“Truth Booth” Comes to Facing History New Tech

EmilyBlackie — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 22:09:42 +0000

press_type:

In the News

February 4, 2014

The Truth Booth, a project initiated by three artists affiliated with the San Francisco-based Cause Collective travelled to Facing History New Tech High School in Cleveland, Ohio, on February 6, 2014.

The Truth Booth is an inflatable video studio where individuals enter, press “record,” and in two minutes or less, finish the statement “The truth is…” To prepare for its arrival, students at Facing History New Tech studied how the media, general public, and individual communities have varying ideas of “the truth” in relation to one historical event: the 1979 shootings of five anti-Ku Klux Klan protesters in Greensboro, SC.

"We frame a lot of our curricula resources around very broad questions like this one," said Mark Swaim-Fox, Director of Facing History's Cleveland office. "This is what our work and the school is all about, looking at the world not as a monolith of black or white, but all of the gray in between."

Read "'Truth Booth' Coming to Facing History New Tech School Thursday” on Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s website.

Learn more about Facing History’s work in Cleveland.

"Cleveland Jewish News": Facing History Students Making a Difference

EmilyBlackie — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 22:34:53 +0000

press_type:

In the News

January 29, 2014

Cleveland Jewish News has spotlighted the Facing History and Ourselves course, “Human Rights and Conflict” at Beachwood High School in Beachwood, Ohio, in the paper’s weekly education column. Students concluded the course by coordinating projects around the Facing History theme “choosing to participate.” Students volunteered to raise money for Typhoon victims and collected more than 200 books for the University of Cleveland Preparatory School, a school in inner city Cleveland.

Read “Beachwood Students ‘Choose To Participate’” in Cleveland Jewish News.

Learn more about Facing History’s work in Cleveland and surrounding areas.

Facing History New Tech Principal Finalist for MLB’s Mentor of the Year

EmilyBlackie — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 18:00:19 +0000

press_type:

In the News

January 14, 2014

Marc Engoglia, principal of Facing History New Tech High School, is one of three finalists for Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Indians’ Mentor of the Year Award. The award recognizes individuals in Northeast Ohio making a difference in communities through leadership and mentoring efforts. Engoglia is one of three finalists selected from over 100 nominations.

Opened in 2012 in partnership by Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD), Facing History and Ourselves, and the New Tech Network, Facing History New Tech High School is the first of its kind in the nation. Students at the school learn through curriculum developed by Facing History and project-based, integrated technology approaches pioneered by the New Tech Network. The school provides a unique opportunity for engaging urban high school students in a program that focuses on civic responsibility, tolerance, and social action. The school will grow to serve 400 students in grades 9 through 12 by 2015.

Click here to vote (through January 21).

Learn more about Facing History New Tech High School.

Learn more about Facing History’s work in Cleveland.

Ohio Students Produce Book, Donate Proceeds to Facing History

EmilyBlackie — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 19:28:38 +0000

press_type:

In the News

November 25, 2013

Facing History and Ourselves students at Hawken School, a coeducational day school in Gates Mills, Ohio, have produced a new book, Trails of Darkness: Comparative Essays on the Salem Witch Hysteria of 1692 from the Teenage Perspective, a collection of 13 essays by high school juniors and seniors that draw comparisons between the Salem witch trials to modern day events.

“Our project is unique for several reasons,” senior Aric Floyd said in a recent press release. “As far as we know this is the first time that a high school class has self-published and self-marketed a work of original historical research. Our journey has included everything from working with professional editors to designing cover art and [it] has been an incredible educational and entrepreneurial experience.”

The book is available on Amazon as a Kindle title and a paperback version will be offered in mid-December. All proceeds will be donated to Facing History.

Read "Hawken Students Publish Collection of Stories Comparing Current and Past Events" on Cleveland.com.

Buy the book on Amazon.com.

Learn more about Facing History’s work in Cleveland area schools.

Kirk Johnson Community Conversation Featured on Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Blog

EmilyBlackie — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 16:34:01 +0000

press_type:

In the News

November 7, 2013

The Cleveland Foundation’s Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards blog has featured a Community Conversation with Kirk Johnson, subject of recent award-winning documentary The List and author of To Be a Friend is Fatal: The Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind on their blog. Johnson spoke to teachers, students, and community members in downtown Cleveland on November 5.

