The Facing History School Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the inaugural issue of the Facing History School Newsletter!

It seems like just yesterday that I interviewed for the position of principal at the Facing History School. Even before we had a name for the school, we had a vision and a philosophy: that students are engaged in educational experiences that allow them to become citizens of tomorrow—not just the citizen who watches, but the citizen who participates. Our philosophy and vision clearly let our students know that it had to begin with them. This philosophy has come to life in our school of 104 students and 11 fulltime staff members.

We have done a lot in a short time with our staff and students by focusing on building community and building skills. For example, all 9th graders take a yearlong course of study in math and humanities. They take half year of Forensics and Experiencing Literature as well. All of the classes meet for between 70 and 90 minutes. Advisory Group meets five days a week. We also have poetry, visual arts and drumming teachers from Working Playground who team-teach with our teachers and also teach their own classes on poetry, visual arts and drumming.

Community Building
We have worked with Facing History and Educators for Social Responsibility to create our advisory curriculum. Advisory is one of our most challenging classes, both for staff and students. It is here that we talk about creating relationships and community—communities for which we are all responsible. We talk about all the issues that can both hinder and promote the growth of the community, while learning how to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. In Advisory we ask the students, “What do you do to make your community a positive place?” For many students, realizing that ignoring a problem is actually the same as being part of the problem is a hard concept to learn. Advisory has given us a place to work on these skills.

Academics
Many of our students are challenged in the areas of reading, writing and math. We are using many different strategies to strengthen their skills. We have found that, given the chance, students are eager to not only express themselves, but also to ask questions. We are encouraging students to have conversations around the questions, thinking not just about the right answer, but also about making good choices based on understanding the many sides of a complex situation. For example, in our Experiencing Literature class, the books Fences and Of Mice and Men pushed the students to examine the contradictions in the characters’ complex dilemmas about friendship, loyalty, and responsibility. Students used a number of techniques to explore these issues, including a survey about what defines a true friend and a trial that examined the complex murder case in Of Mice and Men.

In Humanities, after having Holocaust survivors Sally Frishberg and Ries Vanderpol come to visit, students reflected on how groups and individuals make decisions that affect society as a whole. This was an enlightening concept for our 9th graders. The visit showed students that their opinions and choices not only affect them, but others as well. We are pushing them to see that through their actions they can influence the world around them.

Speaker Series
Our speakers have brought the significance of individual actions to life for our students. They are hearing real stories that show them that making a difference is not dependent on age, but on choice. We’ve had Reebok Human Rights Award Winner and lawyer Vanita Gupta, Holocaust survivors Ries and Sally, South Africa Constitutional Court Justice Albie Sachs and Architect Vanessa September. We look forward to having at least 5 more speakers during the school year.

Staff
Community building is just as important with staff as it is with students. We believe in shared experiences and a shared vision. Teachers who are invited to join the FHS staff are required to attend a Facing History institute, which allows us all to have the same starting point and view of where we want to go. In November we attended the New Visions Retreat, where we discussed short- and long-term planning and some of our goals for the school year. We also meet weekly to discuss student progress and research various strategies to make us better educators and help our students succeed.

What’s going on?
This month, students will present their work in subject classes as well as Advisory. Because we are committed to this portfolio process, we will have a change in schedule during the week of January 24. We will kick off the week by having students present their work at the Bowery Poetry Club on Bowery Street. At the end of the week we will have a community lunch and ice skating trip. We learn together, we play together. What a wonderful feeling to know that students are realizing they can do that!

Happy New Year, and welcome to our school.

- Gillian

Success story of the Month:
We have a student who has a learning disability. We were told the student would most likely receive an IEP diploma, which is given to students who, because of their learning disability, “cannot earn a NYS general education diploma.” But this student is only in the 9th grade—he still has 3 more years to work and learn. This same student passed an exam last week and wrote his first essay. He is on his way to earning that general education diploma. There are so many students like him. They are our inspiration!

