Teaching Civil Rights Through the Holocaust

by, Natalie Biden & Emilie Jones-McAdams – Bronx, NY

“I looked across the border – that invisible line which separated my family’s old life from our new one – and wondered what was in store for us.”

This was the opening line in one of my student’s free writes about what it means to be a survivor. Barely a teenager, he explained how difficult the process of immigration was on his family. Out of his family’s struggles with emigrating from Mexico to the Bronx, one struggle landed harder int he forefront of his young mind – the lack of cultural and racial acceptance from his peers. Of course, he describes it as bullying, but what it really is: prejudice, ignorance and intolerance. As teachers, we firmly believe that communities in which all cultures are celebrated are the most beneficial places for our students’ educational, social and emotional well being. It is the desire and passion for fostering strong classroom communities that inspired our fellowship.

We left our home in NYC and ventured into the American South and Europe in order to complete a comparative study looking at the significance of those two locations in relation to civil and human rights violations. Through our Fund for Teachers grant, we were able to travel from the American South to Post-Holocaust Europe to discover and research their shared history of both discrimination and reconciliation.

Our key questions were:

  1. How can we more effectively teach about the Civil Rights Movement in the American South and the Holocaust?
  2. How can students use these historical events to reflect on how they treat peers? and,
  3. In what ways can we use the idea of bystanders, victims, and aggressors in historical events to help our students gain a personal awareness of how they impact their peers and school community?

We visited over 10 cities (in America and Europe) in the span of one month. Our goal was to visit important historical locations, learn from guides and educators, and collect invaluable artifacts and pieces of knowledge that would aid us in teaching the Civil Rights Movement and the Holocaust.

We started in the South. Some of the highlights were:

Then we headed to Europe.

We stepped onto four different concentration camps – Auschwitz, Birkenau, Dachau, and Buchenwald. Our Berlin Walking tour focused on periods of repression and persecution of various people groups in the city’s history, while Warsaw offered us a glimpse into its Jewish Ghetto past. By researching in cities such as Berlin, Munich, Krakow, Warsaw, and Prague via train,bus, walking, bike, and Trabant, we were able to appreciate these places for their history, their monuments and important markers of the past, as well as their growth and change over time into the modern cities they have become.

Each destination proved to be a powerful, moving and highly educational experience. In America and Europe, we were steeped in the rich histories, cultures, traditions, and stories. We paid witness to the shoes that the one of the girls was wearing when she lost her life during the 16th Street Baptist Church
bombing, and we paid witness to the thousands of shoes left behind by the victims of Nazi brutality. Never will we forget the things we saw during our journey.

After looking out at the world, it was time to look into our classrooms in order to help students develop a critical consciousness that allows for open and honest discussion and exploration of historical and current issues within a safe and supportive classroom community. As a result of our fellowship, students are tackling the complexities of human and civil rights violations. They are engaging in two new units on civil rights – one focusing on the Holocaust and the other on the Civil Rights Movement.

Viewing and discussing artifacts and pictures collected during our journey, and reading the challenging and complex texts gathered from the two major locations of our trip, students are being exposed to the histories of the South and Eastern Europe. We hope that the discussions and work that come out of these
topics will not only push our students thinking in ELA and social studies, but also encourage our students to think critically about the civil rights and equality issues of their time.

Culturally-responsive education research proves students thrive in classrooms where all cultural vantage points are considered valuable and celebrated. We believe that it is essential to not only teach tolerance,
respect, and acceptance, but it also important to carefully explore with students the times in history when human rights have been violated, and throughout the year, we will explore these moments in history.

Ultimately, the major impact on the students is learning how to turn tragedies from the past into lessons for the present and future. In the present, they are understanding why people should have basic human rights and what happens when people are denied those rights. This impacts the class by applying those same ideas to how they treat their classmates. When our students leave us and go on to higher levels of education and future careers, they will encounter people different from them and ideas different than theirs. We want our students to be good citizens and thoughtful people who impact their communities in positive ways.Learning to treat people with respect and celebrate differences will set them up to live honorably, think deeply, and engage in the social challenges of their times.

Civil Rights for Aborigines and African-Americans

by, Britnie Girigorie & Simone English – Brooklyn, New York

When Europeans first began to colonize Australia in the 18th century, the traditionally nomadic culture of the Aborigine people changed drastically. Under British rule, the Aborigines lost much of the land that they lived off of for centuries. They were subjected to removal of their children from their homes, racism and genocide, denied the right to vote and state benefits and segregated from the main population of Australians. Due to their dark skin the Australian Aborigine people were easily identified and discriminated against. In the 1920’s, the beginnings of a Civil Rights Movement in Australia began to emerge. However, it wasn’t until the 1960′s that the movement began to gain traction. Freedom rides and peaceful protest modeled after the American Civil Rights Movement led to a constitutional referendum allowing the Aborigine people equal rights as Australian citizens.

