Monday begins World Refugee Awareness Week, an extension of the United Nation’s annual World Refugee Day on Wednesday, June 20th. In solidarity with those forced to flee as a result of resettlement, poverty, unemployment, stigmatization, and bias, we share one day in the fellowship of two teachers from Naperville, IL. Christine Halblander and Jenn Nekolny are currently exploring physical and societal divisions in historical and contemporary Poland, Czechia, Austria and Germany.

They designed this experience to supplement Social Studies and Language Arts curricula that enhances junior high students’ interest in human rights, migration and refugees. In order to strengthen their teaching practices, their fellowship goals are to:

1. Explore causes and effects of forced migration;
2. Investigate the treatment of human rights in varying government systems, countries, and time periods; and
3. Gather evidence of “what next” in the life of refugees who have arrived in a new country in order to show students how struggles can be overcome.

Below is a day in the life of their fellowship, after visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau but before helping teach refugees English in a Berlin cafe…

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“Do you remember the floor of your childhood home? Can you recall playing outside with your siblings? Rushing up the stairs with good news? Your grandmother’s “good plates” pattern?

As we were checking in to our Air BnB flat in Krakow, our host asked if we wanted a little history of the place. Of course. . .we’re teachers and learners and, to be honest, the outside of the building left a bit to be desired with all its graffiti and crumbling exterior walls. It would be nice to hear some history of this building that had clearly seen better days.

He told us that just as they were finishing the interior renovations of the flat last year, he came to check on the progress. As he was walking in, he noticed “an old grandma” at the entrance with someone who appeared to be her daughter. He asked if they needed to be let in, but the woman’s Polish was weak and she responded in English that this used to be her building. Switching to English, he asked her which flat was theirs, as there had been many changes and divisions over the years. As they turned onto the first landing, tears began to well in her eyes as she recognized the tile floors in the hallway.

It turned out that the apartment he hosts was her family’s home for years before the Nazis took power and forced them out. The walls are re-plastered, the interior courtyard is filled in with the back sides of restaurants, the stairs have lost their shine (and have a pleasant rounded edge where thousands and thousands of footfalls have happened), but the heart of the place is the same. He unlocked the door to her old apartment and she began to cry when she saw the preserved floor. This beautiful wood herringbone-patterned floor where she played as a seven year old girl. This floor where she would help her mother clean up crumbs that fell from the table. This floor where she would place her shoes after coming up the flight of stairs at the end of the school day. This floor where her suitcase lay waiting next to the door in case they had to flee. This floor opened the gates of memory. This woman was 94 years old and wanted to first see her family’s home and then find the families that gave her refuge when she was forced to flee to thank them. For 87 years, she’d imagined these floors, these stairs, this place. She’s imagined the faces and clothing and sweet smells of dinner in this kitchen where I’m sitting typing this now.

Today marks the 76th anniversary of D-Day, when 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. We share below the remarkable experience of FFT Fellow Dan Lundak. He designed an experience to retrace the steps of the US soldiers (specifically his grandfather’s) from England to the shores of France during the invasion to lead students’ debate of the essential question, “At what point does the United States become involved in another country’s affairs?” The American History teacher planned to use his research to help eighth graders at Chicago’s Sauganash Elementary School personally connect with World War II. The pilgrimage grew more personal than expected, however, upon discovering his grandfather’s photograph hanging in a wartime museum.

“When applying for the Fund for Teachers grant, I researched my grandfather’s military service and his path from Nebraska to Normandy,” said Dan. “On D-Day, he flew the Boeing B-17 with the USAF 94th squadron from the RAF base in Bury St. Edmonds, England — so that was my first stop. Townspeople converted his squadron’s control tower into a museum, which was dark and locked when I arrived.

A museum volunteer repairing the roof saw me walking away and offered to let me in. As I made my way around the artifacts, I suddenly came face-to-face with a framed, yellowed photograph of Lt. Col. E.E. Lundak – my grandfather.”

The volunteer explained that displays included “random photos of pilots” found when creating the museum. He could offer no definitive explanation why the photo of Dan’s grandfather, never seen by his family, hung there to greet Dan 70 years after the war.

Lt. Col. Lundak flew 47 missions while stationed at Bury St. Edmonds. He crash landed twice (once, the only surviving crew member) and again escaped death after trading places with a co-pilot subsequently shot by enemy fire. The night before D-Day, Lundak bombed the beaches of Normandy; the day after the invasion, he delivered gasoline to Allied forces and returned US casualties to England. Lundak remained in the Air Force for years before becoming a US diplomat in China and the US liaison with President Chiang Kai-shek. Upon retirement, he returned to Nebraska to teach school, serve as a superintendent and, eventually, Dean of Admissions for the University of Nebraska.

Inspired by the discovery, Dan continued his WWII odyssey at London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral and American Memorial Chapel, seeing the honor roll of more than 28,000 Americans who died in WWII while stationed in England. He also followed the London Blitz Bomb Site Interactive Map to visit areas affected by bombings and, afterwards, the Imperial War Museum. Before taking a ferry across the English Channel, Dan stopped at General Eisenhower’s headquarters in Porstmouth to research the planning and preparation of Operation Overlord, the final meeting that resulted in the D-Day command, “Let’s go!”

Bayeux served as home base for Lundak in France, where Dan toured Omaha and Utah beaches, visited the D-Day Museum and experienced the flag lowering ceremony at the American Cemetery. His ten-day fellowship concluded in Paris, where he followed the movement of General Patton’s Third Army and its role in the Liberation of Paris.

Armed with fellowship experiences and research, Dan now encourages his students to “dive deeper” in their study of World War II – a requirement of the new Common Core State Standards. Lt. Col. Lundak serves as a case study for students’ exploration of the questions, “At what point do people get involved with the affairs of others?” and “What makes someone brave?” Dan believes these questions are particularly relevant as students prepare to face diverse socio-economics, cultures and traditions represented in a large public high school. Students also write letters of appreciation to veterans, which Dan delivers to the local American Legion post.

