Margot Stern Strom Teaching Award: 2009 Recipients

The Margot Stern Strom Teaching Awards were created in 2006 to honor Facing History teachers, fund innovative projects that deepens their work in Facing History, and recognize the enduring legacy of Margot Strom's own inspiring teaching.  All of the award-winning teachers have participated in an in-depth seminar, currently teach Facing History in substantial units, semester-long or even year-long courses, and are eager to extend their work with Facing History through their own professional development or with their students.  Here are brief descriptions of each teacher's project, selected by each Facing History office and generously funded by David and Nina Fialkow.

Chicago          

Peter Bernthal, Ames Middle School
Peter, an experienced Facing History teacher who teaches a Facing History approach to Holocaust literature as well as Choices in Little Rock, has created an additional project to connect students at his primarily Latino school with Facing History's work on immigration.  Students will create oral histories with family and community members and will study immigration in a cross-cultural way that takes them outside of their community and everyday experience. Students will read Enrique's Journey. The author, Sonia Nazario, will visit Peter's school and will speak at the spring Allstate event in Chicago.

Keith Dumbleton, Ames Middle School
Keith got his start with Facing History through a Race and Membership seminar and subsequently took a Choices in Little Rock seminar.  Keith's project will bring in an artist to collaborate with his special education class of five students to create a Choices in Little Rock graphic novel based on their work with this Facing History curriculum.  The unique nature of this project, which integrates graphic arts, deepens Facing History in a special education setting with the potential to create a model beyond the region for teaching in this environment. 

Dave McKoski, Chicago Academy High School
Dave is an art teacher who proposed a mixed-media integrated art project based on Arn Chorn Pond's "Everyone Has a Story." The resulting installation will connect to Facing History's "Choosing to Participate" theme, and will be a permanent fixture at his school for use with his students in years to come.

Cleveland                       

Greg Deegan, Beachwood High School
Greg has been a very active Facing History teacher in his own teaching, in his school, and in the Cleveland area.  With a solid grounding in Holocaust and Human Behavior and other Facing History historical case studies, he has creating school symposia on topics such as school climate, Brown v. Board of Education and hate crimes. As a recipient of the Margot Stern Strom Teaching Award, Greg proposes to deepen his understanding of South Africa through a study tour.  The tour will give him tools to support an online school-to-school cross-cultural conversation with a school in South Africa.

Gina Von Ville, Hudson High School
Gina uses Race and Membership as her core text in a contemporary issues class. She proposes to create a dialogue between two Facing History classrooms in two schools with distinct populations, using Skype.  The award will cover the cost of the webcams.

Joseph Lobozzo, Lakewood High School
Joe has been instrumental in opening up conversations about race with his students and his colleagues at Lakewood High School.  He created a nine-week unit of Race and Membership for his students, and the Cleveland office has shared that unit with teachers at recent Race and Membership seminars.  With this award, Joe and his students will create a short documentary on the legacy of race in their town, Lakewood, which is a town in transition.

Moira Clark, Magnificat High School
Moira and her colleague, Zoe Murphy, team-teach a Facing History elective at Magnificat High School. As a result of their award, Moira and Zoe will incorporate an art project with Facing History themes into the 11^th grade theology curriculum which uses Holocaust and Human Behavior.

Denver            

Kirsten Aarestad, Vantage Point High School
Kirsten teaches an in depth course in the Holocaust and Human Behavior in a small alternative school. She wants to engage her students by asking them to read and reflect on the lives of the children during the Holocaust in Salvaged Pages and I Never Saw Another Butterfly. Students will create their own journal-inspired displays of the impact of current issues in their lives today.

Kelly Lamsal, Thornton High School
Kelly's students study Holocaust and Human Behavior, and Kelly wishes to extend their understanding of issues raised in that case study to the Cambodian genocide.  Kelly plans to travel to Cambodia to collect primary and secondary resources to use in the class. Her award will fund a class set of First They Killed My Father, a memoir that vividly depicts the impact of the Cambodian genocide on children.

Matt Bernstein, Amy Biehl High School, Albuquerque, NM
Matt teaches a history and humanities course to 10^th graders, with Facing History as its foundation. His students have been captivated by the Facing History's website, "Be the Change," and his project will give them an opportunity to create their own interactive exhibit about upstanders, titled "Upstanders in the Arts."

Mark Delgado, Lincoln High School
Mark is creating new materials for his Chicano Studies class, asking students to reflect on gang violence after they have studied Holocaust and Human Behavior. This award funds a class set of Always Running, which contains themes of the universe of obligation, conformity, peer pressure, and positive relationships. 

