The Facing History School Newsletter

Dear Friends:

“Have the determination of a mirror. It never loses its ability to reflect, even if it is broken into a thousand pieces.” - Quote of the Day submitted by Dana Panagot’s Advisory (Author Unknown)

I hope each of you had a great summer and fall. It’s a pleasure and honor to be writing to you in our second year. As you may remember, we ended last year on a high note, with an overnight trip to Washington, DC for all of our promoted students. We visited the Holocaust Museum and the memorials, and ate great food. Our students had the opportunity to stay on campus at American University. The experience of staying in a dorm made their eyes sparkle with dreams of college. This experience was clearly the capstone to a rewarding and successful first year. Facing History and Ourselves, our lead partner, is conducting ongoing research at the school. The results from year one echo our feelings of success.

We knew this year we would have to work hard on building a community for staff, students and parents, especially because the school doubled in size with the entrance of our second class. Our ninth and tenth grade advisories meet together every other week to assist in creating community across the grades, peer support and mentor/mentee relationships. We’ve continued with our speaker series which allows the school to meet and study one person together. This not only builds our community, but also gives our students the opportunity to meet someone that chose to participate and make a positive change. We had a great field trip to Central Park, and students also held a bake sale fundraiser for their first school dance. In other news, our student leadership group traveled to New Haven Academy in New Haven, Connecticut to learn about another school using Facing History.

We also knew that our curriculum had to continue to be engaging while targeting the academic needs of our students. After reflecting on the challenges and successes of our first year, we’ve made some changes in our program. Students in 9th grade now take a full year of English in addition to humanities . Our 9th grade Facing History class, “We and They: Holocaust and Human Behavior,” is a semester long class of its own. Our 10th graders will have the pleasure of taking our Facing History class, “Rebellion and Reconciliation; South Africa,” in the spring. Our English department has been working closely with Facing History to develop the curriculum. Two of the English teachers, Emily Haines and Mark Otto, visited South Africa this summer (Emily recounts her experience here ). Our tenth graders have begun a biology/chemistry curriculum that will allow them to take both the Biology and Chemistry Regents before they graduate.

We have continued our amazing art program with great support from Facing History and its board, from volunteers , as well as from curricular partner Working Playground. Examples of some fantastic student artwork can be seen here. This year a Ford Foundation grant is enabling us to work with The Battery Dance Company as well, and our students are also taking Capoeira, a Brazilian martial arts form. The connections with professional artists through these partnerships even brought us to the attention of world-famous Korean artist Yeondoo Jung! [editor’s note: Gillian also received notice on NPR herself.]

Next semester we will begin a series of workshops to develop trust and relationships with our parents. We have a number of active parents, but we believe many of our parents are not sure if they can trust schools—we want to assure them that they can.

The staff is GREAT. They are dedicated, smart and fun to be with. We now have sixteen fulltime teachers and two social workers. As a staff we continue to work together to figure our how we can make this work, focused on the question, How do we make sure all of our students are successful? To help us accomplish that goal, we have sought more freedom to determine our curriculum and budget priorities by joining the Board of Education’s new Empowerment School Network. Empowerment Schools must meet rigorous achievement standards in return for the high level of freedom; this level of accountability is definitely a challenge, but the reward of seeing students and staff grow in all aspects has helped to smooth every bump.

Amidst all of this bustle, I must admit that I sometimes wonder if I am making a difference…and right when I question myself, I get the following note from a student. It speaks volumes about what we are trying to do here at FHS, and I will leave you with this thought:

“Gillian, I thank you! You got me back on track and now I am doing better than ever. I see now what you were doing. Now, thanks to you I am passing and my mother is proud of me.” - Juan A.

-Gillian

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Monique Schubert is a teaching artist from Working Playground. These examples of student work were part of an assignment she gave to create an Expressive Self-Portrait based on the work of Frida Kahlo. Students created expressivity through the use of color, cotume, background or text.

In Image 1, students had to practice drawing eyes, ears, noses and mouths. Image 2 is a portrait that includes all those elements. Some students chose to add an additional element--such as text--to be more expressive.