“Retracing my grandfather’s service during the D-Day invasion gave me personal insight into what each person has to ask themselves in a time a crisis; the experience also gives my students a personal story they can relate to when facing similar decisions about personal sacrifice,” said Dan. “Understanding history through the close examination of my grandfather’s service – rather than a textbook – interjects real-life perspective into the curriculum and helps students arrive at their own conclusions.”

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Two 2020 Fellows will pursue experiential learning around the European theatre of World War II:

Patrick McCarney (Stonington High School – Stonington, CT) will experience World War II landmarks, museums, and monuments, gathering the stories of those on the battlefront and home front–young soldiers, women and minorities–to make the diversity of the American war experience more visible for students; and,

Bret Godfrey (American Indian Magnet – Saint Paul, MN) will research and document in France, Belgium and Luxembourg contributions made by American Indians during World War II to create engaging lessons that incorporate these contributions for preK-8 students sharing this heritage.

A “bump in the road” connotes a temporary set back for most of us, but today’s Google Doodle explains how tactile paving changes the lives of visually impaired and also introduces web surfers to the man behind the advancement. Learning more about Japanese inventor Seiichi Miyake brought to mind the fascinate fellowship of Naima Hall, teacher of second- and third-graders at Educational Vision Services, P.S. 102, the world’s largest education program serving students who are blind and visually impaired from 5 to 21 years of age and eligible preschool children.

Last summer, Naima used her FFT grant to explore the life of Louis Braille and investigate French-inspired multisensory, experiential learning opportunities that promote New York state’s Expanded Core Curriculum (ECC) for blind and visually impaired students.

“The ECC addresses functional and compensatory skills needed to account for decreased opportunities to learn by observing others,” explained Naima. “Ultimately, this educational approach incorporates artifacts and experience to promote learning and equity for students with blindness and visual impairment. This experience helped me create learning about historical figures, culture and geographical regions by introducing commodities, cuisine and objects that benefit all learners.”

For example, Naima toured the world famous Galimard Parfumery 1747 and learned how to make individualized scents, an exercise she modified and duplicated with students. She met with the manager of the equally renown Savon de Marseille soap production facility, providing more inspiration for her ECC lessons. Perhaps most compelling, however, was her time spent with the curator of the Louis Braille Museum and spending time with Braille’s archived samples and inventions that continue to change the lives of the visually impaired.

“As a teacher for the blind and visually impaired, there is not a day that goes by that my students and I are not in proximity to the embossed system of writing Louis created during his life,” said Naima. “This fellowship was a career apex and reaffirmed my passion and sense of purpose within my own vocation. It is my joy to bring Louis’s story close to the hearts of my students so that they may face a challenging world with courage and grit.”

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Naima Hall is a teacher for the blind and visually impaired at Educational Vision Services, P.S. 102 in Brooklyn, NY. Previously she served as an educator in Saitama, Japan, working in conjunction with the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She also served as an overseas field educator facilitating international service learning and sustainability projects in Fiji, New Zealand and Australia.

 

[minti_dropcap style=”box”]W[/minti_dropcap]hen Heather Ely purchased the college text book for her first music history course, she eagerly flipped through looking for female composers — and found none. Almost ten years later when creating the curriculum for her music students at Lake Park Elementary in Bethany, OK, available resources highlighted the same male composers who dominated her own education. She wondered, “Are there truly this few women who influenced music composition worth noting?”

Anna Beer’s book Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music  provided a definitive answer and the basis for Heather’s Fund for Teachers fellowship. Last summer, she explored in five European countries the lives of women highlighted in Beer’s work to compare struggles with male counterparts and enrich students’ understanding of women’s compositional voices in four periods of music history.

“Beer recounts the sexism and frustrations that these women faced in the pursuit of their art and questions the impact of the loss of their legacies in our cultural heritage,” said Heather. “Gender determined so much of what the classical music world classifies as canonical, but Beer exposes the dangers of silencing these prolific voices in our society.”

Heather’s efforts to amplify their voices began in Venice with Baroque period, studying the life of composer Barbara Strozzi and her male contemporary, Antonio Vivaldi. A night train took her to Vienna and the Classical period, where she examined the legacy of Marianna Martines compared to Joseph Haydn. Leipzig, Germany, and the Romantic period presented opportunities to evaluate the relationship between piano prodigy, Clara Schumann, and her composer husband, Robert Schumann. Renegade musicians from the Impressionist and Modern periods came to life in Paris’ bohemian Ninth Arrondissement, artists such as Nadia and Lili Boulanger. Finally, the Women’s Suffragette movement in London provided the backdrop for Heather’s consideration how Elizabeth Maconchy and Benjamin Britten’s experiences differed, despite having the identical education.

This fall, music education for second-fifth graders has #balanceforbetter, the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day celebrated globally tomorrow, March 8. Specific changes Heather made post-fellowship include:

• Examination of a different musical period she researched per grade
• Researching what life was like for one male composer and one female composer during the musical period they study
• Listening to and analyzing  works of both male and female composers from the musical
  period being studied
• Exploring history trunks she created with artifacts from her fellowship, and,
• Publication of a book by fourth and fifth graders containing research of a male or female composer.

“This fellowship awakened a passion and thankfulness for the lives of all the women who came before me and fought for all the freedom and rights I enjoy today,” said Heather. “It also gave me a greater desire to share the narratives of people from all races and cultures. I know that this experience has changed my view of my abilities as both an educator and leader. I am more excited to take risks if it means better understanding and growth for my students and for me.”

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Heather is an elementary music teacher in northwest Oklahoma City for Putnam City Schools. She has spent all four years of her teaching career at Lake Park Elementary, and currently serves on her school’s leadership team as the Specials Team Leader. Heather enjoys helping her students explore culture and history through music. You can see more images from her fellowship on Instagram @elys_musicalmusings2018,  where we found this image and accompanying description:

This year marks the 100th anniversary of women getting the vote in the U.K. The Museum of London chronicles the bravery of the women involved in this movement. One such women was composer Dr. Ethel Smyth. Ethel was very close with Emmeline Pankhurst, and in 1912, she was arrested for her militant efforts to get the vote. Ethel and many other women were sent to Holloway Prison for their actions. What happened next is just my favorite! Women in the prison yard began singing “The March of the Women” which was composed by Ethel. She heard them and from her cell began to conduct their voices with her toothbrush! What resilience and courage these woman had! Thankful that their efforts prevailed so that I might have the rights I have today!

