Facing History and Ourselves - Denver/Rocky Mountain States Feed

Denver Student Speaker Andrew B. Talks About Becoming Upstanders

EmilyBlackie — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:39:47 +0000

May 3, 2012

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Student

Denver and Rocky Mountain State Benefit Dinner student speaker Andrew B., a junior at Castel View High School, spoke about the inspiring upstanders he learned about in his Facing History and Ourselves class and how he came to the conclusion “I could do the right thing, too.”

Hi, I am Andrew B., and last year I was fortunate enough to have Mr. Schneider and Mr. Miyashita as my humanities teachers. I am grateful for the opportunity to reflect on my past experience with Facing History and Ourselves, and I am glad everyone is here to support the organization tonight.

If there is a correct way to be raised, I believe that my family has done just that for me. I wouldn't be anywhere without the positive influence of my parents, sisters, and extended family. I was a 4-Her for several years, I have been involved in shooting sports, I am on the tennis team, the swim team, and I enjoy climbing, biking, and backpacking whenever I have free time. I am also a member of several academic honor societies and I love my classes. And like most other kids at my school, I'm white and middle class.

As a rising sophomore, I went into Mr. Schneider’s Humanities Class with what I thought was a fairly solid understanding of our world and I felt that I had a decent outlook on life in general. I had a thorough plan for my future: I would attend Carnegie Mellon University, major in Computer Science and find a lucrative job that would lead me to happiness. My goals in life were monetary-based, and I felt that everything was perfectly set-up for me. I felt this was a solid plan and that it was what I truly wanted. It was. I wanted money to make myself happy so that I could have a decent life.

Throughout our Facing History class, I began to question my world view, largely due to our classwork on the Holocaust. Facing History nudged me to begin thinking critically and to become a more independent thinker. We examined ethics and morality, and what it means to be human. It was a time to grow my awareness of our past and present situations and examine them ethically.

I remember the day we learned about what we'd be doing for the next quarter, that we were about to begin a rigorous journey through the crucial piece of history known as the Holocaust. My friends and I knew that it would be the most intensive segment of high school yet, but we did not know the profound impact that it would have. Along with class discussions and readings, we often wrote short essays (sometimes several a night) reflecting on specific excerpts or passages from our Facing History text.

These tasks seemed simple at first glance, but it later became very apparent that they required serious moral reflection and deep research. We focused on the rise of Hitler, the Nazi takeover, the gradual propagation of antisemitic laws, and the German conquest of Europe. We had access to first-hand sources: accounts from concentration camp guards, bystanders, and the few who survived it all. Nothing in my life has been as shocking as being immersed in this horrid tragedy.

Our class discussions, or even sometimes small discussions with my best friends outside of class helped us to share knowledge and build a better understanding for everyone. It also made confronting the history easier than it could have ever been alone. In fact, I think that working together on such a challenging subject provided us with a newfound trust in each other. I felt that we all changed together, whether we know it or not.

This class was different from others in the way that it helped us find meaning in our past. Never before had I been asked to view a historical moment from another person’s perspective and to analyze the morality of events and decisions made by a people, many people; both perpetrators and bystanders. Never before had I been able to begin to understand the enormity of the Holocaust. The whole grim aspect of the time had a great affect on me, as the most atrocious crimes of history were being committed in plain sight of millions, and it seemed that no one cared to make a difference.

However, we were exposed to a few situations in which people did choose to make a difference. A few made bold decisions to defy authority by protecting their neighbors. These upstanders became my main focus. People such as Oskar Schindler, Miep and Jan Gies who helped Anne Frank's family, and especially the French village of Le Chambon that managed to save more than 3,000 Jews -- all risked their own lives to provide a safe -- haven for Jews and other victims of the Nazi Party. Let me tell you about Le Chambon: This small mountain village was unusual: 90% Protestant in a country that was 95% Roman Catholic. Led by their pastor, the people of Le Chambon provided shelter and food and help getting to Switzerland for any Jew that asked. When confronted by the French government about his operation, the pastor said “I do not know what a Jew is. I know only human beings.”

At some point in time, I found myself asking, “How are these upstanders different from me?”...and I concluded that these are ordinary people; anyone can make a difference in their world. This thought took time to really digest, but when I understood this connection, I felt empowered and that I now had a new obligation. I wanted to be the change in our society that contributes to make a better world. I could do the right thing, too. I became more interested in present day issues. Socially unjust happenings occur all over the world and many people are unaware of the changes that need to be made. One that I've decided to engage with is world poverty.