Daniel F. demonstrated his improvement over the course of six weeks in these two drawings. In his artist statement, he said, "In art class the hardest thing for me was self portaits. I could not control myself I thought I did not know how to draw. But I was wrong, I did improve. But now I know I can draw better."

Diannex ran with the conceptual aspect of this assigment. The first image is a 'doodle' that became the main idea for her final project. She said this about her portrait, "I am wonder woman...because...I feel inspired by the woman that fights every day against "monsters" and bad people."

The final two drawings are by Mohamed S.

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As a fundraiser the first school dance, students held a wildly successful bake sale. Here are a couple of pictures:

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The Facing History School is always looking for more committed volunteers. There are many opportunities to interact with students and teachers every day, and they always appreciate additional help and attention. Volunteers spend, on average, two days a week in one to two classes tutoring students, assisting with group work, and helping teachers with additional tasks as needed. If you are interested in getting invovled, please contact our wonderful volunteer coordinator, Sally Gordon, via email.

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Volunteers and visitors are a constant presence at FHS. The school thrives on the support and perspectives that volunteers can offer, and visitors allow the teachers and students to share their successes. This story about a recent visitor illustrates the important network of support that these volunteers provide, and the amazing positive energy they bring to their time at the school.

Noleen Goldstone and her husband Judge Richard Goldstone, who is a former Judge in the South African Constitutional Court, are currently living in the United States. Judge Goldstone has been given visiting appointments at both Harvard University and New York University, where he is bringing his experience in South Africa’s transitional government and the Yugoslavian Criminal Tribunals to bear on law classes. As part of their long time association with Harvard University’s school of Law, the Goldstones have come to know Facing History and Ourselves. The Goldstones have become self-proclaimed “admirers” of Facing History, and Judge Goldstone has visited a number of Facing History classrooms in the Boston area to speak about his experiences.

Noleen recently visited the Facing History School for the second time. After her first visit last year, Noleen was introduced to Sally Gordon, another Facing History board member who is the volunteer coordinator at FHS. Following that meeting, Noleen was inspired by Sally to bring a good friend to the school with the hope that she would become interested in volunteering.

The visit proved to be a great success, and Noleen was delighted to share her impressions with us.

“The teachers were just outstanding. They are so imaginative and dedicated. I noticed that the students are relaxed and comfortable, and that they have a nice rapport with the teachers. Daniel Braunfeld kept control of his class and kept their attention focused on the subject.”

Noleen visited on the day Emily Haines asked poet and rap artist Fabian Saucedo, who is a teaching artist with Working Playground, to talk to the students about the book they were reading, Animal Farm. “The rapper made an analogy between the characters in the book and contemporary rap icons. The kids had fun because they could identify with the rap artists.” Fabian has been working at FHS since it opened last year. Here is a glimpse into his 2005-06 class.

Noleen was very impressed with this year’s class, and said, “I wish I lived in New York and could volunteer at FHS!”

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Dear friends of the Facing History School:

So much has happened since our last update. The Facing History School has doubled in size! Now in the midst of our second year, we welcomed our second 9th grade class (the class of 2010) this September. Our staff also grew significantly, as did the amount of classroom space. Despite the expansion, FHS is still the warm, committed, caring place that you got to know last year. Our new teachers and students have not only embraced the culture of deep thinking, critical analysis, and community building that they found at FHS, they also brought to the school a new energy, focus, and a zest for teaching and learning.

Among the changes that Principal Gillian Smith and the school have embraced is becoming part of a new, experimental administrative structure called the Empowerment Zone. The purpose of this zone, set up by the Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, is to provide select public schools with more autonomy and less red tape. As a result, FHS, along with all the schools in the Empowerment Zone, will be held accountable to even higher standards than most other schools in the city. We have been granted permission to develop our own assessments and evaluations so that we can demonstrate that our students our achieving at the highest of levels, and not “merely” meeting the minimum requirements of standardized evaluations (although we still will be requiring students to pass all required Regents exams). This new arrangement is both a challenge and an opportunity to continue to build on our rich academic program.