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Facing History and Ourselves is proud to be our lead partner. Here's what they had to say about the FHS Thanksgiving Ceremony in November.

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On December 13, 2005, the Facing History School Humanities classes welcomed Holocaust survivors Sally Frishberg and Ries Vanderpol. The students welcomed the survivors warmly and were drawn in frequently by the personal accounts and questions from the survivors.

“How did you keep strong?” a ninth-grader asked Sally Frishberg, a Holocaust survivor who hid in an attic with her Polish family for more than two years during World War II. The students in Ed Sugden’s class sat quietly, several holding their chins in their hands, gazing steadily, even wide-eyed, as Mrs. Frishberg told her tragic personal story.

“I don’t know that we were strong. I think we were led by the hope that we would survive. It was a hope for which there was very little reason,” Mrs. Frishberg responded seriously. Indeed, she lost her little sister, her cousin and her aunt during the war due to a combination of sickness and starvation while in hiding.

The students were well prepared to hear the stories of Holocaust survivors, as they had spent the semester studying the fragile democracy in the Weimar Republic leading up to Hitler and the Nazi’s rise to power. They studied how the concentration camps worked, and with what consequences to Jews and others.

Mrs. Frishberg shared with the students how she had been treated even before Nazis came to power. She had a love of learning, she said, and was able to read and do basic math even before her formal education started. On her first day of school in Poland, she answered a math problem correctly and was astonished when her teacher grumbled in response, “That’s right,” and subsequently sent a letter home saying she could not return to school because she was a Jew. She also told the story of the man who had rescued her family, hiding them in his attic. The man insisted that the family never reveal that he hid them in his house. “Who do you think he was afraid of?” Mrs. Frishberg asked the students.

“Hitler?” responded one student.

“No. He was afraid of his neighbors and their antisemitism—even after the war… But one person in town guessed who the rescuer was. How did he guess? He told me that he noticed there was no snow on this man’s roof, because our bodies had warmed the space under the eaves. Yet he didn’t turn us in.”

Sally Frishberg also shared her appreciation for the new life given to her in 1946, when her family came to America. “This country gave me my life back.” She admitted she is jingoistic, proudly pro-American. “All we have to do is make sure we protect [this country],” she asserted.

After the survivors’ classroom visits, students wrote thank you notes and reflections on the talks. Whether they wondered what it would be like to lose a sister to sickness, or imagined cutting off their hair and burning their clothes due to lice infestation, or tried to put themselves in Ries Vanderpol’s situation of being sequestered in a space 1’ x 6’ for two-and-a-half years, their compassion for the Holocaust survivors was evident.

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Project: Humanities Project – Unit 3: Conflict and Fragility of Democracy: How do artists respond in times of conflict and uncertainty?

Emily Haine’s Humanities B&C block worked with Working Playground Teaching Artist Emily Riedman to create Contemporary Political Cartoons.

Students compared the political climate after WW I to contemporary issues that they are experiencing today. They were inspired by the work of pos- WW I illustrators George Grosz and Otto Dix and mimicked their illustrative style and use of penciling and inking. Students referenced images from current magazines and newspapers to draw from and/or used carbon paper to transfer the images. Once their compositions were complete, they used drawing ink, calligraphy and bamboo reed pens to trace over the pencil lines. Some finished the piece with an ink wash.

Here are three of the students' pieces:

Brandon Gang: "Time to Stop the Pain; It's time to Help people"
This Illustration was fun to make; I want to show how people felt pain by 911.

Benjamin Itara: "Lone Solider, End of 1000's"
A scared, lonely, cold emotion is expressed in my piece. I want everyone to know that our men are dying out there and Bush isn't doing anything to stop it. He is pushing our soldiers to the brink of death. I think my feelings about war are evident in this piece. I found it easy to show my mood, I made Bush as a monkey. The Albert Birkle piece inspired me the most. The detail and emotion that filled the picture was amazing!

