Journal 3

May 1, 2009

Since January 30, I have facilitated sessions for the following seminars & workshops:

1. HHB 3-day (Feb): this was a great learning experience for me because as a teacher, I had not done any FH holocaust trainings since 2002 or 2003. This was an opportunity for me to learn more about the topic. As a result of the great feedback, schools quickly booked Holocaust speakers. I was privileged to drive Ava K. Schieber to one of those schools and am continually in awe of her loving spirit and the way in which she turned adversity into advantage (see the poem I wrote for her in an earlier entry).
   
2. Immigration Workshop (March): this was a great workshop and one that I often requested when I was a Facing History teacher because it was a regular part of my curriculum. I think the participants enjoyed what we presented and appreciated that our presentations went beyond the discussion of Mexican immigration.
   
3. SLT Saturday meeting (Feb, March): I have been privileged to work with Denise on getting the SLT students ready for the Symposium (may 12). Two of the students are also speaking at our benefit dinner (may 8).
   
4. One Book, One Chicago: House on Mango Street Educator Workshop (March): OBOC is a Chicago Public Library-City of Chicago initiative to encourage citywide reading. This year, FH created the questions for their study guide, facilitated a workshop for librarians and for teachers across the Chicagoland area.
   
5. HL 3-day (April): I had the privilege of again hearing some great speakers, like Ava K. S. and Jeff K.L. I think it was valuable for me to get the teacher feedback on how they plan ot implement in their own classrooms. The memorials they created were also quite beautiful.
   

I was the lead on the following projects:

1. One Book, One Chicago Workshop: I think having Chuck assisting me in this project was a great help as it came at a time when the deadlines for other workshops or activities were creating anxiety for me. All in all, though, the participants got a lot out of the sessions Chuck and I presented and appreciated that we went beyond the typical readings usually done with Cisneros' popular book.
   
2. Teacher Leadership Team: On March 19 we had our last breakout sessions for our TLT focus groups. Middle School teachers gave their final analyses of the Choices curricula and submitted lots of sample rubrics and lessons. HS teachers submitted final critiques of the HHB ERG.
   
3. Polk Dialogue (extension of Race & Membership Seminar 2008): While the last 2 (April) events had to be cancelled due to scheduling conflicts and dwindling participation, we succeeded in bringing together two schools from two different neighborhoods to read books about the Great Migration, to learn about multimedia options for presenting their research (vocalo.org), to dialogue online about their research (facinghistory.org/polk2009) and to hear from a Chicago historian, Dr. Dominic Pacyga (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtF6hxdYxr0 the link is part 5 of 5 clips).