see the recategorization being a fun challenge for 8th graders – “Let’s see who can find the most nonsuperficial connections among one another who you might not normally hang out with!” Certainly the exercise can help students identify similarities, but will that grow respect - I don't know. I guess what I hope would happen is the so called mutual differentiation.


And that’s all I’ve got folks. I hope all things are going well. As will be my custom, I’m leaving you with an updated picture, taken a few weeks ago on a quick but wonderful trip back home to New Orleans for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. That's me on the left, with my dad in the middle and an uncle on the right.



Ya’ll take care now.

Time to Dust the Blog

Well, the ol' blog has been gathering dust as of late. I know everyone is working on new things, and I want to invite all to take a gander at what the Miller students have been doing since our discussion of Night with Danielle's class in McCool. Miller students have been creating digital multigenre projects. To get a look follow the link below. I would love to see some student work posted here. If anyone has work to share, please feel free to post.

Miller Student Projects

Teachers on a Journey Podcast

Hello to everyone who faithfully follows this blog. I want to wish everyone a happy holiday season and hope all of you enjoy the well deserved seasonal break. Sondra and several others from past Holocaust seminars had the opportunity to share about our personal stories regarding how the seminar has impacted our lives both personally and in our classrooms on a weekly program titled Teachers Teaching Teachers. I know, for me, it proved to be a wonderful experience. We had some technical glitches at the beginning and the end, but in between we engaged in some meaningful dialogue you may be interested in. I have also included a link to the collaborative blog Danielle and I refer to in the podcast.





Just click on the provided links and enjoy.





Teachers Teaching Teachers #133 - Holocaust Educators Network: Teachers on a Journey - 12.17.08





Breaking Down Barriers Blog

I can't forget it

I was writing with my students this week, using different poetry prompts. One of the activities that we did (using photos as prompts) I stole from another TC from the OWP and used it with a photo from this summer's institute that I just got around to printing. Below is the picture, and then the poem.

New York: 2008

We were talking about languages.
Jennifer minored in French in college,
but has since lost most of it.
I was newly inspired to learn Spanish,
and dig back into my Greek and Hebrew,
loving the moments on the subway
when I heard absolutely no English spoken-
instead hearing everything from Spanish and Arabic
to Korean and (obscure to me) eastern European.

We were walking over the Brooklyn Bridge,
a small group of students beginning a tour
given by the (unrepresented) native of our group–Alice.
In the previous ten days of study
I had fallen in love with these people;
I would walk to the ends of the earth for them,
and, after learning my lesson,
gladly wait on them too.

We each carried bags.
Mine, hanging off to the side
because I was already sweating
beyond my own comfort level.
Gatsinzi’s bag looks huge, but was in fact empty,
waiting to be stuffed with souvenirs.
(I don’t remember if it ever was).
Jennifer, the consummate pro,
was like a hiker going ultralight
with that sad excuse for a bag
swaying at her side.

We could have all learned a thing or two from her,
and, come to think of it, I’m pretty sure we all did.


Thank you all for some great memories, and inspiration to write. Jennifer and Gatsinzi, I hope I remember things correctly.

Risha's project

All of us at the Library are very gratified at the work you are all doing in teaching the lessons of the Holocaust. Ellen and I are planning to attend Risha's project in Mt. Sterling KY on December 12 when she will have Irving Roth speak to the school and the students will participate in a Shabat dinner. I will post my observations and thoughts upon my return to New York.

Don't forget that we have mini grants available for your Holocaust projects. Contact Sondra or Jennifer with your requests.

We hope to attend the meeting at Philadelphia next year.

Happy holidays to all.

Best wishes.

David A. Field

NWP Conference

About half our group made it to the conference in San Antonio and it was like seeing my family. Those of you who couldn't make it, we missed you! Sonya and Jennifer held on session on the Holocaust Education program. They showed the video they made in 2007, which was very much like ours. Gatsinzi talked about the changes he has gone through since the program. I will let him address this, but his talk was electric. We also met and heard from Diane, from the 2007 program, and viewed a video she made about her incredible middle school students and their reaction to "Sunflower," and their action in response. This should be posted on the NWP site soon, I am told. Everyone seems to have done amazing things as a result of our NY experience. I am so proud to be a part of this group, and humbled at the same time. I hope Risha will share some of her achievements, as well as some of her trials.