This week began with International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorating the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Fund for Teachers grant recipients often design fellowships around sites associated with the holocaust so their students can better understand the political climate contributing to the Nazi Party’s rise and the ensuing extermination of six million Jews. Last summer alone…

Jane Law (Harding Senior High – Saint Paul, MN) conducted an independent study tour of France, focusing on the French Resistance and deportation of Jews from France during World War II, to engage French 4/5 students in this period of history and help them establish parallels with current events.

“My personal perspective has been sharpened as regards present American political realities. The parallels with events 80 years ago are striking. Racism, homophobia, antisemitism– to name a few–are alive and well in our larger community. With our present political climate, for the first time in my teaching career I have actively encouraged students to protest, to get involved, and to take a stand.”

Shoes on the Danube Memorial in Budapest; Stumbling Stones in Berlin

Melissa Torrente and Christina Bernard (Nathan Hale-Ray Middle School, Moodus, CT) researched lesser known triumphs and tragedies associated with World War II in Eastern Europe to broaden students’ exposure beyond their “vanilla world” and provide primary sources that enrich National History Day research and projects.

“The information that we obtained from local tour guides was invaluable. I was able to make contacts with several local guides who are willing to communicate with our students and serve as contacts for our students’ research in the future. Additionally, I’ve stood at the Bridge of Spies; I’ve walked through Auschwitz. These are not experiences I could ever get from a book. I took hundreds of pictures which will be useful in the classroom to show as artifacts and to support instruction.”

Daniel Sawyer (Sultana High School – Hesperia, CA) examined remembrance and memorialization of the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War and the Holocaust by analyzing museums and memorials of the wars in Spain, Germany and Italy and using the information to create a project in which students research an event and design a museum or memorial.

“My knowledge grew immensely on my fellowship simply by visiting many of the sites that I teach about. Being there in person is a totally different experience from reading about it in books–some things are enormous in perspective, while other places are smaller and more confined. I got ideas for student projects that I wasn’t even thinking about beforehand, simply by absorbing the atmosphere and witnessing ways that locals taught about their history.”

Lastly, Kelly Lucot and Dena George (Park View Intermediate – Pasadena, TX) researched the Holocaust in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic to improve knowledge of this seminal event in human history and increase student awareness and learning.

“The grant has changed my perspective by literally putting things in perspective,” said Kelly. “When you study the holocaust you think about how hard or sad or tragic the events were but you don’t really feel it beyond the surface. Having walked through the camps [Kelly’s photo at Auschwitz above], seen the lives they left behind, and stood where they were judged and gassed, you can’t help but feel it deeper, to want your students to feel it. With this experience I think I can help them feel it deeply, to go beyond memorizing facts.”

Elie Wiesel, Jewish writer, activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor said, “To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice.” We are grateful that students of these teachers (and 95 additional FFT Fellows who have pursued knowledge about the Holocaust since 2001) will #neverforget.

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For a timeline of Hitler’s rise to power and eventual defeat, visit this Newsweek piece.

On Pearl Harbor Day, we remember the 2,403 people killed in the surprise attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service. The “date which will live in infamy” launched America’s entry into World War II; the bombings also resulted in the internment of 7,000 Japanese American citizens in relocation centers by order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Teaching the complexities of this time is complex in and of itself for Tim Barry. His students at Nathan Hale Middle School in Coventry, CT, fall within a wide range of ability levels.

“This drastic range creates difficulty when choosing and providing engaging and appropriate text for students of all abilities,” explained Tim. “Fortunately, with the broad scope of our World War II unit, we are able to provide high interest and appropriately leveled options so that all students may contribute and draw connections to classroom discussion and produce work that they can be proud of.”

But that unit lacked dialogue about the domestic impact of the war. Tim designed a Fund for Teachers fellowship fill that gap and, last summer, examined life in and around Japanese Relocation Camps in Utah and Colorado to help students:

• Connect to the past and apply that knowledge to the current climate in the United States?
• Draw parallels between the treatment of Japanese Americans in the United States and Jewish (and other minority) people in Europe during WWII?
• Understand the Pyramid of Hate and how the act of dehumanization impacts individuals and large groups through self reflection and journaling, and
• Support other disciplines across the curriculum such as math (budgeting), social studies (constitutional questions), and science (geographic significance of camps and land features that made them ideal).

We are grateful that Tim shared his experiences and insights from his fellowship below.

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Last summer, I was fortunate to travel to Colorado and Utah to study Japanese Internment Camps as part of my Fund For Teachers fellowship.  My intention was to supplement our current World War II unit with experiences from the home front to allow students to draw parallels in today’s climate of cultural bias.  I want my students to draw inspiration my own curiosity and go out and explore the world.  I want them to challenge what they know or think they know and I want them to be acutely aware of how history has a tendency to repeat itself.

Trip Details: I spent nine days traveling from the Topaz Camp in Delta, Utah to the Moab Isolation Center in Moab, Utah and finally to Granada Relocation Center (Amache) in Granada, Colorado.  In Delta, I was struck by the beautifully curated Topaz Museum which highlighted the blending of traditional Japanese culture with the easily recognizable American identity of the time.  High school yearbooks, recounts of baseball games, and a letterman’s jackets sat side-by-side with instruments of the Japanese tea ceremony and watercolor paintings.  Despite the dramatic civil rights violations perpetrated by the United States government, these proud people still created a sense of normalcy and everyday life.  The message of their resilience is one that I hope will resonate with my students.