International             

Andrew Cresswell, Humberview Secondary School, Bolton, Ontario
Andrew, a social studies teacher in Bolton, Ontario who teaches Holocaust and Human Behavior, will put his award towards a computer and LCD projector.  He sees a strong need to bring current events into each of his courses (philosophy, and world issues), and to bolster the "Choosing to Participate" aspect of the scope and sequence.  He plans to spend fifteen minutes each day looking at the news.  He hopes that, in a Facing History classroom, this access to information will influence students' achievement.

Nehemiah Bacumuwenda, National Curriculum Center, Kigali, Rwanda
Nehemiah is a curriculum developer at the National Curriculum Development Center in Rwanda.  She will use her award to travel to different Facing History classrooms in Rwanda and document best teaching practices and lessons.  The information she collects will be made available to Facing History teachers all over Rwanda as another form of professional support and information sharing.

Jean-Leonard Buhigiro, Kigali Institute of Education, Kigali, Rwanda
Jean Leonard is a lecturer in history at the Kigali Institute of Education and has attended Facing History seminars in Rwanda and London.  Jean Leonard will use his award to fund a workshop for twenty-five pre-service history teachers from KIE, focused on teaching genocide using Facing History resources and pedagogy in the Rwandan context.

Milton Phangwa, Vusisizwe Secondary School, Worcester, South Africa
Milton teaches history at a school in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.  His history course uses Holocaust and Human Behavior as a foundational case study, and then moves into a study of South Africa's history of apartheid.  Milton has created a project about anti-refugee and immigrant violence that has plagued the country, including the school's area.  His students will interview local people, including refugees and local government people.

Philippa Bleach, Leighton Park School, Reading, England
Philippa is a history teacher at a Quaker School in Reading, England.  The school uses Facing History resources and methods throughout its history curriculum, as well as in extra-curricular assemblies, clubs and programs.  Philippa's award will go toward funding resources for a Facing History library at the school, as well as a speaker series in the school's Facing History Club.

Daniel McShane, The Bytes Project, Belfast, Ireland
Daniel is a youth worker at the Bytes Project in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  Daniel will use his award to fund a seven-session workshop entitled "Just Citizens" with homeless youth.  The workshop will use Facing History resources and pedagogy focusing on youth and citizenship, and also award qualifications (credits) to participants which will help them in their education and road to employment.

Clint Lovell, Eastview Secondary School, Barrie, Ontario, Canada
Clint Lovell is a teacher in Barrie, Ontario, sixty miles north of Toronto.  Clint will use his award to take his students to Toronto to see the play, "Noah's Great Rainbow," about the relationships between a Holocaust survivor and a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. Clint has attended a Facing History workshop on the play.

Jack Lipinsky, United Synagogue Day School, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Jack is a history and religion teacher at United Synagogue Day School in Toronto.  He will use his award to build a library of historical fiction and youth survivor accounts of the Holocaust, for his own classes as well as for a colleague who teaches English.  This library will be put to use in 8th grade Jewish History-a year-long course on the Holocaust-and in the 8th grade English and Judaic Studies Program.

Los Angeles                       

Phyllis Rosen, Los Angeles Leadership Academy
Phyllis will bring two Facing History students to the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. to help improve the focus, approach and choice of materials and make her course more accessible for ESL students. Los Angeles Leadership Academy is a small charter school in South L.A.  Phyllis teaches two semester-long Holocaust and Human Behavior courses.

Ann Chaitin, La Jolla Country Day School
Ann is the coordinator for Facing History at La Jolla Country Day School where they have an interdisciplinary Facing History course culminating in Ann's art class. She will use funds to supplement her art class with additional Facing History resources, some field trips and speakers.

Brian Gibbs, Theodore Roosevelt High School
Brian infuses Facing History case studies (Holocaust and Human Behavior, Race and Membership, Armenian Genocide, and more) in all of his history classes. Based on the book The American Odyssey by David Brinkley, Brian will create an "Upstander Road Tour" in California.   He will take a small group of students to significant "upstander" sites in the Los Angeles area such as The Dolores Mission, Homeboy Industries, an East and South Los Angeles mural tour led by streetscaper/activist David Botello, a tour of the United Farm worker headquarters and a meeting with Helen Chavez.

Memphis                       

Kim Blevins-Relleva, Abintra Montessori Middle School
Kim teaches Civil Rights, using Eyes on the Prize, as part of the Facing History scope and sequence in a two-year integrated history/literature curriculum. She and her students will design a three-day Civil Rights tour with the intention of developing relationships with students at schools in Memphis and Little Rock.