Speaking of which, we worked this summer on improving the existing 9th grade curriculum and creating the new 10th grade curriculum. For this year's 9th grade, all incoming students will have a full year history class, a full year literacy course that emphasizes independent reading, a full year math class, and a semester of an introductory science class. Added to the mix is an essential semester-long class called “We and They: Holocaust and Human Behavior.” This class will introduce and emphasize the school’s themes and its approach to learning and thinking about one's own decisions. It will use an in depth case study of the collapse of democracy and the rise of Nazism in Germany to make connections to the choices about personal responsibility our students face today. This We and They class is modeled on lead partner Facing History and Ourselves’ resources and curricular materials. It is the showcase class for this partnership.

10th graders are taking a full year of history, science, and math, which, like all of our course offerings, make use of the key approaches, themes, and questions of the lead partner. The 10th grade literacy course will place a particular emphasis on these themes, making use of the knowledge and resources of the lead partner, and thus building off the 9th grade “We and They” class. This class, called “Rebellion and Resistance,” is spending the first half of the year looking at memoirs and stories of Latino/Hispanic Americans as they wrestle with questions of identity, belonging, assimilation, difference, and how to make productive change in the worlds they inhabit. The second semester of this course will shift to South African literature, using Facing History and Ourselves’ resources to explore how South Africans resisted apartheid, and how both ordinary and extraordinary people wrestle with opportunities and challenges in the new South Africa. In so doing, students will continue to look at examples from history that connect with the choices they are faced with in their own lives. .

We also have forged two new curricular partnerships this year. The New York City Math Project is helping our math department create a project-based curriculum that will allow students to connect high level math to real world problems and issues. Educhange is working with our science teachers to further enrich that department’s inquiry-based learning approach. In addition, we are continuing our productive partnership with Working Playground in order to bring performance, poetry, visual arts, and video arts into academic classrooms across the curriculum and to provide students with a range of electives. Facing History and Ourselves also continues to work with FHS staff to create a student centered series of projects and issues for all advisories to address throughout the school year.

You may also be interested in noting the following FHS events

Last June, we ended the first school year on a high note, with our first annual Step-Up Ceremony. We celebrated the promotion of our 9th graders through a school-wide celebration that included the presentation of Facing History and Ourselves’ Choosing to Participate Award to current 10th grade student Raquel Monje. Raquel also spoke at Facing History and Ourselves’ New York benefit Dinner at Chelsea Piers in October 2006. You can see a clip of her speech here.

This November, FHS hosted a visit by staff and students from New Haven Academy, a public school in new Haven that also partners with Facing History and Ourselves. This was the second time staff and students have met, and we hope this collaboration will continue to grow. In addition, a third Facing History partner school, the Amy Biehl School in New Mexico, will be sending staff and students to visit FHS in march. These three schools hope to build a lasting collaboration that can enrich curriculum and student experiences.

Our speaker series, sponsored by the lead partner, continues to move forward. On the heels of last year’s exciting set of speakers, FHS students have already met some extraordinary people who have used their voice and talent to make a difference.

In this newsletter and in ones to follow, please be on the lookout for the words and images of staff and students at the Facing History School. This young, dynamic school is making a difference in the lives of children. Our supporters and friends allow the staff to do such important work. There is so much more to come, and so more for all of us to learn from the students who comprise the class of 2009 and 2010.

Kevin Feinberg
Facing History and Ourselves
Director of the New York Small Schools Project

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The following activits and Witnesses to History will be visiting FHS in the coming weeks and months. If you are interested in attending any of the school-wide assemblies, please contact Yasmin Safdie by email or at 212-757-2680.

December 12, 2006: Former Army Sergeant and High School Principal Dr. Leon Bass

January 12, 2006: Former Director of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International in Rwanda and Pastor Carl Wilkens

December 15, 2006: Student Activitst and Outreach Coordinator for Free the Children, Mikey Opatowski

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