In 2005, 865 million people were considered to be in poverty. That is almost 13% of our world’s population living off of less than 99 cents a day. It is only ethical to help this population to achieve a better, healthier life.

Recent studies suggest that the majority of our past attempts to alleviate world poverty have been flawed, and that microfinance may be a better way to reduce poverty. Through one of my counselors, I was able to connect with a microloan fund that gives Guatemalan women small loans to jumpstart their own business to provide themselves and their community with a sustained income. I plan to work with local schools, businesses and churches to spread awareness of how easily we can make a drastic change in many people’s lives through what we all might view as a very modest donation. I’d be glad to talk after the program with anyone interested in learning more.

This new direction that I have been steered in, this new passion to change the lives of others was initiated by the readings, essays, and discussions in our Facing History course. I have since continued to develop my new views outside of the classroom. This deviation from my “get rich, be happy” plan has been remarkable to me. I feel like a changed person. Now, I am still working to study at a prestigious university, and I still have professional ambitions. But I also have a newer, more meaningful motive, and this time it’s not money. I, like the people in Le Chambon, have an obligation to better the lives of others. I have an obligation to make ethical decisions and to reduce world poverty. I’d like to thank my wonderful teachers for all that they do and Facing History for their efforts to make this difference in my life.

Thank you.

Denver Teacher Michael Schneider Explains Why ‘Little Things Are Big’

EmilyBlackie — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:19:07 +0000

May 3, 2012

For everyone to view

Teacher

After the audience at the Denver and Rocky Mountain States Benefit Dinner heard from English teacher Michael Schneider about Puerto Rican journalist Jesus Colon’s late night ride on a New York City subway during the 1950s, Michael explained the importance of this story and how his Facing History students came to better understand humanity, and in turn, themselves.

The reading Little Things Are Big and the conversations we’ve had about it tonight are an example of how Facing History and Ourselves changes the focus of a classroom, enlivens the discussions, redirects the purpose for learning. Like Jesus Colon, students in our Humanities class appreciate complexity – they look beneath the surface, they view events from multiple perspectives, they examine the consequences of action and inaction – they come to better understand humanity, and in turn, themselves.

Facing History classes like ours start with each student exploring his or her own identity. What impact do our families, our ethnicities, our gender, and our preferences have on how we view the world and on the choices we make? What communities are we members of? Which ones are we excluded from?

Armed with that vocabulary of identity and membership, we look deeply at moments in history. In this particular unit, we begin in Europe at the end of World War I, and explore how the National Socialist Party was able to exploit German resentment about the war and the Treaty of Versailles to bring Hitler to power. But our students don’t just learn the names of the laws that empowered Nazi officials to take away rights of Jews and other minority groups. They don’t just memorize names of Hitler’s henchmen and match the man to his title. They analyze HOW the Nazis created a society of perpetrators, victims and – most of all – bystanders. They evaluate the psychology behind creating an obedient society. They read first hand accounts of the power behind the labels: Aryan. Jew.

And they learn the tragic consequences.

But they also contrast this history of bystander behavior with accounts of individuals and communities who chose to become Upstanders – to defy authority in the face of extreme personal danger. They explore the motivations of the Upstanders and consider the idea that each of us defines for ourselves our “Universe of Obligation” – the circle of people for whose just treatment we feel some responsibility. They learn EMPATHY.

And they learn that empathy by engaging deeply with history – not just reading, listening, or viewing. They are actively understanding, applying prior knowledge, evaluating motives, predicting consequences. And as they face history, they are also expanding their personal horizons – and facing themselves.

Earlier this spring, Facing History students at seven Denver area schools watched the film Not In Our Town, about a community that responded to a brutal hate crime. With cameras, they documented what they saw as the strengths and challenges in their own communities and shared those pictures with an online group of over 200 students from all over the Denver area. Facing History then brought us all together, face to face. For the relatively homogeneous group of suburban students from my school, this event was a revelation. After more than an hour in small multi-school groups sharing their stories, my students were filled with new insights. One particular young lady, intelligent, driven, but a bit naïve, said to the 25 no-longer-strangers she was with, “Thank you for sharing your stories. If you did not, my friends and I would have no idea who you really are. We would only have our perceptions and stereotypes.” Our students began to understand the differences and appreciate the diverse experiences among people from different socio-economic, religious, ethnic, racial and even geographical backgrounds, and embrace the commonalities usually hidden below the more obvious differences.

