[minti_dropcap style=”circle”]B[/minti_dropcap]ack in the ’80s, when Saturday Night Live was funny, Jon Lovitz did a skit called “Get to Know Me!” espousing how people (i.e. Steve Martin) benefited from knowing him. We believe the same is true of our 2019 Fellows and are, therefore, continuing a blog series throughout the summer to introduce you to many of our grant recipients.

Today, we meet the teaching team of Kaellagh Cassidy and Katie Hollerbach, teachers at Chicago’s Robert Lindblom Math and Science Academy High School. FFT fellowships designed around language/cultural immersion are a favorite among our grant recipients; this particular one, however, has an interesting component: collaborating with indigenous communities in Mexico to inspire our own civic action projects.

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On why they designed this fellowship…

Our student population is predominantly African American (70%), but the Latnix population is rapidly growing. Our school actively works to foster an inclusive environment that celebrates all cultures and backgrounds: we provide mirrors for students to see themselves in historic and academic texts; we do case students on racial inequality in Brazil; and address trauma in Haiti and youth homelessness in Morocco. However, we wanted to expand and diversity the examples we include from Latin America.

Thus, we designed this fellowship to study Mexico’s indigenous cultures and establish a partnership with a community school in Chiapas to design a unit on the fight for land and education rights.

We believe that a unit on indigenous activism and historical memory of indigenous contributions will affirm to our Latinx students that their history matters.

On their itinerary…

We plan to travel through central and southern Mexico, exploring museums and cultural sites that highlight indigenous culture and speaking to local experts to better understand the relationship between national identity, indigenous history and culture. Our itinerary includes:

• touring the National Museum of Anthropology and interviewing its director of education outreach
• experiencing Chichen Itza, one of the most significant and well preserved sites of Maya and Toltec acculturation,
• exploring Teotihuacan, one of the largest pre-Hispanic cities in the Americas, the Frida Kahlo Museum, Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe,
• working alongside and learning from teachers and community members involved with the NGO Escalera to learn more about access to education in indigenous communities,
• visiting important sites associated with the Zapatista movement, including San Cristobal de las Casas, and
• interviewing local experts, community members, and journalists who are involved with indigenous activism and education, including indigenous experiences with employment and integration into Mexico City and other urban environments.

On plans for students…

The Zapatista mentality (emphasis on direct democracy, valuing all voices, and inclusivity) will be an engaging topic to begin the school year with, and will also create an opportunity for students to structure our own classroom community and goals. Throughout the fall, we will more effectively validate our Latinx students through new learning, as well as connections with other courses and organizations at school, including the Latino Culture Club, Black Student Union and the Step Team. Additionally:

• A unit in our Gender & Ethnic Studies course current connects the work of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo to the actions of female activists against gun violence in Chicago. We plan to add connections to the female Zapatistas and activists we meet to enrich this unit.
• The AP World curriculum will incorporate Mexican revolutions more thoroughly by emphasizing how the Zapatistas continue to advocate for autonomy and freedom.
• Our Human Geography course, which examines urbanization and the migration of people to cities, will include knowledge about indigenous groups moving to Mexico City because of a lack of employment opportunities in more rural areas. And,
• In the culminating project, students will plan and execute civic action projects of their own in response to issues facing our Chicago community.

As white teachers instructing on indigenous cultures, we want to ensure we’re not simply relaying the simplistic narrative often found in textbooks, but allowing the experts in the field to inform our instruction. Rather than be instructors with a monopoly on knowledge and information, we want to build a unit that authentically connects students with the course content in a way that puts students in the position of power.

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Kaellagh Cassidy has taught history and civics in Chicago for eight years. She aims to put her students in the shoes of historians and activists by re-examining historical truths through documents and simulations and student-driven civic action projects. Kaellagh is also a coach of Cross Country and Track and believes that high school should be a community that fosters student curiosity and empowerment.

 Katie Hollerbach has taught high school social science at Lindblom Math and Science Academy in Chicago for the past eight years. She is passionate about including a global mindset into each of her classes, which currently include Global Civics and Gender & Ethnic Studies. In 2017, she traveled to Morocco as part of the Koldyke Global Teacher Program. She also is a teaching assistant in the MSEd Program at Northwestern University.

[minti_dropcap style=”normal”]T[/minti_dropcap]his week marked the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly to proclaim the inalienable rights which everyone is inherently entitled to as a human being — regardless of race, color, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Fund for Teachers is equally proud of the learning all of our grant recipients pursue because each fellowships represent a teacher’s initiative to bridge a gap in knowledge, be it theirs or their students’. That said, the activism of FFT Fellows always inspires, as you can see from our most recent fellowships focusing on Human Rights…[minti_divider style=”1″ icon=”” margin=”10px 0px 10px 0px”]

Jenny at one of Pinochet’s prison camps in Chile’s Atacama Desert

Jenny Quirindongo & Laura Bennett
University Heights High School & Mott Haven Village Prep. High School | Bronx, NY

Fellowship: Investigate how human rights violations compare in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile to consider how people have attempted to reconcile atrocities and combat future violations to

“My learning aroused a range of emotions, from feeling both horrified and depressed, to inspired,” said Laura. “For me, what I will take away from this experience and teach in my classroom is empathy and empowerment. Empathy to want to make the world a better place and empowerment to do so. Young people need to feel they have a voice and can make a change. Once we lose that, and our spirit of activism, (and I hope it’s not too late) I feel we are only steps away from the unimaginable ourselves.”

