Profiles

By Jocelyn Stanton Jocelyn Stanton teaches Humanities at Boston International High School in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Here she reflects about a transformative moment with one of the students in her Humanities 4 class of juniors and seniors.

Gillian Smith is one of those educators whose enthusiasm iscontagious and whose energy seems boundless. Good thing, because as theheadmaster of the Facing History School, Smith is at the helm of an exciting andchallenging endeavor-providing an in-depth Facing History experience over four years to every student.

When Ruth Dike signed up for the Memphis Facing History Student Leadership Group as a freshman four years ago, she wasn't sure what to expect. Now a senior at White Station High School Ruth says the impact of Facing History on her way of looking at the world was much more than she could have ever expected.

Understanding how teachers and schools can best prepare students for democratic citizenship is one of Ford Foundation Professor Fernando Reimers' main research goals. Impressed by Facing History's success in developing tolerance, he has helped Facing History scale up its global programs and to become more prominent among leaders of education policy and practice in Latin America.

Anne Sheldon first studied Facing History in an eighth grade Holocaust unit and became more involved by participating in the New England region's Student Symposium this past year, where students from Boston area high schools gathered to discuss responsibilities of citizenship in the 21st century.

Rwanda, a country tarnished by the 1994 genocide, placed a moratorium on the teaching of history since 1994 and has grappled with how to face the past to educate the future. John Rutayisire, Director of the National Curriculum Development Centre at the Ministry of Education and Innocent Mugisha, a teacher trainer at the National University of Rwanda, are two educators dedicated to this challenging task.

Since attending a Holocaust and Human Behavior Institute in 1998, Nick Maraventano, a social studies and history teacher at a suburban public high school on Long Island, New York, has deeply infused Facing History into his classroom.

Listening to the testimonials of Holocaust survivors or other eyewitnesses to history is an unforgettable part of the Facing History journey. Zezette Larsen, a member of the Board of Directors since it was established and a life-long friend to Facing History, is also one of many resource speakers who transform students and teachers through her story.

"Facing History makes students ask themselves hard questions so that when faced with ethical and moral situations they will have the tools to make the right decision over that which could cause pain or harm to their fellow human being.

Can one class in high school influence someone's career path? In Jemma McPherson's life, this seems to be the case. She was profoundly influenced by a theology class she took her junior year at Convent of the Sacred Heart in San Francisco.

Facing History and Ourselves just completed an amazing third year of offering a high school semester elective course in both Memphis and Shelby County Schools. There are 20 schools offering the elective-literally quadrupling over the last three years.

A senior at Carson High School, Jessica S. recently spoke at the Los Angeles Benefit about the two-year journey she and her classmates experienced in teacher Merri Weir's Facing History classes. On the first day of class Jessica recalled self-segregating, thinking 'my color, my friends.

Selden Smith has been on a journey to explore the lessons from the Holocaust and bring that scholarship to teachers in South Carolina for nearly two decades. But when he started his career as a history professor in 1960, the Holocaust as a subject of study didn't factor into his teaching.

San Diego, CA - Facing History and Ourselves is pleased to announce that Viana Rodriguez, a history teacher at Southwest High School in San Diego, California, was recently voted "Teacher of the Year" at her school.

As a professor working with pre-service teachers and future librarians, Jinx Watson hopes her students will reflect upon the lives of the children they will serve in their careers "I encourage my students to think about how can we make the subject become more accessible for students," said Watson who has been an Associate Professor at the College of Communication and Information at the University of Tennessee for ten years and an educator for thirty years in Massachusetts and Tennessee.

London, England - Students in David Fisher's tutor group at Woolwich Polytechnic School for Boys in London have turned what they learned from Facing History-which is infused throughout the school's humanities curriculum-into action on behalf of the people of Darfur.

Denver, CO - This fall students in Jennifer Derosby's class at P.S. 1. Charter School in Denver are looking at recent history to learn about civic responsibility. With Facing History resources and methodology as the lens, the students are considering what happened to a community in crisis-New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Cleveland, Ohio - "I was known as the class bully, taking my title so far that once I nearly broke a kid's arm," recalled Jonathan Lykes about his behavior in middle school. That changed when Jonathan took teacher Lori Eiler's Facing History class as a 9th grader at Shaw High School in East Cleveland.

Fairfield, Connecticut - David Burstein believes in the power of film to inspire social movements. "The style of documentary filmmaking is changing so much towards films that can create movements or call people to service.

Chicago, Illinois - It has been a time of monumental change at Ames Middle School in the heart of Chicago. When Principal Lorraine Cruz arrived at the school in July 2004, she was the fourth principal in the school's six years and as she says, the school was in turmoil.