Facing History and Ourselves - San Francisco/Bay Area Feed

Alumna Jayanni Webster: Ask Questions, Stand Up, Speak Out, and Move Forward

EmilyBlackie — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:52:00 +0000

May 7, 2012

For everyone to view

Alumnus

Wooddale High School and Facing History and Ourselves alumna Jayanni Webster spoke to educators, students, donors, and community members last night at the 2012 San Francisco Bay Area Benefit Dinner about her “Facing History journey.” She passionately describes her participation in the 2011 student Freedom Rides and why she “chose to get on the bus.”

Good evening, I am Jayanni Webster. I’ve come all the way from Tennessee to be with you tonight, as that’s how strongly I feel about Facing History—and about Dr. Rip Patton.

I had the privilege of meeting Rip Patton last spring during the commemoration of the Freedom Rides. We were first introduced to each other in a group assembly where he and another well known Freedom Rider, Bernard Lafayette, proceeded to teach the group freedom songs from the Civil Rights movement. Before we started the trip he took the initiative to suggest that we change seats on the bus at every stop to get to know everyone better. I watched him as we traveled; taking notes on his quiet strength and the wisdom he shared with me. But I think the most important thing about Rip is that he is still very active. Whether it’s trying to get more appropriate civil rights memorials built in Nashville, taking history tours through the south with college students or speaking with schools about the legacy of the civil rights movement, Rip Patton has committed his life to helping this country realize its pledge towards liberty and justice for all.

It is a great honor to be in your presence tonight, Rip. You have had a profound impact on my life. In my own way, I am striving to be like you.

I became inspired by the Freedom Rides in a setting very much like this, more than a year ago. I had just finished speaking at Facing History’s Benefit Dinner in Memphis, talking about the impact of Facing History on me and on other students—and I was approached by someone who knew about the PBS American Experience-sponsored Student Freedom Rides; she said, “Jayanni, have you heard about the Student Freedom Ride? You have to apply!” So I did, and become involved in an incredible journey that would take me across 18 cities in 8 states over 10 days in May of this last year.

My words here tonight are just a glimpse. They provide one perspective out of 40 perspectives from the students who were on the ride. But we each have a distinctive story to tell. My Facing History education has taught me that there is power in storytelling. So what I wish to do is tell you the story of what it meant to me.

Before we left Washington D.C. to embark on this trip we met with Freedom Rider organizer Diane Nash whom you just met in the clip Drea showed before dinner! She said something I will never forget about why they chose to risk their lives. They had done it for us. She said, “We didn’t know you, but we loved you.”

She was talking in a closed discussion to the 40 of us that day. We had come from 39 states and we were transgender, black, white, rich, gay, lesbian, straight, middle class, poor, of Asian, African, Native American, Indian, European descent, from community colleges, and ivy league institutions. We were undocumented and we were citizens and they loved us. Before they knew us, before we ever chose to submit an application to ride a bus through the south to retrace the original ride and engage in social justice projects of our own, they loved us.

Just as the Freedom Riders made choices to love and use nonviolence in the face of hostility and death, my generation continues to make choices to create the beloved community Dr. King envisioned. The community is much more visibly diverse today and contains communities inside of communities, but the goal remains the same. And I am (still) on the bus.

I often get asked the question “so what made you commit to becoming an upstander and activist?” I can’t answer that in one sentence or give one reason. But it’s simple really. Just as the Freedom Riders whom I had the privilege of meeting did—and not only Rip, but also Bob and Helen Singleton, Charles Person, and Joan Mulholland—just as they made a series of choices to stand up for civil rights, I’ve made choices of my own, and a lot of them had to do with Facing History.

I attended Wooddale High School in Memphis, a school of 1,500 students very much like the urban high schools here in the Bay Area. From my junior year through my senior year, once every month I participated in the Facing History and Ourselves student group. We watched videos and read and discussed history, starting with the history leading to the Holocaust. I saw how individual choices matter. That’s when I learned what it meant to be a bystander, and how some people chose to be up-standers. I remember clearly when we read Night by Elie Wiesel. I became so moved by his story of human suffering. I realized that history could very well repeat itself if we do not confront it and take action. By my senior year, I came to appreciate the power we wielded as actors, and the power we gave up as bystanders.