The highlight of my trip was being able to connect with Denver University at their biennial open house at the Amache site in Colorado.  There, I was introduced to Dr. Bonnie Clark who is the Project Director of the DU Amache Research Project.  I was able to meet several former internees of the camp, including 87 year old, Mr. Ken Kitajima who was a resident of the camp from ages 12-15.  My hope is that I can provide my students with a first hand account of what it was like to be of middle school age in a Relocation Camp.  I plan to connect with Mr. Kitajima virtually to conduct interviews and provide insight into his experience.  Perspective is one of the most important things I can offer to my students.

Middle school is a trying time and although the experiences of my students will be different than those of the past, the challenges will not be unique.  My hope is that my journey will foster a sense of intellectual curiosity as my students create their own world view and tackle the test of growing up in an increasingly demanding world.  The digital world in which we live in allows people to instantly access information and make snap decisions based on their own experiences and biases, yet we don’t often slow down to assess all sides of a story. Ultimately, I want my students to be willing to challenge what is accepted by society and greet people from all walks of life with an open mind.

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For more than a decade, Tim has empowered his students to take ownership over their education and to become independent learners while focusing on character and integrity. Throughout his teaching career, he has coached athletics at both the middle and high school levels and views the competition field as an extension of the classroom where students can push themselves.

Columbus may have sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred ninety two, but South Dakota instituted October 8 as Indigenous Peoples’ Day in nineteen hundred eighty nine as a counter-celebration. This is the holiday Rebecca Zisook’s students will be commemorating today due, in large part, to her FFT fellowship this summer.

“Previously, our third grade curriculum included an ‘Explorers’ unit that glorified post-Columbus imperialism and oppression of those colonized under a mask of purported bravery and achievement,” said Rebecca. “I wanted my Latinx students to be aware of the bravery and achievements of their ancestors, and I wanted to communicate with them more fluently beyond conversational Spanish.”

With her $5,000 Fund for Teachers grant, Rebecca investigated the richness of Mesoamerica’s indigenous peoples, first using primary sources from  the Library of Congress and the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, and then through language and cultural immersion in Oaxaca, Mexico. Her goal was to gain a nuanced perspective of Mesoamerican peoples and bring this knowledge to students in a way that applies to a broader American and global perspective.

Through guided tours of sites like the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, Rebecca learned the dominant narratives about customs and peoples from the region. She sought out primary source materials as taught at the Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institute she attended prior to departing for Mexico, and enrolled in a four-week language school while living with a host family in Oaxaca. Her experience there included touring the Ethnobotanical Gardens and partaking in cultural events, such as a Guelaguetza, the annual celebration uniting representatives from 16 different ethnolinguistic groups.

Rebecca plans to host her own Guelaguetza at Chicago’s Helen C. Peirce School of International Studies this year. She’s also collaborating with colleagues on an enhanced International Night in keeping with the school’s International Baccalaureate tradition and is in the process of replacing the “Explorers” unit with a “Culture” one.

“We can change the mindset of those who believe that speaking Spanish is somehow a hindrance to learning or identity,” said Rebecca. “We can break the pattern of Spanish-speaking immigrants feeling shame instead of pride for their home language. We can reclaim our histories, our languages, and our identities. We can build a more empathic world.”

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Last week in Chicago, our board of directors meeting agenda included a special guest – 2017 FFT Fellow Paula Dell, teacher at Robert Lindblom Math and Science Academy High School in the city’s South Side. Paula used her grant to work with researchers and professors active in current excavation, research and teaching of human evolution in South Africa’s Gauteng Province – also known as the “Cradle of Human Kind.” In addition to sharing about her experiences, Paula also talked about her unique path to becoming both a teacher and an FFT Fellow.

“I came to education and teaching science later in my working career when a friend who worked in CPS told me that they were looking for science teachers,” said Paula. “I was eager to use my science background so I jumped at the chance. What a great job – teaching science and critical thinking to our youth.”

Over the past 14 years, Paula has led student expeditions to Cuba, China and Iceland. She also researched in the Antarctica with a PolarTREC grant, earned her National Board Certification and applied for a Fund for Teachers grant three times before being awarded.

“Each time I improved my proposal with the insight of Martie Sanders, professor for the School of Science Education at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg,” said Paula. “By the time I received the FFT grant, we had been corresponding for three years!” When Paula finally arrived in South Africa, Martie introduced her to Marina Elliott, world-renowned biological anthropologist and lead researcher at the Rising Star dig. Marina spent one morning showing Paula around the excavation, including the cave where the 250,000-year-old Homo naledi was found.

Paula leveraged her time spent in the field with leading researchers, asking questions, visiting dig sites, and learning about the latest technologies in dating and analyzing the fossils to create a revised, phenomenon-based unit based on the most current scientific understanding. Marina Elliott even Skyped with her students during one lesson. Paula says her biggest accomplishment, however, centers around “the big picture.”

“The relationships with professors and scientists that I formed while in South Africa are real and we have kept the collaboration alive,” said Paula. “We established a network which include teachers in Canada and America. Maintaining an ongoing collaboration with these impressive researchers is so motivating and translating all of that into the classroom is equally exciting.”

After our board meeting, Paula sent a note of thanks and added the following:

“The Fund for Teachers fellowship has been such an amazing experience for me and, in turn, my students and colleagues. I cannot stress enough that the success of FFT is not measured just through analytics, which I think you know. I don’t think the greatest impact is truly quantifiable – how we bring it back to our classroom in a thousand ways, sometimes bold and obvious, sometimes more subtle. I don’t think the majority of FFT Fellows are any less committed than myself or that I am some sort of outlier. My hat is off to FFT for being one of the (too few) entities that truly places trust in teachers to know what is best for our kids. Not a bad rep to have among teachers!”

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Paula (pictured Skyping with her Chicago students from Antarctica) believes that scientific exploration at all ages is crucial in understanding the world in which we live. She is a strong proponent of teaching science through inquiry, as evidenced by her students’ design of a successful underwater camera system, Fish Spy, recently deployed in Antarctica. 

 

FFT Fellows take planes, trains and automobiles in pursuit of knowledge that will engage students. Kristie Blanchard and Christine Troup’s transportation of choice? Camels.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites can be hard to get to.