Facing History helps our students grapple with complexity, but not be paralyzed by it. Through our Humanities class, students become aware of their potential to act, and to predict the consequence of action and inaction. We teach this course not to change political or religious affiliations. We do this not to create rebels or incite havoc. We do this not to indoctrinate youth in any specific cause. We do this to empower our students to challenge their own stereotypes, to discover the power of their own actions in breaking down barriers in our communities. Whether through political action, through joining organizations, or through a personal action that rights a wrong, we hope and believe that grappling in a deep way with history has prepared our students to participate in our precious, fragile democracy.

Often, we teachers can only guess at the impact of our classes and our relationships with our students. We work with them for a semester or a school year, and they move to other classes, other teachers. I, on the other hand, feel quite lucky to introduce to you one of my former students, whose growth and maturity I have gotten to see first-hand. Please welcome, Castle View High School junior, Andrew Bunker.

Read Andrew Bunker's speech.

Isabel Wilkerson: The Warmth of Other Suns, and America's Great Migration

EvaRadding — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:08:20 +0000

Video details

In The Warmth of Other Suns, Wilkerson tells one of the greatest under-reported stories in American history: a time when some six million black Americans fled the American South for an uncertain existence in the urban North and West. Their leaving became known as the Great Migration. Inspired by her own parents’ migration, The Warmth of Other Suns is the story of three who made the journey, of the forces that compelled them to leave and of the many others—famous and not so famous—who went as far as they could to realize the American Dream.

Isabel Wilkerson spent most of her career as a national correspondent and bureau chief at The New York Times, is the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in the history of American journalism, and was the first black American to win for individual reporting.

This Community Conversation was presented by Facing History and Ourselves and The Allstate Foundation in partnership with the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library and City Year Denver.

Library

Video length:

97 min 10 sec

Other location:

Denver, Colorado

Date filmed:

Dec 8 2011

Speaker name:

Wilkerson, Isabel

Not available for borrowing

Short post

Board Member and Genocide Scholar Speaks to Educators in Colorado

EmilyBlackie — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:05:11 +0000

press_type:

In the News

March 3, 2012

Educators in Colorado gathered this past weekend for a workshop: "Why Studying the Armenian Genocide Matters Today," with Facing History and Ourselves International Board of Scholars member Professor Peter Balakian. The event was a collaboration between Facing History and Armenians of Colorado, Inc.

Following the event, participant and Facing History teacher, Terry Fostvedt said, "I consider it not only a privilege, but a responsibility to teach Balakian's texts."

Read more about the event in The Armenian Weekly.

Learn about our work in Denver and the Rocky Mountain States.


Professor Peter Balakian	Terry Fostvedt

Denver Office Director Delivers Keynote at Youth Genocide Prevention Conference

EmilyBlackie — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:19:49 +0000

press_type:

Web Update

February 12, 2012

Denver and Rocky Mountain States Region Director David Fulton delivered the keynote address at the "Taking a Stand: Youth Against Genocide Conference" on February 12. The conference, hosted by the Colorado Coalition for Genocide Awareness and Action, drew students, teachers, and academics from across the state. It focused on issues in Sudan and featured Sudanese refugees. Using video clips from the documentary Reporter, which features New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Fulton engaged participants in a conversation about how we come to care about people across the globe and about the hazards of "psychic numbing."

Read more about the event in the article "Sudanese Refugees, Denverites Unite for Long-Distance Fight Against Genocide," by Kristen Leigh Painter in the Denver Post.

Learn more about our work in Denver and Rocky Mountain States.

Fundamental Freedoms: Dr. Allida Black on Human Rights in Our Time

Nicky Enriquez — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:10:10 +0000

May 22, 2012

For everyone to view

Scholar

AllidaBlack.jpg

“[T]he advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief, and freedom from fear and want, has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people.” – preamble to the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” 1948

Scholar and social activist Dr. Allida M. Black does not hesitate when asked what the most pressing issue of our time is.

“Human rights,” said Dr. Black, executive editor at the fdr4freedoms Digital Initiative and a partner with Facing History and Ourselves on the 2010 resource guide Fundamental Freedoms: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In a series of visits to Facing History classrooms and teacher workshops across the country this winter, Dr. Black shed light on the history of human rights worldwide and the impact of that history today for students and educators. On June 6, Dr. Black will join Facing History educators for “Teaching for Human Dignity: Eleanor Roosevelt and The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” a free online webinar. In teaching about choosing to participate and the power of upstanders in history, Dr. Black hopes to get kids and teachers on board for that world-changing journey.