Which brings me back to my decision to apply for the 2011 Freedom Ride. It meant I had an opportunity to honor those that came before me, who made choices to stand up for freedom and human dignity. It meant honoring not only people like Congressmen John Lewis but people like my grandmother and father from Coldwater, MS. The ride helped me truly understand the effects of the movement. If I could tell you how we were inspired and moved by the struggle that is still taking place… If I could tell you how disillusioned we were by the lack of progress toward racial harmony in some towns we visited… If I could tell you about the people who greeted us with tears in their eyes in New Orleans because we were completing a journey deferred 50 years ago… If I could tell you of the emotion that ran through our bones as we sat in the pews of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Dr. King’s church, in Atlanta Georgia … And if I could tell you of the 39 remarkable students that occupied that bus with me … you would know that the movement never ended.

Now, today’s struggles are a bit different, a bit more complex. It seems like the youth are all over the place. Different issues, multiple strategies and evolving targets. But to see Rip here today is to see that the past is present and history cannot be confined in museums and monuments—but it lives on in us.

AND THIS is why the work that Facing History does is so important. Facing History is teaching this history, sharing these stories, making sure that other young people, not just a few, understand the importance of their choices, and that they have the opportunity to “get on the bus” as well.

Why I chose to get on the bus has its beginnings with Facing History and the seed of consciousness that was planted in me back at Wooddale HS, where I learned how to ask crucial questions of others and myself—a habit of mind for which I am truly grateful.

I believe you may be in a position to keep the bus running. Students and teachers all over the country and all over the world are in need of support and inspiration of the type you have seen and heard about tonight. Imagine thousands of teachers “fired up” the way Drea is, because of their own new learning, because of what they can do to inspire their students. Imagine the power of igniting that spark of inquiry about human behavior and human choices in students like me, all over the world. This is the work of Facing History. My Facing History teachers gave me the chance to know something well—to ask questions, to stand up, speak out, and move forward. I urge you to make sure as many teachers as possible do that for their students. You have the chance to be upstanders, right here and right now—and Judy Heyboer, one of our dinner chairs, can tell you how. Thank you all so much.

‘Upstander’ Entering Vernacular of Larger Society

EmilyBlackie — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:58:53 +0000

press_type:

In the News

April 4, 2012

The term "upstanders" is entering the vernacular of the larger society thanks to the release of Facing History and Ourselves’ latest resource, Guide to the film BULLY: Fostering Empathy and Action in Schools. The guide focuses both on bystanders and upstanders, that is, kids and adults who stand up to bullying when they see it.

An article that appeared in Beyond Chron discusses the importance of upstanders when it comes to bullying and school lunch.

Read the article “‘Upstanders’ Lessen the Stigma of School Meals,” by Dana Woldow, on Beyond Chron.

Download Facing History’s free facilitator guide and learn about our initiative to create safe and engaging schools.

Voice of Witness: Students Build Digital Skills, Tell Unheard Stories

Nicky Enriquez — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 20:20:20 +0000

October 27, 2011

For everyone to view

Student

Ped Triangle.jpg

"If everyone has a story, how do history, society, and culture function in silencing some voices and amplifying others?"'

-Cliff Mayotte, Educational Director of Voice of Witness

“Everyone has a story.” It’s an expression that has taken on new meaning for nine teachers and more than 700 Facing History and Ourselves students in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In the summer of 2010, Facing History partnered with Voice of Witness, a nonprofit organization co-founded by writer Dave Eggers and Dr. Lola Vollen. The organization highlights contemporary human rights crises through its oral history book series.

“The teachers who use Facing History and the students who are affected by it move me so much,” Eggers said at Facing History’s annual benefit dinner in San Francisco in May. “It’s my favorite project of its kind. I’ve seen it affect students so powerfully so many times. There’s nothing more vital and nothing more life-changing than this program.”

As part of the first pilot group for the collaborative project, nine teachers from seven Bay Area schools participated in a two-day training workshop. They explored how students can best understand history in a participatory manner - not as a pre-determined series of events, but as a series of choices made by individuals and groups - and discussed skills necessary for conducting oral history. Following the training, the teachers returned to their classrooms with plans for oral history projects, each designed with existing curricula in mind. While some teachers in the pilot project taught entire units on oral history, others integrated bits and pieces of Facing History and Voice of Witness texts and practices into their classes.