According to the United Nations Education, Scientific & Cultural Organization (UNESCO), World Heritage Sites are cultural and/or natural sites considered to be of ‘Outstanding Universal Value’ with special importance for everyone. Everyone, that is, except Kristie and Christine’s students at Bacon Academy in Colchester, CT.

“Our rural public high school lacks diversity and global acuity,” said the teaching team. “Freshmen also take a year-long geography course that lacks geospacial technologies used by professionals in the field. We designed our fellowship to explore iconic sites of Catalan, Andalusia and Morocco. Documenting the destinations with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) linked world cultures with geography to emphasize WHY these places have value.”

Taking their lead from the UNESCO theme “Protecting our Heritage and Fostering Creativity,” Christine and Kristie started their fellowship at the Creativity Workshop in Barcelona. There, they deepened proficiencies in the “Four C’s of Deeper Learning” outlined by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills: work collaboratively, improve communication, critical thinking and creativity.

Then, they set off for the Iberian Peninsula to interview citizens and learn from local guides and docents how UNESCO sites represent the cultural landscape of each unique region. Their odyssey took them to:

• Antoni Gaudi sites, including Sagrada Familia
• the Alhambra
• Alcazar of Seville
• El Torcal de Antequera, and
• the “Blue City” of Chefchaouen

The question that guided all of their research was “What makes a place worth preserving?”

Kristi and Christine began the school by addressing the lack of Middle Eastern and European elements in their curriculum. An ESRI Story Map documenting the fellowship models for students how technology can bridge information with authentic learning in multiple aspects of their lives and their community.

“In keeping with our fellowship’s guiding question, students will be challenged to find sites that they believe are worth preserving in our town,” said Kristie. “Through research, inquiry and writing, students may influence the Historic Preservation Office of Connecticut to add additional sites to their register.”

“We’re now able to make text-to-world applications through our experiences and gathered artifacts,” added Christine. “By using new techniques, all students, including those who read and write below proficiency level, will be encouraged to participate in more personalized ways to tell their authentic stories, as well as those of our community.”

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Christine Troup has taught grades 6 – 12 in three states over the past 23 years. In her free time, she enjoys reading, writing, and traveling, or any combination of the three. Kristie Blanchard has specialized in teaching 9th grade Geography and 10th grade AP Human Geography for nearly 20 years. Her career accomplishments include: the National Council for Geographic Education Distinguished Teaching Award, New England St. Lawrence Valley Geographical Society’s Friend of Geography Award, and the American Geographical Society Teacher Fellow.

[minti_dropcap style=”normal”]A[/minti_dropcap]s part of the “follow up” portion of an FFT fellowship, grant recipients complete a Passport that documents their learning and where they plan to go from here. Teachers answer brief questions in three categories:

1. Personal and Professional Growth
2. Impact on Your Classroom, School & Community, and,
3. Imagining the Future

During the month of August, we’ll share some of our Fellows’ Passports to get us all in the “Back to School” mode. Today, we’re proud to share the reflections of Amber Neal, teacher at Almeda Elementary School in Houston, TX. In her grant proposal, she shared the inspiration behind her fellowship:

As a Black little girl, I grew up learning about Africa in school, but exclusively through the lens of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The curriculum and textbooks only reinforced stereotypes of Africans as remote village dwellers with spears and shields and co-existing with wild animals. Years later as an educator, I noted the elementary curriculum was greatly restricted by academic expectations and statewide annual assessments, completely lacking creative, culturally responsive texts or materials. In fact, our state’s education system actually came under fire for producing textbooks and curriculum that romanticized slavery, misinforming students that slaves were actually immigrants that made the decision to travel to the New World.

 

As a Black educator, I felt deeply offended that across the state, teachers were essentially educating students on historical half-truths. This trip will serve as a reminder that I am obligated to not only teach the standards of the course, but to recognize what’s not included and ask why. It is vital in our roles as educators to check our own perceptions and beliefs to become more cognizant of how important our part is in perpetuating stereotypes in the malleable minds of our students.

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Fellowship Description

Experience Tanzania’s history, language, culture and educational climate to deepen understanding of African refugee students and develop learning experiences that enhance global awareness, celebrate cultural differences and enrich classroom discourse.

Personal & Professional Growth

The American embassy’s relocation to Jerusalem and ensuing violence underscores the importance of students’ having a working knowledge of Middle East politics, culture and history. Often in an attempt to increase their own understanding as much as their students, teachers design FFT fellowships focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict. The insights they bring back to class informs learning (and sometimes introduces the unrest for the first time) across a variety of disciplines and age ranges.

For example, Sharolyn Griffith’s students in her homogeneous community of Afton, WY, weren’t even aware of the conflict in the Middle East and held stereotypes that needed to be addressed with facts. She used her FFT grant to examine Israel and Jordan with a National Geographic contingency to provide students with a well-rounded and informed perspective on one of the world’s oldest religious and geo-political conflict regions. Her itinerary included sacred sites, a Palestinian refugee camp, UNESCO World Heritage sites and school visits.

“In class, we did an activity where we had to decide how to divide up disputed land for the Palestinians and the Jews,” said Jillian O’Connor, a sophomore at Star Valley High School. “After reading backgrounds on both groups and listening to Ms. Griffith’s experiences, I quickly came to the decision that finding a right answer was impossible.  After a long debate, my group did the best we could, which was no where near perfect.  Learning about the good and the bad things occurring in the Middle East has made me much more invested in the current events happening in Jerusalem and Gaza and other places and I would love to learn more.”

For their fellowship, the teaching team of Jay Pitts-Zevin, Katie Laird and John Kearney (Alta Vista Charter School – Kansas City, KS) partnered with Seeds of Peace, an internationally-focused conflict resolution organization. On average, the teaching team spent 12-14 hours a day meeting with Israelis and Palestinians and listening to their stories. “It was some of the most demanding work in terms of intensity, intellectual effort and emotional depth that we’ve done,” they said.

John, a World History teacher, now teaches with increased credibility about the context surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian issue. English I and II students use interviews Jay and Katie conducted of displaced people in Palestine to create narratives, modeling the writing process their teachers used on their fellowship blog: research, pre-writing, post-writing and real-time reflections.