The free Community Conversations event series presented by Facing History and The Allstate Foundation features prominent scholars, authors, filmmakers, and policy leaders in conversation with community members on issues of civic engagement, individual and collective responsibility, and tolerance.

The List and To Be a Friend is Fatal both tell the story of Johnson’s struggle to help resettle Iraqi citizens who helped Americans during the war.

Read “Author Kirk W. Johnson on the Fight to Help Iraqi Allies Left Behind” on the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards blog.

Learn more about Facing History’s work in Cleveland.

Find a Community Conversation near you.

Facing History Mourns Passing of Cleveland Holocaust Survivor

EmilyBlackie — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 21:45:53 +0000

press_type:

Web Update

November 5, 2013

Holocaust survivor and dear friend of Facing History and Ourselves Max Edelman passed away November 5, 2013, at age 91.

As a teenager in Poland, Edelman was forced into Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was blinded by prison guards. He managed to survive with the help of a fellow inmate and kindness from a prison guard.
Edelman told his story to countless classrooms in the Cleveland area, and encouraged students to stand up against hatred and become active participants in the world. He was also a tireless volunteer at the Cleveland Library for the Blind and the Face to Face Holocaust program.

“If I can reach a few students who really are interested in learning the truth, the whole truth about the Holocaust Era, I think I have accomplished a lot,” Edelman said in an interview with ABC News 5.

Edelman was recently the subject of a new book, Trusting Calvin by Sharon Peters.

Read Max Edelman’s obituary in the Plain Dealer.

Creating Star Players for Democracy: Educator Lori Urogdy Eiler at the 2013 Cleveland Benefit Dinner

EmilyBlackie — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 21:51:48 +0000

October 23, 2013

For everyone to view

Teacher

Lori Jonathan and Teacher_resized.jpg

Teachers, students, and community members honored retired Facing History and Ourselves educator Lori Urogdy Eiler, a former teacher at Shaw High School in East Cleveland, Ohio, at the seventh annual Facing History Benefit Dinner on October 23, 2013. Eiler talked about her journey to become a teacher and how Facing History “breathed life, a kind of soul,” into her teaching.

Lori Urogdy Eiler and her former student Jonathan Lykes, with former Shaw High School teacher Andratesha Fritzgerald
Photo courtesy of J. Palsa

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. In Facing History, we say “Everyone Has A Story” – you have a story, I have a story.

My name is Lori Urogdy Eiler and I am deeply honored to share my story tonight about a three-and-a-half decade-long career as a teacher and about the role that a truly remarkable experience, Facing History and Ourselves, has played in it.

In the winter of 1978, I was a student teacher at Franklin D. Roosevelt – on the east side of Cleveland. I was 22, a four-foot 10-inch little girl from Long Island who looked about 12, full of ideas about what education had been for me and about what it should be for all kids.

And when I walked through the doors of FDR, I was appalled - not by the behavior of the kids, but by the behavior of too many of the adults, with [their] too-often chosen tool of instruction, a paddle.

Teachers warned me that if anyone at that school was going to get an education, it would be me. I was “naïve,” “wouldn’t last,” and the kids would teach me a lesson or two about “reality.”

They said.

Well, they were right – in a sense the kids did teach me a lesson. But it wasn’t the lesson the burned out teachers and worn out administrators were trying to teach me. It was the lesson that my students have taught me every day since that first day in 1978, that is, “If you give your best to the world, the best will come back to you.” If you treat students with love and respect, your students would love and respect you back, and they will accomplish things beyond their wildest imaginations.

After student teaching that September, I began my teaching career at Shaw High School in East Cleveland. At that time we lacked resources, had few books, and the technology was an old slate chalkboard.

But we had an amazing raw resource: our kids. Together we built a community where real learning took place.

Early on I got to teach a class called “Street Law” and I learned the power of law-related education.
Sending kids out into the world without law-related education is like sending kids out on a basketball court without ever teaching them the rules of the game and then sitting around and wondering why so many foul out.