Eileen O’Kane, a social studies teacher at Immaculate Conception Academy in San Francisco, led her eleventh graders through a U.S. History and Immigration unit using Facing History’s historical case study Race and Membership in American History, along with the Voice of Witness books Underground America and Voices from the Storm.

The unit brought together three distinct texts: Race and Membership focuses on eugenics and immigration, Underground America shares 24 narratives of “undocumented lives” in the United States, and Voices from the Storm recounts oral histories of 13 New Orleans residents whose lives were uprooted by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

O’Kane’s students then interviewed community members - pregnant teenagers, homeless citizens, recent immigrants, local store owners, family members - on what the themes of “identity” and “membership” meant to them. The students transcribed and edited their interviews into short films, digital stories, podcasts, artwork, and dramatic readings.

Trevor Gardner, a humanities teacher at Envision Academy of Arts and Sciences in Oakland, initiated a project called Looking Out, Looking In: Community, Media, and Telling our Stories. Gardner and his students used Facing History’s resource, Fundamental Freedoms: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as Voices from the Storm as they learned media literacy skills within a larger study of United States history and contemporary issues.

Building on their readings, the students interviewed Oakland residents, asking questions like “What does it mean to you to live in Oakland?”, “How do outsiders perceive life in Oakland?”, and “How is your own perception of Oakland influenced by the perceptions of outsiders?” Out of these interviews, the students created books, artwork, and digital media to share the stories of their community. The unit culminated in a well-attended public presentation at Envision Academy titled Untold Voices.

Teacher and advisor Katie Kuszmar had the unique experience of leading 12 seniors from Notre Dame High School in San Jose that had gone through the Facing History curriculum as sophomores. Two years after they had first encountered Facing History in the classroom, this group of 12 completed a variety of service projects, interviewing mentors and fellow students, which they turned into monologue performances and short films. The works got a public showcase at the Movimiento de Arte de Cultura Latino Americano in downtown San Jose, as a prelude to the monthly "South First Friday" that takes place in the city’s art galleries.

“Oral history is such a powerful experience that I wish everyone could participate,” said Raquel R., a Notre Dame senior. “Something about hearing a personal account evokes deeper emotions and truer connections than statistics or facts ever could. I have gained helpful skills such as time management, working with deadlines, and public speaking. Overall, this has been a wonderful learning experience.”

Rounding out the pilot project were Facing History teachers Bill Pratt from Berkeley High School, Kyle Beckham from Downtown High School in San Francisco, Katherine Geers and Jennifer Moore from Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, and Jen McEnany and Karen Lichtenberg Scher from Oceana High School in Pacifica.

“This is the project that makes me want to teach, to continue teaching,” said Moore, a tenth grade English teacher at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont. ”The Facing History/Voice of Witness pilot oral history project is what keeps [me] going. Even though it was exhausting at times, my school year was better because of it.”

Critical Historical Analysis and Research
Active Listening
Public Speaking/Oral Communication
Creative Collaboration
Interviewing
Transcribing and Editing
Shaping Literary Narrative
Journalism and Reporting
Building Community Partnerships
Service Learning
Team Building

“Our partnership has resulted in a powerful intersection of ideas relating to oral history,” said Cliff Mayotte, Educational Director of Voice of Witness. “If everyone has a story, how do history, society, and culture function in silencing some voices and amplifying others? That essential question guides us as we create a unique set of resources that are academically rigorous and empathic in nature. We want to empower teachers and students to listen to an individual’s story without judgment, using first-person narrative to examine history and explore issues of personal and collective responsibility.”

Looking forward, Facing History hopes to develop a teaching guide and learning module so that other teachers around the country can bring the programming to their students. Both Voice of Witness and Facing History will continue to work with the first-year pilot teachers.

Both organizations are eager to continue the partnership, and hope to hear from teachers in the field who use oral history in their classrooms. As Rachel T., a junior from Immaculate Conception Academy, said, “This project may have taken all of our sweat and blood, but I feel this was the only way we could amend the scars and wounds of these peoples’ struggles.”

Credits for Student Video Projects

Voice of Witness Student Project on Bullying: "No One Hears Me" by Shane A., Celina B., Kennwynne F., and Vanessa L. Immaculate Conception Academy, San Francisco. Teacher: Eileen O'Kane.

Excerpt from the Oral History of Daniel Cheng conducted by Clara C., William C., and Jonathan S. Mission San Jose High School. Fremont. Teacher: Katherine Geers.