Read about their experiences on the blog created for students to follow.

Liz Shulman chose to learn from Palestinians and Israelis who’ve learned to live together. These strategies now shape how she teaches students non-violent skills for navigating life in Chicago.

“This year alone, several students of color have missed class due to attending funerals for loved ones who have been shot, or have come to class while homeless,” said Liz, freshman English teacher at Evanston Township High School. “To complicate things further, the community where I teach also has a lot of wealthy families. This dichotomy causes both populations in the school to have very different experiences while in the same building.”

After documenting successful practices at Neve Shalom, The Parents Circle and Just Vision, Liz re-crafted her curriculum.

“Now, we read Warriors Don’t Cry, and students talk about race, class, and gender and how these intersect all the time.” said Liz. “This led to our discussions of structural and institutional racism in the U.S. When we talked about the Middle East, students were able to apply these same lenses to the conflict and talk about intersectionality.  Since we’ve been talking about systemic power all year, students were able to talk about the different power dynamics in Israel/Palestine.  We’ve also talked about the different organizations on both sides that want peace, similar to grass roots organizations in the U.S. Overall, they’re frustrated about what is happening but are taking solace in understanding that most people on both sides want peace.”

These are just a few of our FFT Fellows who learn in the Holy Land how to support students’ global awareness and peace-building skills. This leadership represents the catalyst behind all FFT fellowships — the students.

“Meeting people who live on both sides of conflict everyday and seeing such hope in their eyes for a peaceful future was inspiring,” said Melissa Tynes, teacher at Houston’s Spring Woods High School who observed on her FFT fellowship coexistence efforts in Tel Aviv, Ramallah and Jerusalem.  “My experiences in the Middle East encourages students’ contemplation of how different peoples with a long history can coexist and collaborate to improve the lives of many.”

(Banner photo credit: Nicole Pelletier, Boston FFT Fellow who spent two weeks in Israel and Palestine with the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, an organization dedicated to conflict resolution and sustainable peace.)

“For the past two years, my eighth grade English class has used Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning graphic-novel, MAUS, as our primary text to study the Holocaust. My students enjoy the fascinating imagery, the break from traditional textbooks, and Vladek Spiegelman’s captivating experience in Nazi concentration camps. While they enjoy the unit, it can be challenging for students to connect the story with the grave reality of the Holocaust.  This fellowship would allow me to ground the story in reality through the authority of my own experience and by creating short video journals which document the places described in the book.”

So began Nick Dykert’s FFT grant proposal — a desire to combine the Holocaust, YouTube and what The Washington Post deems “the greatest graphic novel ever written” into meaningful, relevant learning for students in his English class at James Monroe Elementary in Chicago. He spent two weeks retracing the steps of Holocaust survivor Vladek Spiegelman (aka MAUS) through Sweden, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Germany as described in the graphic novel.

“It was amazing to stand in the places that I talk about during my WWII unit. I can speak with greater authority and use the many videos I shot to engage my students,” said Nick. “In our current political atmosphere, it is so important to be able to empathize, slow down, and consider one another’s perspectives. Relating my firsthand experience and showing my videos brings my students one step closer to doing that.”

According to Nick, students are simultaneously loving the “vlog” and poking fun at him. “They think it’s funny to subscribe to their teacher on YouTube.”

WE think Nick’s videos, discussion questions and resources are remarkable. See if you agree.

Watch the first six videos by clicking here.

Wisconsin is home to the third largest population of Hmong immigrants in the country, but students at Pittsville Elementary knew little about their peers from Southeast Asia. Kate Van Haren turned to textbooks, but most social studies information focused on European ancestry. Online research surfaced only immigration statistics and an occasional Hmong recipe.

“I realized a key component of the American immigration story was missing from my curriculum,” said Kate. “My students interacted with the Hmong community due to the large number of families relocated here, so I knew it was a group of people I could create interest around. I designed a Fund for Teachers fellowship to create a narrative around push/pull immigration that affirmed the fact that, despite our differences, most immigrants to the United States and their descendants share similarities with us, as well.”

Kate spent one month traversing Southeast Asia, researching Hmong culture and their modern societies in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Along the way, she learned about the custom of story cloths — series of embroidered pictures that document daily lives and legends. She purchased one from a Hmong tribal woman and created curriculum for fourth grade Wisconsin History and fifth grade US History students. After learning about the Hmong culture and welcoming guest speakers from a local Lao community organization, students drew personal story cloths sharing their personal ancestries.

“The stories of Hmong families who settled in the area are both tragic and heroic, yet my students were unaware of the diversity in our small farming community. It has been amazing to watch how this project opened their eyes to the different groups of people living around them,” said Kate. “In the age of data analysis and standards based testing, developing a globally conscious curriculum becomes more difficult. This fellowship inspired me to continue meeting my goal of shaping students with global and cultural awareness.”

This February, Fund for Teachers is celebrating Black History Month by highlighting some of our Fellows’ journeys to bring a better understanding of the African American experience to all students. In this four-part blog series, we’ll be diving into everything from the Transatlantic Trade to student advocacy. Our Fellows explored how Black history is taught in our last blog. This week, we are taking a deeper look at how Fellows Merle Rumble, Melissa Petropoulos and James Petropoulos are reframing black history to help students identify with their heritage and with others. Read on to learn more about their experiences in the classroom and how they are honoring Black History Month in their schools.

Although African American herself, Dr. Merle Rumble realized her knowledge of civil rights pioneers lacked a breadth and depth she wanted to share with third graders at Fox Run Elementary in Norwalk, CT. The ephemeral Martin Luther King Day left untapped the vast legacies of those who came before and after the progressive leader. She decided to embark on an independent tour of civil rights sites across nine southern cities with her Fund for Teachers grant to increase her understanding and inspire students to see themselves in the achievements of African Americans.

“I wanted to help my students not only to dismantle the false assumptions of African Americans being relegated to slaves and protestors, but also develop their appreciation for the positive impact and contributions of those whose struggled and persevered,” said Merle.