Brian Peck & Zach McCullough II
Osborne High School & Mumford High School | Detroit

Fellowship: Experience language and cultural immersion within a Honduran Garifuna village to improve personal understanding of this unique Afro-Latino community fighting for ancestral lands and produce a novel with accompanying digital curriculum for novice Spanish students about the African diaspora in Latin America, human rights and Honduras’ current crisis.

“Our goal was to capture stories of young Garifuna people who can help our students understand the history of this dynamic Afro-latino community.  I joined a Witness for Peace walk for a human rights delegation across Honduras (pictured below) and interviewed people at Arcoiris, an LGBT organization in Tegucigalpa that has faced unfathomable repression since 2009 after a military coup usurped the democratically elected president.

Prior to this trip I didn’t comprehend the magnitude of indigenous people’s history in Honduras and the degree to which they must struggle for their rights and land. I think I will always keep the essential question of how indigenous people are impacted by policies as a foreground of any inquiry in my classroom. Whether we are speaking of foreign policy or immigration, my students and I need to know how to research and understand indigenous history and present-day narratives.”

Brian walks with a member of the indigenous village Locomapa learning about loggers who are violently taking their land

Listening to first-hand accounts from Freedom Ridersat the Smithsonian

Meaghan McKinnon & Christina Caceres
Harvey Elementary | Kenosha, WI

Fellowship: Visit civil and human rights museums and meet with grassroots organizers in Atlanta and Washington DC to explore historical changemakers and connect this learning with the federal government’s structure to identify how individuals can make a difference in order to cultivate a change mindset among students.

Erin Houlihan
Sunset Ridge School | East Hartford CT

Fellowship: Study current and past human rights issues by traveling to landmarks/sites in Belgium and the Netherlands, including the European Commission, Humanity House, and Anne Frank House. This will broaden my understanding of human rights issues in order to enhance my teaching at an International Baccalaureate school that focuses on global perspectives.

“The Holocaust and human rights are topics that I was already passionate about, but now I have new knowledge, understanding, and a renewed energy to address these topics in my classroom. Students will benefit because they will be able to hear my first-hand experiences and see my photos of the Anne Frank House, concentration camp, and a variety of museums. I am also bringing personal accounts and texts back to my classroom that will enhance my lessons and make learning more relevant and authentic.”

At the Grand Mosque in Paris, which provided refuge for Jews during World War II

Lisa Trebtoske, Byron High School | Byron MI

Fellowship: Study multiculturalism in Western Europe and the methods used by human rights organizations, museums, and educational institutions to promote tolerance to develop a school-wide social justice curriculum focused on global awareness and student advocacy.

“This experience afforded me a magnifying glass to peer into the stories of individuals who are affected by a fear of multiculturalism, from Anne Frank to Ammar from Paris. Each story, each artifact, was a lesson on what it means to be human. After talking with Lore Gablier from the European Cultural Foundation, I have decided to emulate her project, Idea Camp, with my English 12 students. I am going to create a senior exit project based around student advocacy. Idea Camp is a project in which participants from across Europe may submit proposals that will affect their communities. Similarly, I will use the methods she suggested to implement a student advocacy project instead of traditional curriculum.”

Motivated by Margret Atkinson‘s two FFT fellowships focused on advocacy, her students started an enterprise to educate, inspire and engage people in real-world change based on the United Nation’s Declaration on Human Rights. Watch their recent interview on local television and support them and human rights by purchasing items from their Upstander Brand website.

(Top photo taken by Meghan McKinnon at the Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta.)

https://youtu.be/YBqWNcvOd08?t=1s

Margret Atkinson’s language arts students in Zachary, LA, lead a double life. When not studying literature on historic and contemporary Upstanders, they operate an Educational Corporation aimed at engaging communities on the importance of choices that honor others. Initial investments by Donors Choose and Think It Up seeded the creation of their The Upstander Brand, a six-department, student-run business that produces bookmarks, stickers and wristbands advocating for empathy in action. To date, students have raised $1,000, splitting revenue between capital costs and donations to St. Jude’s Children Research Medical Hospital and the American Cancer Society.

“Students are learning skills essential for success in the 2020 workplace, as articulated by the World Economic Forum,” said Margret, who researched World War II Upstanders across Europe on two Fund for Teachers fellowships. “They’re learning cognitive flexibility, critical thinking and emotional intelligence while cultivating their own autonomy and moral paradigms.”

See students interviewed about their Upstander Brand by the CBS affiliate in Baton Rouge, LA.

Seventh and eighth graders founded the nonprofit in 2016 after deeply resonating with Margret’s fellowship research rooted in the Holocaust.  Students now self-select one of six departments at the beginning of the school year to create products, forge collaborative community relationships, and produce podcasts, newsletters and blog posts about their mission to create global good.

Meet The Upstander Brand’s leadership team on the video above, produced by the PR/Marketing team and visit Margret’s website to learn more about her fellowships and their role in catalyzing student impact.