For More Information

Visit the Voice of Witness website.
Voice of Witness is a nonprofit project that uses oral history to document human rights crises and social injustices in the United States and around the world.

Learn more about the work of Facing History's San Francisco/Bay Area Office
Since the San Francisco Bay area office opened in 1997, more than 1,400 local educators have participated in Facing History's professional development programs. These teachers annually reach over 145,000 middle and high school students each year in over 300 public, independent, and religious schools throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

Award-Winning Author/Illustrator Brings Lessons of Tolerance to Facing History Classrooms, Parents

Nicky Enriquez — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:53:11 +0000

September 14, 2011

For everyone to view

Scholar

Otoshi.jpg

With her children’s book “One,” award-winning author and illustrator Kathryn Otoshi has managed to fit a lifetime of important lessons onto just 32 sparsely illustrated pages.

“I describe it as a number, color and counting book,” Kathryn said by phone from her California home recently, ahead of a trip East this week for a series of events with the Facing History and Ourselves headquarters in Brookline, Massachusetts. “But it also deals with bullying, acceptance and tolerance.”

“One” tells the story of what happens to a group of, for lack of a better word, blobs – Red, Blue, Orange, Yellow, Green and Purple – when bullying begins to take place. It’s hard confronting a bully, the blobs discover, and sometimes it takes an outsider – in this book, a number by the name of One – to stand up for what’s right. It’s a story Kathryn wrote from her own personal experience.

Kathryn grew up in the Southern California suburbs, the daughter of Japanese-American parents who both spent portions of their childhoods in internment camps during World War Two. “I grew up always sort of noticing that I didn’t look like anyone else, but trying to keep that information to myself,” Kathryn said with a laugh. “Sometimes I would look in the mirror, catch a glimpse of myself and be surprised – ‘Wow, I’m Asian!’”

She explained that her experience – growing up an ethnic minority – was a common one for many children of Japanese-Americans interned during the war. “Sometimes when the Japanese-Americans got out of the camps, they wanted to assimilate with other Japanese-Americans,” Kathryn said. “And sometimes they wanted to make their kids as Americanized as possible. They took them to the suburbs.”

With her mainstream clothes and customs, the other kids didn’t see Kathryn as so different from themselves. That wasn’t the case for Ming, a new student who joined Kathryn’s class in the fourth grade. “This little girl didn’t dress like the rest of us. She didn’t have the same hair style. She ate different food,” Kathryn said. Ming was from China and didn’t speak English. “I had the benefit of growing up with the rest of the kids and they saw me as ‘American.’ She was singled out and picked on day after day.” Often Ming spent afternoons crying in the girls’ bathroom. One day, things got so bad she hid behind a tool shed and sobbed while her classmates pointed and laughed. “I knew in my gut that it was wrong, or that it wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what to do about it,” Kathryn recalled. “I had this fear that if I said something, they would notice that I too was Asian and it would be me hiding out in the bathroom stall.”

*********************************************************************

"The big thing for me is that parents and school teachers are integral how
we tackle these issues," Kathryn said. “Issues of bullying don’t just stop with
one person. It has to be everybody taking an active stance to say, ‘These are our boundaries. This is what we expect. These are our classrooms, our schools, our community standards. Facing History goes through all those different layers. It goes all the way from the individual to the community and then from the community all the way back to the individual.”

The dilemma Kathryn faced as a child with Ming was simple and common: She didn’t know how to be an “upstander.” As Facing History defines it, an upstander is someone who does not sit idly by when wrongs are being committed, but takes a stand to right them. In “One,” Kathryn offers one model for how to stand up – and she explains why doing so matters.

“The colors in my story are neither good nor bad,” Kathryn explained. “Sometimes we feel angry. Sometimes we feel sad. In this book, it’s all about Red. Red is feeling really angry and he’s making poor choices. It’s not a question of a bad color or a good color. It’s how we sometimes feel.” In the story, Red picks on Blue. Blue doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t stop it. The other colors don’t like it, either, but, just like Blue, they don’t stop it. “Most of us are like Green, Purple and Orange,” Kathryn said. “We don’t like what we see, but we don’t know what to do.”

Then one day, One comes to town. One stands up “straight like an arrow” and tells Red to cut it out. “If someone is mean and picks on me, I, for One, stand up and say, No,” One tells the other colors. The colors decide to stand up as well and Red begins to roll away. But then Blue calls out – “Can Red be hot…AND Blue be cool?” The colors and numbers agree: Red comes back; there is room for all.