Through guided tours and impromptu interviews, she gathered materials to inform four new units: Africa to slavery, Rosa to Martin, The Civil Rights Movement and African American Heroes. Students are now researching African American heroes and learning songs and poems from the Civil Rights era, inspiring them to identify with those leaders’ achievements.

Looking more deeply into the lives of enslaved Africans during the Colonial Period led Melissa and James Petropoulos‘ students to reconsider how unique they all are. After learning about the unique contributions made by African Americans whom Melissa and James researched on their fellowship, their fourth graders organized a school-wide Unity Day assembly.

“Focusing on humanizing the slave as a person instead of the person as a slave helped students respect what slaves endured,” said Melissa. “Their response was increased empathy for each other.”

In this celebration of kindness, acceptance and inclusion, student pieced together their individual identities to form this Unity Wall. Each description, together, represents the diverse community that Roywaton Elementary strives to be.

While the name of our organization is Fund for Teachers, students are equal beneficiaries of the $27 million in grants awarded since 2001. These teachers crafted fellowships around what they felt would most impact their students. Consequently, students – for years to come – will see themselves and their ancestors in a whole new light.

We thank Merle, Melissa and James for sharing their experiences and their students’ learning. Make sure to check our Black History Month feed on our blog here. Next week, we’ll be exploring how FFT Fellows are assessing the past and present in terms of black history. Stay connected and find out when it’s live by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Read our first installment in this series here.

The facts represent La Malinche (or Doña Marina) as a slave, advisor, mistress and emissary. Whether those roles positioned her as a hero, victim or traitor is up for debate — which is what the students of Glen Meinschein and Alejandro Avalos did this semester. Following a fellowship investigating one of the most controversial figures in Mexican history, Glen and Alejandro led their middle schoolers through an exploration of colonialism, feminism and indigenous history to reach a broad range of learners at the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies. They share the verdict below…

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Today, 42 women will be sworn into Congress, the most in US history.  Susan B. Anthony and her British counterpart, Emmeline Pankhurst, would be proud of these activists, and also students of Eric Reid-St. John’s at Spain Park High School in Hoover, AL.

With his Fund for Teachers grant, Eric researched Anthony, Pankhurst and the suffrage movement they incited. While in London, he found in Trafalgar Square the location of the 1908 rally for which Mrs. Pankhurst was arrested (pictured). He also studied with three avant-garde theatres, laying the groundwork for his students’ creation of a play about Lady Constance Lytton, an English aristocrat who disguised herself as a working woman to support suffragettes. “Through research, I found that I could relate a lot to Constance,” said Rachel Ponder, who played the lead. “However, most of all, I was so in awe of her dedication towards the suffrage movement. Being a part of this creative process has inspired me both as a woman and as a human being.”

Ponder and 23 students representing each grade spent three months researching the suffrage movement in the United States and Britain before collaborating on a script and set. Each performer created a character journal comprised of photos, newspaper articles and other primary resources they uncovered. An Oxford professor who authored a book on Lytton Skyped into class to inform students’ research, as well.

“Current events were on my mind when I began this process and they continue to bring about a sense of urgency surrounding women’s rights,” said Eric. “My students took the history of this topic and explored its correlation with today’s headlines. They created a story that allowed people to see that the expansion of equal rights is the natural progression of a free society.”

Reviews are in, and at a state theatre competition, Ponder won Best Actress, her cast mates won Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Ensemble and Deeds Not Words was named Best in Show.

This weekend marks the 48th anniversary of Ireland’s Battle of the Bogside, a riot between Protestants and Catholics that initiated a three-decade conflict known as “The Troubles.” FFT Fellows Saul Fussiner and David Senderoff (New Haven Academy – New Haven, CT) are currently in Ireland researching this period of history and share their experiences below…

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We teach a Facing History & Ourselves course for sophomores called “History, Legacy, Judgment and Justice,” which deals with how societies attempt to heal after long periods of conflict. We originally taught this course using the case studies of South Africa and Rwanda, but five years ago, in response to student surveys, we switched our second study to be Northern Ireland. We shaped a unit to include an inquiry activity and some quick background on the history of the Republican/Unionist divide, some lessons on Northern Ireland’s Civil Rights Movement and on Bloody Sunday, some classes on the period of the Troubles (especially 1972-1998) and activities and an assessment based on the Good Friday Agreement and its legacy. After teaching on Northern Ireland for several years now, we wanted to learn more about the background of this crisis–the long history of British colonialism and Irish resistance–that led to this struggle in the first place. And we wanted to see how this struggle is remembered, on both sides, in the lands where it took place.

On our Fund for Teachers fellowship, we are gathering relevant materials across Ireland and Northern Ireland. Along the way, we are gaining awareness and knowledge to help students contextualize the Irish situation (both before and after partition) and demonstrate how people behave in groups.

Our fellowship focuses on museums, tours and arts events that provide a nuanced background on Irish and Northern Irish history. Initially, we intended to research only Dublin and Belfast, but are now expanding to a wider range of places, including Limerick, Galway, Sligo, Derry and County Down. We also are documenting our visit with photography and video showing some of the places we visit; we are especially intent on conducting interviews.

Our ever-expanding agenda has included:

• Glasnevin Cemetery Museum (provides a comprehensive and interactive tour through Irish history)
• the Kilmainham Gaol Museum (contains the history of Ireland’s largest jail from the pre-partition period from
  1798 until the Irish Civil War of the 1920’s, including the detainments and sometimes executions of the
  leaders of the major Irish rebellions in that period)
• the Little Museum of Dublin
• the GPO Museum (documents the 1916 Easter Rising, which was
  headquartered at the General Post Office, or GPO)
• Derry walls walking
  tour
• the Apprentice Boys of Derry Museum
• the City of Derry Museum (the largest collection anywhere
  regarding Bloody Sunday)
• Ulster American park in Omagh
• Mural tours in Belfast and Derry
• Stormont
  Parliament in Belfast
• the Somme Heritage Center (focused on the legacy of the Irish in World War I), and
• Corrymeela Peace Community in Northern Ireland, where one of our visiting teachers is
  a community member.

