2024 Annual Report

We help students understand that they have a moral and civic responsibility to contribute to our democracy. And we do this without. This is key. Without telling students what to think, but rather how to think critically about moments in history. These students are our future. We believe that young people are capable of grappling with difficult moments in history and turning their knowledge into positive change. And for nearly five decades, millions of students in our classrooms have proven this to be true. Supporting, facing history and ourselves means that simply, you get that the road to a thriving democracy free from all forms of hatred and bigotry, passes right through classrooms, schools, and also educators. Thank you for really guiding our young people through our hardest histories and encouraging them to participate in their communities. With your generosity. I am certain that the days of hatred and bigotry are numbered.

So I want to now take a moment and introduce to you-- I'm so happy and delighted to introduce to you to one of our early-stage supporters and a long-standing friend to Facing History so that she can briefly explain the why for funding this work. I'd like to welcome Jenn Rothberg, executive director of the Einhorn Collaborative, which is supporting the pilot of our new civics curriculum and a cohort of New York City schools which, you just heard about.

Jenn, thank you so much for being here. I was hoping you could share with us a little bit about what it is about Facing History's approach to civic education that made the Einhorn Collaborative choose to invest in our new model.

Well, it's really my pleasure to be here, Abby. And I think you all just demonstrated what's so easy about partnering with Facing History is how comprehensive and creative and thoughtful you are as an organization to take work that you have done historically brilliantly and bring it into the context of what we need today.

So it's hard for me to have to make that case when you all I think just did a beautiful job. But I will say to my peers who are on the call, one, I'm just grateful that you joined us. So thank you for joining the conversation.

And two, we're in a moment right now where we need educated, empathic, engaged citizens. And what that means is to be able to take all of the complexity because it's just so complex right now. And to be able to hold the larger story of how we're all navigating what's so complex.

And so you use phrases like moral reasoning but I'm holding. Well, what does that really mean? Or critical thinking or active listening, ethical self-reflection. These are really big concepts of what it is as a human being to show up in an increasingly complex, interconnected, interdependent global world.

And I think it was Erica who said there's all of this information, it's how do we actually make sense of all of that information and then say, what is my role and how do I contribute? Who am I? What is before us right now? How might we build something more beautiful together? I know that that's the world that I want to be part of. I know that that's the kind of world I want my kids to be able to contribute to.

I couldn't have more confidence in Facing History and being able to do that, not only for their educators who you all are reaching but all your educators who are then reaching students every single day. You are creating this remarkable space where almost feels absent in this moment. And yet what's so beautiful today about this hour is none of us can believe that you are doing the work.

So I would say what's hard is doing it. You are demonstrating that you know how, what's easy is funding it. What's so easy is being able to make the case for why this needs to be invested in. So if my information is not easily readily available, anyone can get it from Facing History. Just text me, call me, email me.

I'll share with you the depth of due diligence Einhorn Collaborative has done since 2007 and understanding what Facing History is as an institution to constantly continuously improve the product that you bring into educators' lives and into students' lives to ensure that you're getting to the outcomes that you're after, and I can't imagine a more important thing that we need to be investing in as philanthropy right now.

So the remarkable thing is that the pilot has been funded. You have educators who are demonstrating that this is what they want, this is what they need. You have districts here who are saying, we want more of this. Facing History is this unbelievable co-creative partner. And now the question is how is this comprehensive remarkable package of educator support and student learning available to any student, any district, any educator who wants it?

And that requires philanthropy. It requires funding. And so that calls upon us. We have a unique role to play as funders to enable that to happen to be able to meet the need where we now have educators saying this is what they want.

So personally, Einhorn Collaborative is grateful to be able to be part of this work. We were constantly floored by the rigor and complexity and comprehensiveness that Facing History brings to everything that you do. And we need more people to join us in supporting us. So I'm really hopeful that after people have heard what you all are doing today they can't imagine not being a part of this unbelievable opportunity.

I've often thought that poetry is one of the most powerful ways of storytelling and connecting people. We can talk about in the abstract forever, right? Abstract ideas or sociopolitical issues or whatnot. And it grounds it in real stories, real lives, real names, real faces, real smiles, real people, real families. And once you make contact with that, I think it's very hard to deny that.

The other thing that I think is important, and I often will compare poetry to music, is that poetry is also emotionally-centered and emotionally-based. A poem is like singing a song. And you just feel what that person is feeling all the time. In the ways that when we hear a song, we're so moved which it's not our lives, but we're moved by this person's life because it's such a honest telling, right? And so that's another part of why poetry differs than other genres in that sense.