“It’s important,” said Liz Vogel, associate director for Facing History’s West Coast organizational advancement, who has worked with Kathryn to bring “One” into Bay Area classrooms. “Red didn’t become ostracized.”

As Liz indicates, the themes in the story resonate with the topics explored in Facing History’s curriculum.

************************************************************************

Kathryn first encountered Facing History in 2009, after a board member who had read “One” invited her to a San Francisco benefit dinner. “I was so moved by some of the students that came to speak,” Kathryn said. “I could feel the tears running down my cheeks. I felt, ‘Wow, here’s a group of people and we’re all looking to do the same thing together.’”

She wanted to get involved with the organization. A newly formed group of parents, started by a trio of board members who wanted to bring the themes of Facing History’s teen-driven programming to parents with younger children, was the perfect fit.

“Facing History is focused on adolescent development,” Senior Philanthropic Advisor Pam Hurd explained. “We are looking at difficult histories, periods of great violence and the demise of great histories.” In 2004– taking cues from parents who wanted to discuss topics like bullying, tolerance, acceptance and moral character with their young kids – Facing History board members Lynda Bussgang, Dana Smith (chair of the Facing History Board of Trustees) and Tracy Palandijan (the incoming chair of the Board of Directors) kicked off programming for Raising Ethical Children. “It’s geared toward parents who want to come together and be able to talk about deep, social issues that speak to the values they want their children to have,” said Pam, who helped the group get on its feet. Today, the groups exist in many cities where Facing History operates its program – New York, New England, the Bay Area. Liz hopes to bring Raising Ethical Children to L.A. soon. Often, groups meet in private homes. “It creates a sense of community,” said Lynda, whose first job out of college was in the Facing History development department. She is now involved in the organization’s New England Advisory Board. “It allows for dialogue about deep issues that parents of young children often can’t take the time to discuss. We can talk about the things we care most about – our children – in an intellectual way. It’s rare to be able to do that when kids are little.”

Kathryn has appeared as a speaker at events in San Francisco and has visited Facing History classrooms in the Bay Area. “’One’ gives parents the tools to talk about Facing History issues with younger kids. It’s one of the best tools I’ve seen because it’s concrete. Kids refer back to, ‘Oh, when this happened to Blue,’ or, ‘I feel like Purple.’ They can relate. They can see themselves in this book,” said Liz. Parents, too, take away meaning from the book, and from meeting its author. “Kathryn opens up a door by talking about her own experiences,” Liz said. “A lot of people have those stories, but haven’t talked about them. That’s where I’ve seen the light bulb go off for the parents.”

This week, Kathryn makes her first trip to Facing History headquarters. She kicks off her visit Wednesday evening, where she will speak to a group of parents at a Raising Ethical Children event in a private home. On Thursday she will visit classes at the Rashi School in Dedham, Massachusetts, and on Friday, she stops by the St. Mary of the Assumption School, next door to Facing History’s Brookline headquarters.

“The sooner we can start introducing these tough subject matters, the better,” Kathryn said. “Stories are a great way to do that without kids feeling threatened. It makes them see in a different way how we can change our actions.”

Find out more information about Kathryn Otoshi.

***************

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.

Voice of Witness Student Project: "No One Hears Me"

EvaRadding — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:05:32 +0000

Video details

As part of a joint project between Facing History and Ourselves and the Voice of Witness project, students in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, California, crafted their own oral history media projects, interviewing community members, school peers, and family.

In this clip created by students at Immaculate Conception Academy, San Francisco, students use the voice of a fellow student, a reading from her poetry, and music to dramatize the impact of bullying on a student's daily life at school.

Library

Video length:

1 min 19 sec

Not available for borrowing

Short post

Voice of Witness Student Project: Daniel Cheng's Story of Survival

EvaRadding — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:54:27 +0000

Video details

As part of a joint project between Facing History and Ourselves and the Voice of Witness project, students in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, California, crafted their own oral history media projects, interviewing community members and family.

This oral history video, created by students at Mission San Jose High School, Fremont, captures the story of Daniel Cheng, whose love of music and sense of hope helped him survive years of suffering in a work camp in revolutionary China.