These activities are the backbone of our fellowship, helping us to build a comprehensive background for our course. By walking in the places where history was lived, one discovers interesting details about it, such as when I visited Alabama and saw with my own eyes how close King’s church was to the Montgomery state house and how close the projects of Selma were to the church where the marches were planned. In addition to everything else, we are spending much of our time in the North with the family of one of the teachers who visited us at our school two years ago, and he is a guide for us during our Belfast excursions.

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Why teach about Northern Ireland in an urban school district in Connecticut?

We do so because the Good Friday Agreement represents what author Penn Rhodeen has referred to as the most successful example of a political solution to a major conflict in our time. Through dialogue and compromise, Nationalists and Loyalists were able to bring an end to thirty years of police brutality, bombings, kidnappings, murders, gangsterism and riots to forge a lasting – if precarious – period of peace. The warring factions in America’s own political system have been far less successful at dialogue and compromise, creating our current situation of mistrust of government and political institutions at home.

When we teach the Civil Rights Movement in American History, that teaching rests on an understanding of a long history of America and a feeling for the present day in our country. We are looking to replicate that long view and awareness in our understanding of (and teaching of) the Civil Rights period and Troubles period in Northern Ireland. We want to be able to “read between the lines.” We are both trying to become better historians of this place, and in order to do so, we wanted to experience it first hand, through interviewing of people there, and through studying in some of its most important museums and taking some of its tours and in walking
from here to there, literally, on its streets. The content of our Northern Ireland unit is always growing, and this fellowship will help us to become better resources for our students to understand this complex and confusing history.

There is an inquiry activity that we always do right near the beginning of the Northern Ireland unit, where students try to piece together clues to the puzzling struggles in Northern Ireland. Clippings and photos and statistics and maps and excerpts from interviews are examined and students create questions and inferences. We do a similar activity as they get into the specifics of the Northern Irish Civil Rights movement. Later, a big paper activity guides students through the escalation of violence in the 1970’s that followed Bloody Sunday. These are activities that can be added to and rejuvenated with the interviews and the video and photographs that we bring back.

For background information on The Troubles, the 1981 BBC documentary series directed by Ian Stuttard and compiled of key first-hand historical footage, is a good place to start. We also created this blog we’re maintaining throughout our fellowship to help document our learning throughout this grant and beyond.

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 Saul teaches History, Civics and Facing History & Ourselves at New Haven Academy. Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Hunter College. He has screenwriting credits on two produced films and regularly performs as a live storyteller with the Institute Library Group and the Story City Troupe. Saul has led workshops for other teachers on storytelling, student social action projects and the Holocaust and was a teacher with March of the Living in Poland in 2012 and 2014.

Dave found his niche in education while searching for a way to inspire people to seek achievements through willingness and determination. His “false starts” in the military and as an extremely amateur musician paved the way for higher learning. Always a New Haven Public School teacher, he has taught middle and high school, focusing on critical analysis and inquiry skills.

(Photograph of Dave and Saul at Lough Gur with their “I’m a Fund for Teachers Fellow” sign)

As tensions heated up this summer between Russia and the United States, Kathy Morse served as a self-appointed ambassador of education, researching the arts in St. Petersburg, Novgorod and Moscow. She returned to ACES Wintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School in Hamden, CT, with insight into how the arts plays such a vital role in Russia’s past and present culture and shares a few of her experiences below…

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Before leaving on my fellowship, I asked my fifth graders to journal their impressions of Russia. Their input framed my research, which I will now use as the foundation for their sixth grade social studies class. Together, we will now look at our diverse world through the common lens of art, specifically, the music, dance and architecture I experienced with my Fund for Teachers grant.

For three weeks, I observed how culture is a driving force in Russia. In St. Petersburg, also known as “Venice of the North,” I explored the arts, history and geography of the city (the famed music conservatory, the Vaganova Ballet Academy and the State Hermitage Museum) while attending the Stars of the White Nights Festival. Specifically, I dove into the compositional techniques of Dimitri Shostakovich and his inspiration for his Seventh Symphony during the winter of 1941.

Listen to an extract from Seventh Symphony here.

Next, I traveled to a city fixed in time, Novgorod, which lies between St. Petersburg and Moscow. At its peak during the 14th century, Novgorod was one of Europe’s largest cities and was recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1992. Novgorod has maintained itself as a historical center and it is possible to get a glimpse of what Russia looked like hundreds of years ago going back as far as the Middle Ages. This gave me a deeper historical context of Russia.

Continuing on to Moscow, I spent three days exploring the Kremlin, Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral, museums and attending performances at the Bolshoi Theatre. These sites are the most iconic, so I wanted students to know what they mean for the Russian people, as well as the importance Moscow plays in our world today.

Understanding WWII through the eyes of the Russian People by exploring Victory Park and the Museum of the Great Patriotic War (WWII) in Moscow was an extensive history lesson. This country lost more than 25 million citizens to battle, starvation, disease and Stalin’s Terror.  The museum also emphasizes the important role the United States and other Allies played in securing victory over Nazi Germany.

Using the Lincoln Center Education model of inquiry (practicing skills like noticing deeply, posing questions, making connections, and empathizing), my students and I will now be able to explore the Russian culture through the study of the arts of St. Petersburg, the history of Novgorod and the political importance of Moscow while making real world connections to other curriculum areas including literature, history and geography. If we Westerners hope to understand this enormous country, we might intelligently begin by trying to understand the culture which drives this mysterious country. That’s where we’ll begin in my class.

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Kathy Morse (pictured in a Moscow subway station) graduated from Duquesne University with a degree in Music Education/Music Therapy while pursuing her passion of performance on the
French Horn.  Her first job was with the State Orchestra of Mexico. Upon returning to the United States, she earned her Masters Degree from Yale University and toured world wide with various ensembles. She has carried her passion for music into the classroom for the past 26 years and has led teacher workshops for Carnegie Hall and the New York Philharmonic.