Dolly Staten, Dexter Middle School
Dolly has done a great deal of work using Choices in Little Rock exploring stereotyping, prejudice and racism. She plans to break down these stereotypes and assumptions by creating community in her diverse classroom using a variety of techniques to look at identity. She was inspired by Crossing the Boulevard, a book about immigrants' experiences in Queens, and plans to create a virtual exhibit that uses it as a model.  Students will make a collage of photos and stories and create a podcast of peer interviews.

Lynn Murphy, Shadowlawn Middle School
Lynn will be building on previous work as her honors students link up with first- and second-generation Holocaust survivors to create an accordion book and a large-scale piece of art work that reflects the life of a survivor.  These students will then go on to study the Holocaust and Human Behavior in the spring. They will have the opportunity to share their work with their classmates. This project will culminate in an exhibition at a public gallery.

New England             

Rawchayl Sahadeo, Fenway High School, Boston, MA
Rawchayl represents a team of teachers at Fenway High who have been very active with the Facing History's Pearson video technology grant. The teacher team designed an entire unit of study based on the inauguration of Barack Obama and went to Washington, D.C. for the event.  Partial funding will purchase Obama's Dreams of My Father for post-inauguration exploration of group and individual identity.

Hilary Shanahan, Social Justice Academy, Hyde Park, MA
Hilary has studied Holocaust and Human Behavior, Race and Membership, and other case studies with Facing History.  She seeks to deepen her Facing History teaching through a professional development study tour to South Africa.  Her plan is to create a new unit on judgment, memory, legacy and choosing to participate.

Sr. Mary Janice Bartolo, Notre Dame Academy, Hingham, MA
Sister Mary Janice has been instrumental in her school's use of Facing History resources and pedagogy, focusing on the core Holocaust and Human Behavior case study. She created a whole-school initiative called "One Book, One School" which address Facing History themes. Partial funding will support this year's book and speaker at the school.

Stacy Kitsis, Arlington High School, Arlington, MA
Stacy is receiving partial funding for in-depth study of the Armenian Genocide (grade 12).  Seniors in her class will develop material to present to freshmen who have studied Holocaust and Human Behavior and have read Wiesel's Night.  Her students will connect the lessons and themes of the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide.

Jacquelyn Ruback, Lexington High School, Lexington, MA
Jackie, a longtime Facing History teacher, has more recently been providing students with unique opportunities to voice their informed opinions on her blog. Facing History will provide technical assistance to create and maintain online space for three sections of "Facing History: The Holocaust and Other Genocides."

Sarah Leibel, Blackstone Academy Charter School, Pawtucket, RI
Sarah is a grade 10/12 English teacher who relies heavily on Holocaust and Human Behavior to complement the literature she teaches. Her students will create and publish an anthology of student writing, activism and community engagement entitled "How do I Stand up for What is Right?"  This will be their culminating project, closing the circle of "Choosing to Participate."

New York                       

Shannon Turner-Porter, Marmaroneck High School, Marmaroneck, NY
Shannon is a 20-year veteran Facing History teacher who will enliven her end-of-unit poetry project by bringing Quincy Troupe, a poet, editor, and professor emeritus of University of California-San Diego into the class to study and create their own poetry. The poetry will be a response to the study of individuals through books and film who made instructive choices.  Individuals being studied include:  Arn Chorn Pond, Vanita Gupta, the Bielski Brothers, Oscar Schindler, Pastor Ntakirutimana, and Ishmael Beah.

Matthew Podwoski, Boonton High School, Boonton, NJ
Matthew has studied Holocaust and Human Behavior and is infusing Facing History resources into his classes at Boonton High School.  He is interested in helping his students understand United States foreign policies and see how U.S. citizens chart their global "universe of obligation" today.  In the process, students will study Weisel's Night Trilogy, and Maya Lin's A Strong Clear Vision. Students will visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and host a survivor at their school. As a culminating project, students will create a memorial quilt.

Perri Geller-Clark, Moorestown High School, Moorestown, NJ
Perri has designed a half-day program for Moorestown High School English and history students. The afternoon program will feature a presentation by Alexandra Zapruder, author and editor of Salvaged Pages:  Young Writers' Diaries of the Holocaust.  The school will screen the film I'm Still Here, based on the book. Students in the orchestra and jazz band will play appropriate musical selections throughout the program. Students from the humanities and Holocaust/genocide electives will organize and run the program, which will include readings, art, and a candle lighting ceremony for Holocaust/Genocide Remembrance Day.  The program will be held on April 22. The grant will help with the speaker's fee and other expenses.