I think poetry also has its roots in the collective. Poetry, for many thousands of years before we were reading it in our jammies at home, it was a collective experience. It was oral tradition. It comes out of song. It comes out of drama. It comes out of chant. It comes out of prayer. Even when we're reading a poem alone, I always say it's like the proverbial campfire around which we can all share our stories. You see, I'm a little biased for poetry. But I think it is one of the most powerful ways that we can connect with each other and build these bridges of understanding. These very strong bridges.

One of the things I always like to express or talk about is the idea that poetry is not just for the English classroom. Poetry is for the classroom of life. In particular, it lends itself to so many other subject matters, social studies being a really obvious example. But there's poems about math. There's poems about astrology. There's poems about basically anything in the world. It's part of why in a sense, I'm also addicted to being a writer and a poet, because I get to explore all these worlds in my work.

In truth, I've often encountered teachers that are afraid of poetry themselves, or feel intimidated by it as well. We don't really allow a lot of subjective responses when we're teaching poetry because we were taught not to be subjective.

It's my understanding as a writer that really, the way into a poem is to first have that subjective response so that you, as a teacher, and your students don't feel like they're waiting for the right answer, right? The reader becomes a sleuth. And it's about finding what this one word means or whatnot. Again, it's a lot like music. The subjective experience is a way into objective understanding.

So I often turn to the work of John Dewey, the educator and philosopher, whose basic premise is that you don't approach the poem or any art object cold. What he calls the detour, which is something that will get the reader or the viewer into the experience of what this artist has created. That approach allows more for the subjective entering into the poem.

I'll give you a simple example. There's a poem about blueberries, right? And so one of my lesson plans calls for bringing a pint of blueberries and have the students just talk about blueberries. Suddenly, they're experiencing the poem. It's a softer way into the poem and is not as intimidating. I think learning it that way, then you can start getting into the objective nature of the poem.

A poem is a mirror in which the reader and-- the reader and the poet find themselves and their lives blur. And that's how we really come to an understanding of a piece. I also like to look at it this way. There is lowercase life of the reader, lowercase life of the poet. Together, we get the big L. What is life, right? And I think if you learn how to read a poem that way, you will learn how to read any poem.

I think the first question you need to ask yourself as a reader, or if you're an educator to your students is not what does a poem mean, is how does a poem make you feel? And what does it remind you of? Again, entering the poem through the subjective, which is the strongest way to understand something. Dispelling that myth of what did the poet mean?

And often, people will tell me things about my poems. I'm like, "Yeah, that sounds great." But the idea that the poet is completely intentional about one particular meaning and actually, it's about many meanings. As we like to say, once we write a poem, it's no longer ours. I often recommend to educators to read a book on craft. How is a poem made? I think that helps us feel more at ease in how a poem works. And so you're not just looking at it analytically.

But now, if you're looking at the craft, you're also looking at it now as an artist. It takes the idea of pure analysis and makes it more of an experience. Again, it's not just about analysis. It's about creating. How do poets do this stuff? And I think that helps to be a better teacher and teaching poetry, but also helps our own fear of poetry.

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Centering on the themes of Democracy & Freedom, Facing History's new US History curriculum collection is designed to help students think critically about what it means to live in the United States as a free and full human being and draw meaningful connections between our country's complex history and their own lived experiences. The materials in the collection are intentionally curated to help empower students to become active citizens and deepen their understanding of their rights and responsibilities in their communities and our nation.

The identity of a nation like the United States is shaped by the ways people have worked individually and together to create a more free and fair democracy. This new collection builds on existing Facing History resources and has the arc of the academic year in mind, but no matter where in your course you begin to integrate these materials, taking time to create a classroom community that is open, inclusive, and prepared to tackle difficult conversations is a key element to our approach to teaching US History.

Once you've laid the foundation for deep and collaborative learning, you can utilize our carefully curated collection to explore a variety of historical periods and perspectives including the founding era, Reconstruction Era, the period of Asian exclusion and mass immigration at the turn of the twentieth century, and the Civil Rights movement.

Also included in the collection is a Choosing to Participate unit designed to help educators and students craft a dynamic capstone project at the culmination of their US History Course. This unit fosters the civic capacity of students by asking them to examine the civic actions of people in the past and present and imagine what freedoms they would like to see in their communities.

Continue exploring our US history resources and consider incorporating them into your curriculum to help inform and inspire students as they prepare to make their mark on the world.