As English teachers at FDNY High School for Fire and Life Safety, we both noticed a need for units of
study to introduce our students to the diverse world to which they currently have little access. Studying the Aborigine Civil Rights Movement allows our students to connect with a culture across the globe and discuss similarities of the human experience, cultivating empathy and compassion for all of humanity. Therefore, we designed our Fund for Teachers fellowship to spent two weeks in Australia researching the Aboriginal Civil Rights movement to discover how it reflects the more familiar struggle of African-Americans in the United States and create a curriculum about how self-expression helps convey human experiences common throughout the world.

We started our research in Melbourne, where we visited several Aborigine museums and cultural centers. Also in Melbourne, we visited the Worawa Aboriginal School and met with the director, Ms. Lois Peeler. Ms. Peeler and her three sisters are the subjects of the movie The Sapphires that was released in the United States last year. She is to the Aborigine Civil Rights Movement what Rosa Parks was to African Americans. She is also the first Aborigine Super Model in the world.

While visiting the girls-only school, we had a meeting with several heads of departments there and
were given access to class rooms, dorm rooms and other areas of the school including spending time with the students. Over lunch, we learned from Ms. Peeler and others about the Aborigine movement and the progress of the Aborigines in Australia. We discovered that many of the girls were deaf because they live in remote villages and didn’t have access to proper medical care. However, to help with that, all the classrooms have surround sound hearing aids and the teachers speak through a microphone hung from her/his neck.

Our initial question was “How did the American Civil Rights Movement influence that of the Aborigine People?” However, not long after we arrived we realized that we would have to first answer other questions, such as “Where are the Aborigine people now?” We were surprised to find that not
many Australians knew about the Aborigines or simply where they lived. Even when we visited the cultural centers, information about the Aborigine people was limited and sketchy. Visiting the Worawa School really enhanced our learning.

Our second week was spent in Sydney were we visited an Aborigine cultural center. We were privileged to sit with elders who told us stories and showed us how to create our own boomerangs. We witnessed
traditional dances and participated in a smoke ceremony.

We developed the following essential questions to engage our students and school community:

How did the American Civil Rights Movement influence that of the Aborigine people?

In addition to looking to at the American Civil Rights model, we also study Aboriginal literature to discover what forms of self-expression the Aborigine people used to convey their challenges and triumphs? Our two texts for the unit are:

  • Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara, a story about three Aboriginal girls of the “stolen generation”and their escape from a reserve in their attempt to find home; and,
  • Dream Keepers: A Spirit-journey into Aboriginal Australia by Harvey Arden, who takes the reader into the minds, hopes and dreams of the Australian Aborigine people through mythical narrative about their traditional beliefs.

The poems we study include “A Song of Hope” by Oogeroo Noonuccal; “Word of a Ghetto Child” by Ray Sailor; and “What Becomes of us Now?” by Richard G. Kennedy. We also study poems from African American poets such as “Mother to Son” and “Too America” by Langston Hughes and “America” by Claude McKay. Through these books and poems, students experience the pain, the fears, the hopes, dreams, resilient spirit and the triumphs of the Aborigine people. We will seek to uncover what heroes or key figures emerged during this movement and how they use words to inspire change. Answers to these essential questions help our students understand the human struggle and human experience through the similarities in the fight for equal rights of Aborigines and African-Americans.

In addition, we developed an interdisciplinary curriculum unit with colleagues which will spark a culture of leadership, growth and learning among our school staff and we learned how two cultures so drastically different, used similar methods to gain equal rights. Students are learning about the Aborigine people through viewing photos, video footage and artifacts. They now know that African-Americans are not the only group of people who have had to fight for equal rights. This has cultivated empathy within our students, as well as a connection to another culture.

Learning about the struggle for human rights across the globe has fostered a sense of citizenship within our students, inspiring them to fight for themselves, as well as others, in the face of inequalities at the hands of the society. Students are also learning to value and understand differences among people. We help them begin to understand that the human experience is similar across many cultures. The Australian Aborigines, to which we may feel we have very little connection at the surface, faced inequalities and injustices similar to the family members of many of our students. This realization develops a tolerance for difference and a sense of advocacy for
others who may be suffering.