“If young people get it – and they really honest to God get it and understand the work that it takes [to make change] – there’s not a force on the planet that can stop them,” said Dr. Black in a telephone interview from her home office in Arlington, Virginia, fresh from a visit to the Facing History School in New York City. “I think students need to be engaged in this material in kindergarten. If we don’t get to them by high school, a lot of their courage will be stamped out, their dreams will be forgotten, and they will turn into something that is confining and disappointing rather than something that is empowering and courageous.”

At the Facing History School this winter, Dr. Black led a group of 10th graders in a discussion about human rights and how those rights are – or are not – carried out in various parts of the world today. The lesson piggybacked on history teacher Lisa Dadush’s unit on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“We need to figure out how we came to have those rights and how we’re living in this century because of those rights – how we’re able to express ourselves and live without fear,” student Natalie Ruiz said following the visit.

Ms. Dadush could see the light bulbs going off for students almost immediately. “The conversation was an important one for them because they started realizing their rights as humans and citizens,” she said. “It was the first time they were realizing that even though you’re not seen as an adult, you still have rights.”

Dr. Black credits her own teachers with setting off those light bulbs when she was in high school. At the private, all-girls school Dr. Black attended in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, history meant maps and memorizing facts. “You’d get to the part where something happened, but then you just skipped over all the debate and the struggle. You skipped over the ‘Why?’ to get to the ‘What?’ That, to me, was frustrating,” Dr. Black said. Bucking the school’s traditional approach to the subject, two of her history teachers loaded Dr. Black up with extra readings and assigned her independent studies outside of class. “I owe them a great deal,” Dr. Black said. “They challenged the powers that be to say, ‘It’s important to answer a student’s curiosity. It’s important to be an active citizen.’”

That experience has stayed with her and today she works to educate learners of all ages – especially teachers. “In some ways I believe it’s more important to reach teachers than to reach students because if the teachers get it, they can create a classroom environment of true learning, debate, and painful examination,” she said. “I think teachers are at the frontlines of democracy and if teachers don’t get this then the classroom is a complacent place. And complacency is the handmaiden of defeat.”

As a scholar who has made a career out of studying Eleanor Roosevelt, Dr. Black – who refers to the first lady as Eleanor or simply ER - has learned a thing or two about avoiding defeat. In the forward to Fundamental Freedoms, part of Facing History’s Making History series, Dr. Black wrote: “ER devoted…her life to the creation of a culture of human dignity at home and abroad. She believed that no one’s rights were safe unless everyone’s rights were respected. She argued repeatedly that ‘human rights began in small places close to home,’ that these rights were political and civil rights as well as economic, social, and cultural rights, and that their implementation required ‘concerted citizen action.’”

Dr. Black’s current position, which she assumed in July 2011, puts her in charge of a free, multi-media digital educational resource that will launch in conjunction with the opening of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island in New York this fall. “This project represents a pioneering effort to transform a significant public space, the Four Freedoms Park, into a twenty-first century classroom of history,” Dr. Black said. “[It] will bring understanding about…the Roosevelt legacy to all park visitors in an unprecedented way. It will also contain engaging narratives, timelines, and historical audio and video footage, as well as films for use by teachers, students, and the general public.”

“If you look at where we are now and compare that with where we were in 1948, it is a march of historic proportions,” Dr. Black said as she reflected on the lasting impact of universal human rights. “It’s the progress women have made. It’s the progress people of color have made. It’s the fact that my partner and I, who have been together 20 years, can get married in February. That is revolutionary. It is the fact that the vast majority of Americans today can look past religious bias,” she continued. “Look at Kosovo. Look at South Africa post-apartheid. Look at Liberia where Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was the first woman democratically elected president in the history of Africa.

“You can either say, ‘The world sucks’ and you can get complacent, or you can say, ‘We’ve come a long way. We still have a long way to go, but let’s work together and see how we can go forward.’ And that’s what human rights is,” Dr. Black concluded. “It’s going forward. It’s not easy, but it is a journey that changes the world.”

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Purchase a copy of Fundamental Freedoms: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Facing History is offering a complimentary, interactive webinar on June 6, 2012 to allow educators to learn about Fundamental Freedoms, where Allida Black will join us in a live discussion. Spaces are limited, so RSVP today!