Kids don’t learn about the game by listening to the coach talk about it, or by sitting around reading about it, or by watching it. They learn by doing it, and with hours and hours of practice, and that is what I encompassed as my classroom model.

As a teacher I went about empowering students – creating star players for our democracy because, after all, the health of our democracy depends on it, our neighborhoods depend on it, and our communities depend on it.

It is my passion.

But there was something missing because star players need training of the heart as well.
I found that missing piece nine years ago. [Facing History Cleveland Office Director] Mark Swaim-Fox reached out to us with Facing History and Ourselves. We had created a new small school, the Shaw High School Leadership Academy: School for Law, Public Safety and Human Relations.

Mark, with his staff, introduced us to this incredible experience with amazing resources – books, documentaries, and speakers. There was professional development, student leadership opportunities and amazing people for support. We learned that not only was Facing History available to us, but it had been for years—for decades—and no one had ever told us!

I was mad! Really mad! How could that be? By then I had been teaching for 27 years and? I was intensely professionally enraged. And I would have been even madder if I knew at the time the true magic of Facing History.

The beauty of Facing History is that it breathed life, a kind of soul, into that structure we had built at Shaw High School and into the classrooms we were so proud of.

Facing History gave us historical case studies. It gave us all we needed to teach them. But even more powerful, it brought us living, wonderful examples of humanity: Holocaust survivors, civil rights activists such as Terrence Roberts, South African Supreme Court Justice Albie Sachs, a rescuer from the Rwandan Genocide, to name just a few.

When students are exposed to the best of humanity, they are inspired to become their best selves - and so are we.

Facing History’s stories had a huge impact on all of us. We had a lens to understand the human experience and tools to navigate.

What we learned – at its heart – was that we each can take responsibility for the world we live in; we each can widen what sociologist Helen Fein called our “universe of obligation,” and in so doing, we stop being victims, we stop being perpetrators, we stop being bystanders, we choose to participate as upstanders.

That changes everything.

Most importantly, students learn that everyday actions – what they do and what others do – create the human story and the parts we play are choices, choices that can be changed.

That realization isn’t short-lived. It is transformative. It becomes part of kids, as if they have had laser surgery on their vision, and they carry it into the world. They make it part of their own life.

After dinner, you will have the pleasure of meeting Jonathan Lykes, who is amazing and was among my first Facing History students. He will show you how transformative Facing History can be even with the already most remarkably gifted student.

Looking back on my 35 years as a teacher I cannot imagine a more fulfilling life. And my jaded colleagues back then? They were right. Kids were going to teach me a lesson and Facing History helped them do it and here it is: Once you understand the power you hold over your own life and the responsibility you bear for the lives of others, once you understand that in the way that Facing History teaches it, you can be anything and you can go anywhere, and impact the collective human story in a powerful and wonderful way.

And so tonight I say “thank you.” Thank you Facing History for giving me the chance to learn and to be empowered. Thank you Facing History for transforming me and giving me the tools to transform my students. Together we have worked to become the best examples of humanity we can be. Thank you for allowing me to share my story with you tonight.

We are all familiar with Gandhi’s call to “be the change.” It is my contention that Facing History “brings the change” – in me, in you, in the world, in our collective stories.

Thank you.

The time is now. The need is urgent. The path is education. Find out how you can help more students receive a Facing History education.

From Bully to Upstander: Facing History Alumnus Jonathan Lykes at the 2013 Cleveland Benefit Dinner

EmilyBlackie — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 20:58:32 +0000

October 23, 2013

For everyone to view

Alumnus

Jonathan Lykes with audience_resized.jpg

Facing History and Ourselves alumnus Jonathan Lykes addressed teachers, students, and community members at the seventh annual Facing History and Ourselves Benefit Dinner on October 23, 2013, in Cleveland, Ohio. Lykes reflected on his journey from class bully to his work at the Center for the Study of Social Policy in Washington, D.C. today. He credits his Facing History teacher, Lori Urogdy Eiler at Shaw High School in East Cleveland with inspiring him to become an upstander.

