Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Not your typical European vacation

My friend Lisa and several other teachers are currently accompanying a group of 23 Boston high school seniors on a trip to Europe as part of the Facing History program:

Facing History is a curriculum that teaches students about racism and prejudice through the lenses of the holocaust and other examples of genocide. Using empathy as a guiding theme, the program examines human suffering through history and around the globe, so that we might avoid such events in the future.

During the 2007-2008 school year, 24 high school seniors studied the Facing History curriculum at TechBoston Academy, a Boston Public High School located in Dorchester, Mass. The trip to Europe is the culminating project for the class. The trip will include visits to concentration camps such as Dachau and Auschwitz, and will include a visit to Nuremburg and Checkpoint Charlie. Also, for the first time this year, we will include a trip to Paris at the end of our journey where students will have the opportunity to meet survivors of the camps we have just seen for a question and answer session. Students will learn about the history of World War II, the holocaust, and discuss real-world examples of genocide happening today in other parts of the world.

And yes, they're blogging about it. I think it's a really cool program and a great opportunity for the students, many of whom come from low-income families.

I just thought I'd pass along the link for those of you who might be interested in following along. Most of the media coverage of our local school systems focuses on the negatives, so we tend to forget about the positives. Plus, I wanted to bump the mansy down the page a bit.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks! I know she will appreciate any added traffic to the blog and to the program. It is a great program. She left today so check in every once in a while. They will be posting videos and individual blog entries from the students. These kids are so talented and smart that I am sure there will be some very interesting entries.

Lisa Kate said...

Hey ladies and everyone! Blogging direct from Lublin with a tough connection. Argh. Super frustrated with the slow down on blog posts but am determined. There have been so many wonderful moments this trip and many on camera that I am dying to share. Its rainy and cold tonight here and we saw our last concentration camp today, and it was truly the worst if that can be said bc every ONE is horrible. But the death camps are hard to take and Majdanek today, the way the museum is set up...its raw. I have so much media and reflections of my own to post on my own blog, but have to focus on getting the kids stuff up there. We have so many people engaged on the blog that its really exciting for the kids. Anyway, thanks for the post eileen and meg and see you back in the states soon. I saw an Irish pub today and my heart broke for home!!!