Living, studying and traveling within Australia for two weeks allowed us to gain a deep understanding for the Aboriginal people. Consequently, we now teach our students about what we learned with a passion that stems from personal experiences. We serve as examples for our students to take advantage of learning opportunities and never be afraid to grow professionally or personally. This opportunity to learn and carry out our own professional development allowed us to cultivate our interests and think carefully and strategically about our skills, knowledge and curriculum development practice as well as to foster our curriculum development skills. Through our fellowship, we developed a
common core unit based on what we observed and lived is an unmatched once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that surely ignited a fire within us.

Little Rock Nine Still Impacting Education

by, Jessica Mascle, Anthony Riccio, Nate Streicher & Eric Levine – Amherst, NY

Fund for Teachers Civil Rights

At the Central High School National Historic Site Museum

On an early Sunday morning in July the Tapestry Charter School Civil Rights team traveled to Little Rock, AR for a truly unique experience. We designed our Fund for Teachers fellowship to attend an educators’ Civil Rights Institute to help students make important connections between historic events and challenges of modern society in a way that engages the question, “How can I make a difference?” Little did we know that casual conversations had with fellow educators, hotel workers, shop keepers and cab drivers would be engraved in our minds and retold in our stories of the battle for civil rights.

During the course of the week, we were students engaged in the investigation of primary sources, fieldwork, experts and assessment tools.  Our group traveled to several historic sights including the Arkansas State Capital and Little Rock Central High School.  During these experiences, participants read excerpts from Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals, which fostered a visual understanding of the author’s writing and therefore created an emotional connection that reading the text in a classroom would not foster.

The importance of the Little Rock Nine is incalculable. Perhaps the most compelling discovery was the idea of personal narratives of the students themselves and the community at large. During our time in Little Rock, we were surprised by the impromptu “narratives” we were told by cab drivers as we were given informal sight seeing tours of the city. We were inspired by working with other educators, learning how different schools teach social justice issues, learning from the people who were living in Little Rock during the school integration crisis, learning new ways to use protocols for writing and processing fieldwork, and gaining new ideas for writing projects and final products.

The zenith of the week was sitting down and speaking with our interview subjects. Our conversations turned into our product:personal narratives telling the story of our subjects – their struggles, hardships
and ultimate ability to succeed in the South.

Far north of the Mason-Dixon Line we returned with the reality that although the fight for Civil Rights has come a long way, we still have a long way to go. From conversations with other Institute participants, informal conversations with cab drivers and shop keepers, and the interview sessions, all those involved painted a vivid picture of how America is still not equal.

Our experiences during the Institute allowed us to reevaluate our teaching plans to focus on connections from the Civil Rights Movement to modern day civil rights efforts, including those in our own school community, and what they hope to achieve. Western New York is a very diverse place and being so lends itself to the stories, struggles and tribulations of those who live here. By examining Western New York and our own school, we will be able to create a personal connection with our students, making the content more meaningful.

Experiences on our fellowship taught us is that history is better told by listening to a story than simply reading it out of a textbook. We now teach our students interview and oral history recording techniques that we learned and send them out into the Western New York community to obtain first hand stories of community members that have encountered hardships and struggles trying to achieve equality and respect so that future generations will be able to read and partake in the local civil rights movement. Additionally, we:

  • Revised and implemented a successful 11th grade curriculum to narrow the focus from the evolution of the American Ideals to the application of the ideals of Democracy in Buffalo, NY;
  • Created a personal narrative project for his 12th grade Economics and Government students that is influenced by the techniques learned at the Civil Rights Institute. Students interview local business leaders, politicians,and activists to explore the meaning of “heroism.” They then write personal narratives based on their interviews, which are presented to the subjects in person;
  • Created a 10th grade curriculum with a fellow teacher to broaden the focus from the tension between government oversight and individual liberties to a deep look at the importance of human rights and the violations of this basic idea. This includes the case study of the Little Rock Nine as a point of departure for rest of the expedition; and,
  • Wrote a series of lessons to explore the ties between the search for civil rights and the use of restorative justice to create a strong community.

The most memorable experience of our fellowship was a conversation we had with a cab driver named Owen. We asked him to reflect on his 60 years living in Little Rock and if life has changed for the better. He told us “you are naive to think that discrimination has ended. It has simply just changed its shape, color and stripes.“

Our job as educators is to make sure our society does not become complacent with injustices, and to make sure our students and children know that issues can not be changed if others do not know about them. Through case studies in classes and activities in crew, students will deepen their understanding of civil right and the importance of community.