This article was written by Facing History’s Julia Rappaport. For questions or tips on what Facing History is doing in your community, email her at Julia_Rappaport@facing.org.

Isabel Wilkerson Captivates Audiences in Denver

EmilyBlackie — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:02:27 +0000

press_type:

In the News

December 13, 2011

Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns and the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, spoke to a standing room-only audience at Manual High School in Denver, Colorado, this week as part of the Facing History and Ourselves Community Conversation series in partnership with The Allstate Foundation.

Wilkerson’s bestselling account chronicles the history of the Great Migration, when six million African American families fled the American South over the course of the 20th century, resettling in the North and West.

The crowd of 900 gave the former New York Times correspondent and current director of the narrative nonfiction program at Boston University a standing ovation before she even began to speak. Included in the audience were 38 middle school students from the nearby Excel Institute, as well as some living participants of the Great Migration.

“We have the responsibility to make their sacrifice mean something,” Wilkerson told the crowd.

Read Tina Griego’s op-ed “Indelible Stamp of Migration” in the Denver Post.

Read “A conversation with Pulitzer Winner Isabel Wilkerson” by Joanne Davidson and view pictures from the event in the Denver Post.

Read an interview with Isabel Wilkerson on the Facing History website.

Learn more about our work in Denver and Rocky Mountain States.

Facing History Plays Important Role in Colorado Schools

EmilyBlackie — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 18:58:19 +0000

press_type:

In the News

November 23, 2011

Last month, the New York Times reported that students' knowledge of the civil rights movement is in decline, and that Colorado earned an "F" in teaching about the era. Facing History and Ourselves’ associate program director for Denver and the Rocky Mountain States David Fulton, Ph.D. and that office’s chairman of the board John Katzenberg wrote an op-ed in response. Published in the Denver Post, the piece highlights the ways in which Facing History educates students and teachers in the Colorado schools about the civil rights—and about other important histories.

“We believe that only through education can we combat racism, antisemitism, and bigotry and help students make informed ethical decisions,” they wrote in the op-ed. “We will continue to reach out to Colorado educators who know the best way to help students make moral choices that strengthen our democracy today is to look critically at choices made in the past, including those during the Civil Rights era.”

Read the op-ed “Colorado’s Failing Grade,” on Denverpost.com.

Learn more about our work in Denver and the Rocky Mountain States.

Radio Interview with Pulitzer Prize Winner Isabel Wilkerson in Denver, Colorado

EmilyBlackie — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:59:52 +0000

press_type:

In the News

November 22, 2011

Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns and the first African American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize, was interviewed by Denver, Colorado’s independent radio station ahead of her December speaking engagements with Facing History and Ourselves audiences in the city and in San Francisco, California.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to be able to speak to like-minded people and the people who really want to understand our history and how we came to be,” Wilkerson told KGNU’s Donnie L. Betts.

Listen to the interview on the KGNU website.

Learn more about our work in Denver.

Read Facing History’s interview with Wilkerson.

Isabel Wilkerson will speak as part of the Facing History and Ourselves and The Allstate Foundation's series of community-wide dialogues across the U.S. Click here to learn about upcoming community conversations in your area.

Wyoming Students Study Japanese-American Internment at Heart Mountain

EmilyBlackie — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:12:38 +0000

press_type:

In the News

November 4, 2011

Facing History and Ourselves students in Wyoming visited an historical relocation camp this week to learn about the experiences of the nearly 120,000 Japanese-Americans interned across the United States during World War II. “We got taken off our own land and put on the reservations,” 17-year-old student Tamara Medicine Cloud told the Casper Star-Tribune. As she walked through Heart Mountain Relocation Camp on Friday, the Ethete, Wyoming student related the history of the prisoners to that of her own Native American ancestors. “We can kind of relate to their experience. But it’s not quite the same,” she said.

Facing History educator Colleen Whalen organized the field trip for her Wyoming Indian High School students. After touring the camp, the students celebrated their own cultural heritage with song and dance, joining together for “The Flag Song,” which they sang in their native Arapaho tongue.

“These students study case histories of past injustices and are working to be ‘upstanders’ and prevent these things from happening again,” Whalen said of the students in her class, which meets in the evening hours and keeps the teens at school long after the last bell rings. “They want to work to bring cultures together. It’s something they're focused on doing.”

Read the article “Wyoming Indian Students Study Social Justice at Heart Mountain,” by Martin Kidston online at Trib.com.

Learn more about our work in the Rocky Mountain States.