Budget cuts are threatening to curtail some of the work we do at my school, and I fear the same is happening everywhere. I guess we will have to become more creative in finding funding and resources to support our students.

I was glad to see everyone and hope we can all get together soon. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving all.
Leslie

"Healing and Rebuilding Lives After Genocide"

That was the subtitle of the event I attended last night at the local Gillioz Theatre. The title of the headlining film was ICYIZERE:hope; a documentary, filmed by a Kenyan native transplanted to Springfield, telling the story of a three day workshop that took place in Rwanda. The workshop brought together 10 perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide and 10 survivors, working through various emotional responses to their tragic history. One of the major themes that came up among both perpetrators and survivors was fear and mourning. Rarely did I ever shed a tear in our study while in New York, but watching a young man confess his sadness over mourning the loss of his mother, father, sister and brother, I broke down (ugly style). This young man was jealous of his classmates, knowing that when they fretted over taking home bad grades to their parents he could not have the same fear; instead he had to go home to no one, no scolding or fear of a reprimand for a low mark. This element of genocide, this absolute destruction of the family, is what is most gut-wrenching for me. And nothing else can communicate this as well as personal stories.


The filmmaker has shown the film at the Rwanda Film Festival, over Rwandan television, and at Gisenyi Central Prison (where one of the perpetrators who attended the workshop was imprisoned for his crimes during the genocide), all with the hope that more people will become aware of these workshops and these opportunities to come together, to break down barriers, and to work toward a future of hope.


The final moving portion of the documentary shows groups of perpetrators and survivors working together to identify the “roots” or actions, and the “fruit” or results of the actions. So often, many of the group presenters kept repeating the term Icyizere, which means hope, and, at least for me, knowing the one term and knowing what they were doing-identifying actions that would lead to hope for them as individuals and communities-was like a wave of hope for me. I know that may sound weird, and I don’t think I did a good job of describing it, but I guess it was my purely emotional response to the presentation.


At the end of the night, there was a question and answer period, and the filmmaker brought up many of the same issues that Gatsinzi did in his presentation, especially laying the groundwork for the Rwandan genocide. I was like an excited student with the right answers, able to connect the dots between the causes. For that, I must say thank you to Gatsinzi, for sharing the history with us. And again, I feel like I should thank Sondra and Jennifer and Alice and David and Ellen and Mark and Carole for allowing me to participate in one of the greatest experiences of my life. I left a local pub to go to the theater, and normally I would not have done that, but I know that the time spent together in New York has left such an impression on me that I’m moved to participate in these educational community gatherings. I feel like it’s these little things that can bring us together, and that in the end will keep us together.

To finish on a lighter note, and to add a bit more personal humor to the blog, I've included a school picture from the last day of soccer season. It was the Friday of Spirit Week, and it was "Nerd Day," so I just dressed up like myself, but added the hat and tape on my glasses. I hope you enjoy.

Identity Boxes

Hi Everyone,

I am constantly amazed as I teach the Holocaust to one of my classes. The students in this class seem to look forward to the activities we do. This is the third year I have taught the class, but the first year we have studied the Holocaust. As my students drafted posts and comments for the blog discussion of Night we are having with Danielle's class in McCool Jct., I decided to clean up my work area. In doing so, I discovered the identity box created in NY this past summer. I remembered the fun I had creating and sharing my box with my fellow participants. I debated whether or not to do the activity in my class, but chose not to as of yet because I did not have any scrap fabric or glittery craft supplies, and acquiring them, in my chauvinistic opinion, is a slightly effeminate activity. :D Maybe I might find a huge box of fabric in a garage or rummage sale, but until then identity boxes were on hold.
I decided to save my identity box in a locked cabinet as an example for a later time, but as I passed by my tables of students to put the box away, one of them pointed to my yellow, sunflower adorned box and asked me about it. I started to explain what my identity box represented, and two things happened. For some strange reason I started to be overcome by emotion, and my students all stopped their discussion and listened as I told them about each item on my identity box. Before long, there were multiple requests, "Can we make one?" I mentioned my problem with the lack of cloth fabric, and before I knew it, two students volunteered to bring some the next day we met as a class. So, all I need to do now is go to the craft store and get some other supplies, which only requires a little bit of cash and my ability to overcome my masculine pride and tap into the other side of my brain. :D
I am excited to see what they create.