Jonathan Lykes Performs "I Was There"
Photo courtesy of J. Palsa

Hello, my name is Jonathan Lykes. And I faced history one day and I found myself. Some of you were here when I said those words at the very first Cleveland Facing History Benefit Dinner in 2006. I was a 10th-grade student in Ms. Urogdy’s class from Shaw High School in East Cleveland.

Now seven years later, with a more in-depth understanding of the world around me, and with a little more facial hair, I can still proudly say that Facing History is a part of my heart and has been woven into my journey throughout high school, college, graduate school, and even now as a young professional. I humbly say that my life — marinated in Facing History values — has been one that defies the statistics and stereotypes that are often placed on youth from underprivileged neighborhoods.

In 2008, when I moved from Cleveland to attend college at the University of Chicago, I could not take many things with me. Family, friends, and various clubs all stayed right here [in Cleveland]. However, there was one organization that was so significant in my life, I couldn’t leave it behind. This organization was so important to me, that once I moved to college it was no longer about what Facing History has done for me, but what I can do for Facing History. And on a greater scale, what I can do to help students better their lives.

In Chicago, I assisted the Chicago office by working with Facing History students over three years and creating a student symposium where high school students led discussions with their peers exploring themes on “Building Community.” On my campus, I also co-founded a performing arts mentoring group that goes into high schools and teaches civic education. The state of Illinois approved this organization to be used as a deterrent for troubled teens. Instead of sending them to juvenile detention, the young people could come to our mentoring program.

In my third year of college, I also got the opportunity to study abroad in Cape Town, South Africa. While there, I was able to see how Facing History is connecting people around the world as I worked with South African Facing History students using poetry and spoken word performance to help them share their stories and initiate intergroup dialogues. This was particularly important because of the social environment set to a backdrop of an anti-apartheid movement still seeking healing and reconciliation.

I am humbled to know that I can transform the impact of Facing History on my life and pass it on to other students. That I can be an avenue for them to understand their identity and take an active role in participating in a world that thirsts for a young generation of people that have the moral and intellectual basis to create a better tomorrow in what is increasingly becoming a globalized world. This is the impact that Facing History had on me, but as you saw in the video that Mark showed you earlier tonight, it is also the impact they continue to have in the world.

I am now 23 years old, however the themes that these teachers from around the world examined and the very same themes I was able to wrestle with in my own Facing History class at 15 have reverberated throughout the different stages of my own personal, academic, and professional development.

When Ms. Urogdy taught us the Facing History lesson on identity, it allowed me to put my life into perspective, understand who I was as an individual, and it illustrated that I can have an impact on the society around me. This impact came into fruition when I went back to South Africa last year and worked with a community organization that is fighting for quality and equality in their education system.

When my teachers taught the Facing History lesson about making choices, it challenged me to study the history of the world and my personal past so that in high school I was no longer the class bully, but the student that spoke against violence in and outside of school. This same knowledge was utilized when, after college, I stayed to get my master's [degree] and as a graduate student I traveled to Mumbai, India to help mobilize and educate slum communities on their housing rights.

When my Facing History class started the session on choosing to participate, for the first time I became an activist, and took this activism to students here in the United States and learners around the world.

Earlier this year, in June, I graduated with my master’s degree from the University of Chicago and started working as a program assistant at the Center for the Study of Social Policy in Washington, D.C. My work now revolves around racial equity and neighborhood revitalization initiatives (NRI). These initiatives come out of the White House’s Office of Urban Affairs and are relate to work I was doing in the Chicago Woodlawn Children's Promise Community. I have come a long way from my 9th grade Facing History class, but it still wasn’t long ago when I walked to Shaw High School and passed graffiti gang signs tattooed on the walls of boarded up storefronts and blighted houses in my neighborhood. When the school bell rang at the end of each school day, I often heard police sirens that became symbolic of systemic issues like inequality that are entrenched in narratives of poverty and tattered education systems. In the midst of maneuvering through a challenging atmosphere, my Facing History class, fortunately, was innovative enough to equip me with the tools I needed to fight against poverty in my own community and in disadvantaged communities around the world.