MLK Jr, Mandela & Me

2018 Update: Since submitting this story, Diego shared this story:

 

“FFT was transformative, probably the best PD I have done as an educator. My fellowship in South Africa included a visit with Christo Brand, one of Mandela’s former prison wardens who eventually became Mandela’s friend, confidant and served with him when he became president. It worked out beautifully, as Mr. Brand visited my school in Fall of 2015 and FFT allowed me to travel for my fellowship in December of that year, so we stayed in touch and I had the chance to learn first hand about what it was like to be next to Mandela. This picture of Christo and me is right after visiting Robben Island on a beautiful crisp morning in Cape Town.

 

I’ve continued to use what I learned in my fellowship with my classes. All of my students read a chapter from Mandela’s Robben Island: The Dark Years, his memoir of his imprisonment, in a class called LeadServe, where we think about citizenship and civics. 

 

Teaching this class led me to be selected as one of 20 national fellows working with Citizen University, based out of Seattle, to think of new ways of bringing citizens together and engaging the through public “Civic Seminaries.” I trace this work directly to my learning as an FFT Fellow.”

by, Diego Duran-Medina – Estes Park, CO

For most of my social studies students at Eagle Rock High School, social justice is perceived as very US centric, mostly revolving around American historical figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. I designed my Fund for Teachers fellowship to expand students’ knowledge base to an international context by researching social justice in South Africa. For two weeks, I explored the history, impact and legacy of apartheid and Nelson Mandela to gather lessons for students as they begin defining their own path within our progressive, restorative-justice based alternative school. In doing so, I’m facilitating students’ understanding of issues around social justice movements by comparing and contrasting the Civil Rights Movement with apartheid and reconciliation.

Fund for Teachers Mandela

Standing outside Mandela’s cell on Robben Island.

My passion for this fellowship comes from having spent over a decade developing my own curricula around issues involving access, social justice, civil rights, definitions of citizenship and exploring what it means to belong and exclude in different contexts. I have never been a traditional teacher relying on textbooks; instead, I prefer to create learning experiences around current events, historical narratives and issues that my students are interested in. This has to do with my own development as a student who always enjoyed history, but found it to be a subject that can often be reduced to static dates, rote memorization and mythology of “great (white) men.” My passion is driven by the fact I want students to know I continue to expand my knowledge and to actively seek new answers with new questions by traveling to a country and culture that I have never visited, but has always fascinated me – South Africa.

I chose to spend my fellowship observing and researching the Mandela Museum in Mthatha, the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, Mandela Square and the Mandela House in Soweto, because I believe that these places offer a perspective that can only be experienced by visiting and have become part of Nelson Mandela’s myth and legacy. By visiting sites over multiple days, I gathered detailed and thorough information to supplement my teaching and curriculum. I also interacted with educators and museum personnel to connect with those who were able to provide personal insight into Mandela’s life and legacy. As a result, I added an important layer of an international focus with an in-depth study of a historical figure beyond the usual pantheon of Civil Rights figures from the US context. My curricula will deepen with a specific example of social justice and a comparative model with apartheid for looking at slavery, oppression and freedom.

On January 6, I started a class called LeadServe, taking a hard look at what it means to work for democracy in different contexts: the two primary examples we will use are Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela. Students will learn though readings, historical context, connected facts and artifacts collected from my fellowship. They will develop a notion of history that moves beyond facts and moves from the impersonal to the personal (i.e.“What does this history mean for my own life?”) They will also develop skills in comparing and contrasting cultures, movements, societies and historical figures, specifically the U.S. and South Africa.

Being awarded this fellowship solidified for me that I can be a teacher who focuses on social justice and that my work has real meaning and substance. These stories need to be told to students in a way that goes beyond the classroom or the textbook, and the example I am setting by
traveling to South Africa is much more powerful than just a lecture on apartheid.

There’s a certain inspiration and renewal of the spirit that happens when I pursue these personal passion projects and it helps inject my career with new energy and
focus. Also, as I advance in my career, I am committed to making sure that younger teachers understand the power of experiential learning for their practice and are able to implement similar experiences in their classrooms and curricula.

Learning through travel is the most powerful combination for connecting the classroom and community, the learning with the doing, and the present with the past. Therefore, I am extremely grateful for this opportunity and treasure the days I spent in South Africa, both learning and reflecting on my practice. I consider it an honor to have been selected as a Fund for Teachers Fellow and entrusted with representing myself, my school and my country.

Eagle Rock School is a full-scholarship high school for 72 adolescents who are not thriving in their current situations, for whom few positive options exist and who are interested in taking control of their lives and learning. Eagle Rock is also a Professional Development Center where educators from across the country learn how to re-engage, retain and graduate students. Diego plans to use his fellowship learning in both settings.