Learning from "Witnesses to History"
In schools where in-depth Facing
History courses exist, and teachers "go long and go deep" on issues
such as Holocaust and Human Behavior, Race and Membership in American
History, Transitional Justice, and other topics, Facing History is
often able to bring in a speaker as a culminating aspect of a unit of
study. In the San Francisco Bay Area, these opportunities are offered to
many schools each year.
Last year, at James Logan High School in Union City, hundreds of students participated in a forum with Sonia Nazario, author of
Enrique's Journey, about a Honduran boy's dangerous journey to reunite with his mother in
the U.S. The discussion explored questions central to the debates about
immigration and race in America.
At a second forum, hundreds more Logan students who were studying the
1994 Rwandan genocide met with Pastor Carl Wilkens. Wilkens was the
only American to remain in Rwanda during the genocide. His actions
aided orphans and others who would certainly have been killed.
Facing History Director Jack Weinstein says, "The exchanges generated
by these visits, and others, including those by Holocaust survivors and
veterans of the American Civil Rights Movement allowed hundreds of
students to deepen their historical understanding and helped them to
relate their own lives to the histories they learned."