Raquel: "You Said"
The government should stop lying to the people because it is bringing confusion about the war. The message is that the government should be more honest. The most challenging thing for me while creating this drawing was making it realistic.

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“There was a fight yesterday on the train and we weren’t bystanders!” said a student rushing in to humanities class on a chilly December morning. “We told people to do the right thing but most of them didn’t listen,” she continued. Only three months into the school year the students are applying our studies of history and literature to their lives. It is a teacher’s dream. For the first time in my eight-year teaching career I am at a school that has at the center of its mission the application of academics to the students’ lives.

In September when we began classes, “humanities” was a new course title for many students. In answer to their questions, I replied, “It is the study of what it means to be human.” “No, really,” they insisted, “what is it?” But halfway through December, the students finally started to believe me, whether they knew it or not. “I just realized all the books we read this year have to do with speaking up,” stated Valentin with excitement.

Our first novel was the book Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson. It chronicles the 9th grade school year of Melinda who is ostracized by her peers for having called the police at a party over the summer. One of the most memorable activities for the students was the class debate on whether Heather was a good friend to Melinda. Although the students enjoyed the debate, it was a struggle to get them to use evidence in their arguments.

However, two months later, at the end of Friedrich, a book by Hans Peter Richter about two boys growing up as the Nazis take power in Germany, the debate about whether the narrator and his family did everything they could to support Friedrich and his family went differently. I asked students to take notes during the debate to help them prepare for a writing assignment. During a heated debate, each student who spoke read a quotation from a page in the book. “Wait, what page is that on?” the students called out repeatedly, trying to take accurate notes. They are learning to skillfully defend their beliefs, an imperative step in the process toward making a difference in the issues they care about.

We have also been encouraging students to express themselves through various means. Led by our outstanding teaching artists, Emily R. and Fabian from Working Playground, our students have been able to do amazing art and poetry projects. During our unit on World War I and the failure of the Weimar democracy, we asked students to make connections to the war in Iraq and our democracy today. Emily R. and Fabian helped them express their opinions about the war, our government, and our scapegoats today. Emily R. led my students in creating pen and ink illustrations while Fabian worked with the students on poetry.

Now the students are working with Emily R. on creating memorials and monuments about the themes we have covered this semester. Many groups are working on monuments to people who have stood up for themselves and others, such as Rosa Parks and people who hid Jews in their houses during the Holocaust. But most importantly, they are thinking about speaking out and standing up for themselves and those around them. Through their art projects, the development of their reading, writing, and speaking skills, and through the connections they are making to their personal lives, they are engaged throughout the school in the study of what it means to be human.

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Dear Parents, Friends, and Supporters:

Most new schools mark their opening at the beginning of the school year—in September—but the Facing History School in New York is different. We have many beginnings—ask any of the partners in this great process. The idea of a Facing History and Ourselves school has been in our conversations and dreams for decades.

We have worked in the small school movement throughout our organization’s 30-year history. In New York we have made extraordinary friends among teachers, students and administrators. In fact, we heard about the remarkable Gillian Smith through our work at Satellite Academy.

Imagine how long Gillian has dreamed of a school of her own. Imagine the dreams of families who yearned for a school that embraced their children as they learned to be citizens, and the students who longed for a school community that they felt close to. Imagine the teachers who applied to work at the Facing History School, all with dreams of their own.

Earlier in the summer I met the staff, visited with the students, watched their videos and read their posters about their expectations for the new school. There was extraordinary energy in these conversations—enough to move mountains—and from what I have learned from other new schools, we would meet mountains of challenge. But I was confident and energized—this was an auspicious beginning.

I expect we will celebrate many events publicly, like the school’s thanksgiving ceremony in November. When Chancellor Joel Klein spoke to the audience of students, staff, families and friends, he recognized and respected our process of creating a school community. Each person who entered the school that evening was welcomed by student greeters and performers who shared a program. Everyone feasted at a communal meal to mark the school's beginning. They were giving a public face to the high hopes and hard work of so many individuals and groups interested in making this school work.

