Bay Area Teacher Raises Awareness About Sudan Genocide

 "Facing History educates me to educate my students toward an understanding of the issues that matter to them. Facing History revolutionizes my teaching . . . almost daily!"
-Mark Davis, Sacred Heart Preparatory School

Mark Davis has been a teacher since 1986. His prior experience in publishing led him to believe that students deserved a better education than what was often offered in textbooks. And so Mark became a teacher. He now teaches 11th and 12th grade English at Sacred Heart Preparatory School, a Catholic school in the Peninsula.

Mark, selected by the U.S. Holocaust Museum as a Mandel Teacher Fellow for his leadership in Holocaust education, first attended a Facing History Institute in 2000. Since then he has attended dozens of workshops and two more institutes. "The experiences have helped me to form lifelong friendships with Facing History and Ourselves associates and a lifelong commitment to this education. So I often seek out the program staff in the San Francisco office to guide me and my students. I borrow often from among the video resources."

Mark teaches a Facing History elective called "Literature of Witness." This class employs the Facing History scope and sequence, including Identity, We & They, Universe of Obligation, Judgment & Memory, and Participation to examine literature of the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, and Rwandan Genocide among other historical case studies.

"Most recently, my students and I have been involved in raising awareness and support for those suffering in the Darfur region of Sudan," says Mark.

After a school assembly about the genocide in Sudan, many students decided they wanted to do more to stop it. Now Mark and a committee of seven students taking a social ethics class are developing presentations about Darfur for other schools. At their own initiative, some students have conducted oral histories with Sudanese refugees living in the area who are featured in the film, The Lost Boys of Sudan, a Facing History resource. "Most importantly," says Mark, "is that we are continually learning about Darfur ourselves and sharing that knowledge with others."

This winter the entire sophomore class will visit Facing History's Choosing to Participate exhibition at the San Francisco Public Library. Mark believes this exploration of how individuals and communities responded to injustice will help inform the students as they begin to think about the social justice projects they must develop for their junior year.

Mark says Facing History helps him meet his teaching goals. "Facing History provides me with a knowledge base so that I can serve my students with what they need to know to be good citizens and learn how to become active participants in a world that sometimes can be a little bit frightening to them."

There are 470 students in grades 9 through 12 and 25% receive some form of scholarships. Sacred Heart Prep's central goal is to teach a social awareness that impels students to action.