So, in fact, what I said seven years ago was true. Facing History is definitely “more than just a non-profit organization.” And I continue to stay involved in this organization because it’s an innovative remedy to many of the issues we face today. Just this past weekend, I spoke at a Facing History high school in the District of Columbia, and got to see how Facing History continues to challenge students to expand their obligations and to care for the many hurting people in the world. Facing History calls students to do something about the many dying in third world countries every day. It calls you to take action when you see something wrong with the environment that we live in. As a 9th-grade student it called for me to give up my attitude of not caring and adopt one of a greater calling, an attitude that will inevitably change communities for the common good. It called me to pass the knowledge that I have learned down to the students younger than I [am]. And it called for me to never forget those lessons that my Facing History teachers taught me at Shaw High School. I faced history one day and I found myself. Now Facing History students in Cleveland and around the world, are doing the same. Thank you. This is poem I wrote in my first year of college, when I began working with Facing History students as an alumnus.

"I Was There" written and performed by Jonathan Lykes

I was there…My Facing History class in 9th grade, I was there, caught up in the atmosphere…hearing the stories of a “Little Rock Nine”, having dialogues with holocaust survivors, and learning the difference between the consequence of doing nothing and standing up for what you believe in…I was there…it was freedom singing, when at one time freedom couldn’t compose anything except the, grinding of seeds out of a cotton gin- back when- words were so empty, even Dr. Phil couldn’t feel them. I was there…in the presence of history’s tears, and my own blood shot eyes, watching young folks laugh and old people cry…different emotions at the same time declaring the same message…Victory, Progress, Change. And I realized simultaneous because of what happened in history and what was happening in front of me, because of facing history, I can do anything.

I can do anything…because they, were, there, when oppressed voices were silenced in the crooked corners, facing crooked police officers turning hooked fingers to shoot messages that wanted nothing but the status quo not to be challenged, and they there, when voting meant dying, because freedom became three times less important, when three little kids sit at home hungry, and death wasn’t on the answer key, especially when you’re just a young child, old enough to read, but not old enough to understand… couldn’t comprehend why daddy couldn’t pass the literacy test that the board of elections gave him. They were there, staring down the barrel of a bullet’s home, eyes closed in a sea of blackness, getting hit by hates fist, eyes closed observing the yellow and red dots mixing together in a symphony of darkness, as those who wanted change were beaten by those who comfortable with the way… things… were... and I heard the voices of history echo off the buildings in Chicago, and even though I was old enough to read, and I was old enough to understand…I will never be old enough to see that what they did yesterday, is forgotten today.

So I will be there and I will continue the fight for justice for those who will be here. For those little boys and girls growing up in inadequate elementary schools, looking up, to corrupt officials that build jail cells by counting how many minorities are born each year, Because for some caught up in the system, college was never an option. So we must be there, to tell all those “can nots” that they can, because we care…So where will you be…because I will be there.

The time is now. The need is urgent. The path is education. Find out how you can help more students receive a Facing History education.

“Cleveland Jewish News” Spotlights Facing History Benefit Dinner

EmilyBlackie — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 17:51:55 +0000

press_type:

In the News

October 28, 2013

The Cleveland Jewish News has featured photos from Cleveland’s 8th Annual Benefit Dinner at the Renaissance Hotel on October 23, 2013. Lauren Rich Fine & Gary Giller and Anne & Joe Juster chaired the event, which featured Facing History students and teachers including retired teacher Lori Urogdy Eiler and Facing History alumnus Jonathan Lykes.

View photos from the event on the Cleveland Jewish News website.

Learn more about Facing History’s work in Cleveland.

Click here to donate to Facing History.

Facing History’s Innovation Grant Winner Featured on Cleveland.com

EmilyBlackie — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 16:34:19 +0000

press_type:

In the News

October 23, 2013

Clevleand.com has featured Facing History and Ourselves and Shaker Heights High School teacher John Morris for his work teaching about the 1970 Kent State University (KSU) shootings.

Supported by a Margot Stern Strom Innovation Grant from Facing History and Ourselves and a grant from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation, Morris will collaborate with a local KSU professor to bring the history of the KSU shootings into classrooms across northeast Ohio.

Read more on Cleveland.com.

Click here for a complete listing of 2013 Margot Stern Strom Innovation Grant winners and winning projects.

Lear more about Facing History’s work in northeast Ohio.