There are many more beginnings as the school’s first year unfolds, and as in a Facing History classroom, teachers and students are always thinking about the work it takes to build a community where all people are safe to pursue their lives with dignity. We are a work in progress, each with a significant contribution to make to the success of this school.

I am excited to watch this school find creative and meaningful ways to teach students that they are important members of society and that they should expect to make a positive difference in the world. This newsletter is a wonderful opportunity to keep our community updated about FHS activities events, and it also helps us to remember our responsibility to each other as we work together to ensure this school succeeds. Thank you so much for being a part of the adventure.

Margot Stern Strom
Executive Director, Facing History and Ourselves

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Students wrote poems about identity and practiced using different techniques to express themselves. Here are two poems from the first semester.

Outcast
by Jordan Smith, Raquel Monje, Alexander Alie, Mikhail Gordan, Karel Wilson

Breezy
Rigid mountains
Puffy clouds
And shiny waves

Drifting off
To a new
Beautiful place

The horizon
A border
Between
The dark, blue water
And the
Beautiful white sky

I feel the sharp, ruby edges
Piercing holes
In my heart

And I find myself like a boat
Floating alone in yellow
Water with dark, filled skies

My Roots
By Johanna Navarrette

I am from
Hannaha, Joshua, Jordi, Rebekka
And Jonathan.
Rice, Gandules, Platanos
And fried chicken.
Mami cooking over the stove,
The smell of Sofrito
And
Burberry Eau De Parfum
I am from
“Ay, Dios mio!”
I am adventurous
Bitter sweet,
Bright,
Confident,
Cheerful,
Stylish,
Energetic,
Creative,
Willowy and Saucy.
I am what she made me—
I am Johanna.

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From the griots (West African Storytellers) of ancient times to the emcees of modern-day hip-hop, the spoken word has greatly influenced and shaped entire societies and cultures. Poets are historians, activists, teachers, students, performers, and lovers-of-life. This past semester 50 FHS 9th graders studied both poetry and performance. They worked to develop an understanding of major poetic concepts and incorporated poetic tools in their own writing. They studied the craft of performance and developed a working understanding of strong performance techniques. Ultimately, these young poets learned to be more expressive. They learned to be more confident and used their voices to shape the world around them.

This past semester, students considered the issue of identity. Through the development of a chapbook (a small hand-made book of poetry), students were asked to begin to define their own identities. Each poem in the chapbook needed to reveal different aspects of the author’s own identity. Through the practice of revision, students worked to improve each individual piece. The chapbook underwent several drafts and the final draft included a cover designed to add to the project’s unifying theme.

Finally, students performed on a weekly basis. Whether individually or in groups, students practiced strong performance techniques. Students used a performance rubric [a list of skill levels and competencies for evaluation] and incorporated new vocabulary for discussing poetry and performance when giving peer feedback. The semester will end with a final exhibition, which will be held at the Bowery Poetry Club on January 24, 2006. This culminating event will give students the opportunity to share their work on a real performance stage in front of the entire school. Turn up the lights, turn on the mics, and listen to these poets raise their voices!

Some thoughts from students about what studying poetry has taught them:

My poetry studio taught me that I can express myself in many ways, not just through poetry.
Johanna N.

Completing my chapbook taught me if I want to be more meaningful, I need to use specific details and be more descriptive.
Yalitza S.

I learned about the importance of revision. At first, you may not like the criticism, but it will help you do a better job.
Ariela G.

This semester I learned that expressing myself is a very important skill.
Michael M.

Working on this chapbook helped me with my organization. It taught me the importance of hard work and fulfilling responsibilities.
Angel T.

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The Facing History School is located at the Park West Educational Complex in Manhattan

Mail:
525 W. 50th Street
New York, NY 10019

Email

Phone:
(212) 757-2680

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