Library

Video length:

7 min 55 sec

Not available for borrowing

Short post

Testimony of Holocaust Inspires Student Poet

IlanaKlarman — Mon, 02 May 2011 18:48:41 +0000

May 1, 2011

For everyone to view

Student

Sonali T. is a tenth grader at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, California. Inspired by a Facing History class and the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi, she crafted an award-winning poem out of her encounter with Holocaust survivor testimony. This month, Sonali joined us as a student speaker at a Facing History benefit dinner in California, telling the audience how her class experience led her to a moment of insight:

That history is not just a set of distant events that occurred in the past. It’s a collection of voices—stories of people just like me.

Sonali T. at the San Franciso Bay Area Facing History and Ourselves 2011 Spring Benefit

I offer you the following:

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

This quote from Mahatma Gandhi inspires me, as it has for so many people around the world.

“Be the change” is something I tell myself daily. It guides me in my choices and in my actions.

My name is Sonali. I am a sophomore at Mission San Jose High School, in Fremont—and I am a Facing history student! Before I was who I am today, I was a younger, smaller version of myself. I had an encounter in those earlier days of my schooling that affected me then and has stayed with me to this day.

In this post-9/11 era, I experienced my first taste of discrimination. It came from a peer—a kind-of-cute boy in my class. He was armed with some image of what an “enemy” of America looked like—and to him, that was me. He stared at me with a blank expression on his face, and spoke painful words that I can still hear today. He said, “I hate people like you.” Five small words. So little, yet so big. Why is there so much power in such words?

As I have grown into a young woman, I have not just carried that one memory with me, but many others—most of them positive! However, it’s this memory that still has power to make me feel vunerable—but also to make me think about Gandhi’s direction to “be the change.” And it’s in my school, with my incredible Facing History teacher, Ms. Geers, that I have begun to reflect on my role in the world. I would like to thank her publicly for helping me in my transition from thinking like a child to thinking like an adult.

In Ms. Geers’ class, we studied the rise of the Nazis, the stages of genocide, and the social history of people caught up in this war within a war. As I looked at a picture of a young Jewish boy with beautiful brown eyes, I thought to myself, “that boy could be my brother.” It was at that moment when I realized how real these events were. That history is not just a set of distant events that occurred in the past. It’s a collection of voices—stories of people just like me.

We were exposed to gripping narratives which offered valuable insight not only into the victims of the Holocaust, but the perpetrators as well. But perhaps most importantly, we studied bystander behavior. I recall reading a letter of complaint from a Mrs. Gusenbauer of Ried, a village adjacent to the Mauthausen concentration camp. Sent in 1941, her letter politely requested that the commander of the camp either cease such “inhumane deeds” or conduct them “out of sight.” Her concern was with herself, not with those who suffered in the camps.

A modern day example of the bystander effect that we also explored was the story of a Long Beach High School honor student who witnessed his friend killing a seven year old girl in the bathroom of a Nevada casino play room, and chose to remain silent about it. In a later interview on radio, he actually defended his silence by asking the reporter if he was “supposed to care about people he didn’t even know.” These stories raised many questions within me—that woman living near the concentration camp was a wife and mother, and a high school graduate. That boy from Long Beach was an honor student just like me, bound for UC Berkeley. What went wrong in their educations? How do I set my own moral compass and decide right from wrong—would I be a bystander in a similar situation or “be the change” for someone?

My class read Night, by Elie Wiesel, a memoir of the Holocaust. I was moved to study further and certainly to hear more stories. And I did so by participating in Chapman University’s Holocaust Art and Writing contest. I watched the unabridged video testimony of Eva Safferman, who saved herself multiple times by hiding in a beet field among the crimson leaves. I tried to forge a connection to her story and create a space of shared memory between us. The poem I wrote was accepted as the top submission by Chapman University. I will accept the Chapman Award in June in Washington DC. There, I will meet with and share my poem with Elie Wiesel.

Ms. Geers’ class is not a room where all we do is study genocide. We discuss ethics, morals, and justice. We laugh together. We are serious together. We take on hard subjects together, just the way Ms. Geers also learned to do as a teacher, with the help of Facing History.

My goal is to “be the change” in every way I can. I hope to travel to India to join a project led by my dance teacher to empower young girls in the Red Light District of Calcutta. I hope to instill a sense of self-worth that can come to such girls with the chance to learn cultural and spiritual dance; to teach that they deserve an education; and to impart that they have the ability to make choices about their futures. Right now, I can start small: writing in Eva Safferman’s memory; fundraising for the American Cancer Society; challenging hurtful sayings like “that’s so gay,” that I hear way too often among my peers. I feel encouraged and inspired by my education. There is much for me to do.