North America Project                       

Susan Kincaid, Carolina Friends School, Durham, NC
After a trip to Selma, Alabama, Susan's Civil Rights class is making a documentary using footage collected there. The documentary will explore race relations in Selma and will include student-conducted interviews.  The award will provide funds to a student to edit the many hours of footage they collected on their trip.

Bonny Duncan, Berea High School, Greenville, SC
Bonny teaches four sections of Holocaust and Human Behavior in grades 10,11 and 12. She requested money for books to increase the reading resources in her classes. Bonny will buy copies of Sonia Weitz's I Promised I Would Tell.  Students will create group presentations for Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Meryl  Preston, Boynton Beach High School, FL
Meryl is a dedicated Facing History and Ourselves teacher who teaches intensive reading in Grade 10, using resources in Holocaust and Human Behavior. She has requested money for books to start using literature circles in her class. This will partially fund her proposal to purchase additional texts for her class, such as Zlata's Diary (Bosnia), Forgotten Fire (Armenia), When God Grew Tired of Us (Africa), and Enrique's Journey (South America).

Elizabeth Beardslee, The Field School, Washington, DC
Elizabeth is a Spanish teacher who uses Facing History resources in her class as she tries to create more opportunities for student voice. She and her students will study the story of Chilean women who protested political persecutions in Chile, described in Facing History's resource, Stitching Truth (part of Facing History's Making History series).  Students will create their own quilt, inspired by the Chilean women's artistry and messages in their arpilleras.

Marlene Roth, White Knoll Middle School, West Columbia, SC
Marlene teaches Holocaust and Human Behavior at her middle school.  She will organize and host a "Global Awareness Day" as a culminating project for seventh graders. The students will design workshops to raise awareness about issues around genocide. The award will allow Marlene to purchase copies of Weitz's I Promised I would Tell so the students can do an interactive poetry project.

Matthew Edinger, Perrymont Middle School, Richmond, VA
Matthew is a ten-year veteran Facing History teacher who will take a tour of Auschwitz while in Poland. He will create a unit based on his images. Students will then respond by creating photo stories. This award will allow him to purchase resources from the museum at the site.

Nicholas Coddington  , Charles Wright Academy, Tacoma, WA
Nicholas teaches Holocaust and Human Behavior at his school in Tacoma, Washington.  He has been invited to go to Rwanda with Carl Wilkens to study the legacy of the Rwandan genocide. He will bring back pictures and personal accounts to incorporate into a unit for his class.

Emily Taylor, Swansea High School, Swansea, SC
Emily has been teaching Holocaust and Human Behavior in her school, and in addition, she has been hosting a conference for Facing History teachers for the past three years. This year she would like to expand the impact of the conference by bringing a Holocaust survivor to speak to fellow educators.

Meghan Palevich, Montgomery School, Chester Springs, PA
Meghan began a program called "Make a Difference" as a result of going to a Holocaust and Human Behavior seminar at Kean University. The program gives students an opportunity to complete the Facing History scope and sequence by choosing a project that involves an organization or person that has made a contribution to society. This will partially fund the purchase of podcasting equipment so her students can create podcasts  about research and community service projects they have completed in her humanities class.

James Howard, Harrisburg Math and Science Academy, Harrisburg, PA
James works in a district where all 7^th graders study Choices in Little Rock, and 8^th graders study Holocaust and Human Behavior.  As a 7^th grade teacher, his proposal is to take his students to the nationally-recognized RACE exhibition, now on display in Philadelphia, at a time when they can learn from Dr. Beverly Tatum. This trip will deepen students' exploration of race.

Meg Rabinowitz, Germantown Friends School, Philadelphia, PA
Meg teaches a Holocaust-through-film course, very much informed by her study of Holocaust and Human Behavior, that asks "How do you convey the ineffable?  How do you appreciate the beauty of language and image to conjure deeply powerful moments in history?" This award will fund additional film materials for this eight-week elective course.

San Francisco             

Trevor Gardner, City Arts & Tech High School
Trevor has taken several seminars and workshops with Facing History.  He is intrigued by the idea of carrying Facing History ideas into the entire school community.  He will be creating, instituting and maintaining a positive school culture by integrating restorative justice principles into a newly-created Student Review Panel. He will use Simon Wiesenthal's The Sunflower as a case study for the whole school.

Laurie Hughes, Oceana High School
Laurie's extensive involvement with Facing History (through seminars including Holocaust and Human Behavior, as well as workshops) has been working hard to infuse Facing History in her school's culture.  Her proposal is to create a strong service-learning component after students complete a two-year Facing History humanities course which is grounded in Holocaust and Human Behavior.   She will use Facing History's website, "Be the Change," to inspire students to create their own service-learning projects.  The award will fund an activist poet to engage students in a culminating project.