Thank you for supporting Facing History and Ourselves and giving students like me the opportunity to “be the change.” If I can change even one person’s life, I change future generations. If I can change future generations, I do change the world. Thank you.

Read Sonali’s poem: “Protection”

Additional Resources:

Holocaust Survivor Eva Safferman's Testimony

Chapman University Holocaust Art and Writing Contest

Student Poem: “Protection”

IlanaKlarman — Mon, 02 May 2011 17:30:52 +0000

Sonali T. is a tenth grader at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, California. This poem, created as part of a class project after viewing the Holocaust survivor testimony of Eva Safferman, won first place in the high school poetry division in the 12th Annual Holocaust Art and Writing Contest sponsored by Chapman University and The “1939” Club.

Reprinted with permission of the Rodgers Center.

PROTECTION

Heavy footsteps grow closer,
Each uneven step accompanied by the crunch of crushed beet leaves,
Rows and rows of beets grow wild,
Concealing beneath them a girl.

Her heart thumps wildly,
She dare not move, lest he spot her,
Melting into the ground she lets the large leaves envelope her,
Accepting their comfort.

They have come for her once again,
But the leaves will not let them take her,
If she must die, she will die with her mother,
Not like this, alone.

The officer’s strength is his gun,
Her strength is her faith,
Her faith and trust in these leaves will protect her,
As they did the time before.

Footsteps fade to silence,
Silence rings angrily, loudly, relentlessly,
The roar is deafening as she waits for the footsteps to return,
They never come back.

Time finds her hours later,
Seated in the field of beets,
She does not wipe the dirt off her dress,
The marks are an honor, as are the stains of purple.

The purple dye swirls in my plate,
Staining my fingers and leaving marks on my clothes,
I stare at the taciturn vegetable before me,
The beets still betray no secrets.
Never have I seen such beauty.

Facing History and Ourselves was fortunate to have student poet Sonali T. as a speaker at our San Francisco Bay Area benefit dinner for Spring 2011. You can read her speech here.

The Power of Testimony: Partnership with Voice of Witness

IlanaKlarman — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:36:27 +0000

January 25, 2011

For everyone to view

Teacher

Facing History and Ourselves has launched an exciting partnership with Voice of Witness, an organization founded by author and publisher Dave Eggers and Dr. Lola Vollen, visiting scholar at the Institute for International Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Voice of Witness is dedicated to illuminating contemporary human rights crises through oral history.

Through the collaboration, nine Facing History teachers are participating in a pilot project that will integrate oral history into their Facing History classrooms during the Fall 2010 semester. The project will reach almost 1,000 students in seven Bay Area schools. Pending additional funding, next steps will include the development of an online resource collection using oral history in the Bay Area and additional cities.

Pictured: Teachers Trevor Gardner (left) from Envision Academy, Oakland, and Kyle Beckham from Downtown High School, San Francisco, engage in role play interviews as part of an orientation to the project.

Stacey Wickware – Dozier-Libbey Medical High School, Antioch Unified School District, San Francisco, CA

IlanaKlarman — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 15:24:37 +0000

January 11, 2011

For everyone to view

MSS Award Winner

Teacher

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“Facing History offers so much in the way of teaching strategies and subject matter, and also in the opportunity to “go deeper” into areas of American history that we rarely have the luxury to explore in depth. As teaching is a second career for me and a much sought after, lifelong dream, the chance to dig into those tough topics made me want to bring history alive for my students all the more.”

The Margot Stern Strom Teaching Award will support a deep exploration of the Civil Rights Movement for all levels of the 11th grade. In addition to reading key literature and historical case studies, students will be able to hear Terence Roberts of the Little Rock Nine and Awele Makeba, teacher/storyteller. The Advanced Placement U.S. History project involves reading civil rights-related literature including Warriors Don't Cry and a deep case study of Choices in Little Rock, with attention also to Eyes on the Prize and multiple other resources. Students will develop their own interactive, traveling museum show-casing their understanding of the movement, including its legacies in their own lives, their own community, and their own educations. Students will bring the museum to the community via the public library as part of the school's "service learning" component of the project.