How can you keep this a secret?

“Every one survivor got a story. There’s not enough paper in the whole world and not enough pens to write down what these survivors went through.”

Rather than bore you with my words, I’ll just cut and paste some emails sent back and forth between Dana Huff and myself.

All of this stems from a single post where a student asked if I’d seen the movie Paper Clips.

Pretty much verbatim:

From Dana

I love your idea. I think your students will always remember the research project. Let me know if I can help. You will recall I work at a Jewish school, and I can put you in touch with teachers who specialize in the Holocaust. We also have a really good Holocaust collection in our library. I can perhaps do something to help.

From Me

Hey there Dana,

Here’s something I was thinking about on my way to school this morning: maybe our students could work together on some sort of cross-country, cross-cultural research project.

• My students could do email interviews with some of your students about their family members and family histories.
• Your students could share photos, letters, and any other information to make this real.
• We could run an online question-and-answer session about the Holocaust.
• The Holocaust specialists at your school could suggest a list of sites for us to visit, such as the USHMM and the Spielberg Shoah project, and anything that could make this experience more real for us.
• I’ve already had a couple of students working on a wiki for this project: http://hlc.wikispaces.com

I really appreciate your offer to help, and I’m excited to see what we can do.

If this is something that interests you, we could create something special that takes our students (yours and mine) far beyond the walls of our schools.

What do you think?

From Dana

I think that would be awesome! A wiki is the way to do it, too. Have you seen the Flat Classroom Project?

From Me

I haven’t seen the Flat Classroom Project – that’s Vicki Davis’ project, right?

From Dana

Yeah, Vicki Davis: Flat Classroom Project

I asked our headmaster for some help — I think that’s just a formality, as I don’t see any reason he’d object to this project. I mentioned it to one of our history teachers, and he reminded me of some people I can ask to be involved. I will address it with my own students in my classes on Monday — that’s the day when I have all my classes except one class, which I will hit on Tuesday — and I will try to get other students who are not currently in my classes involved, too.

Where is your school located? That’s the first thing my students will want to know.

From Me

I’ll talk with my principal and the computer lab techs to coordinate a time when we can get a week or two in the computer labs. I’ll check out the Flat Classroom Project a little more.

Another idea – and maybe this is too out there – but we could also try to coordinate with Sandy Roberts, one of the teachers behind the original Paper Clips idea for some information and personal biographies. They surely have plenty of information on specific individuals.

She still teaches at Whitwell Middle School:

We’re in [some state] …Where are you?

From Dana

Atlanta, GA. I think the fact that we are across the country from one another will appeal to both your classes and mine.

From Me

Hey there again, Dana!

Thanks for your enthusiasm about this (possible) project. I do hope your students will be interested in working together on this, as it could turn out very wonderful. More than wonderful. Life affirming, even! Way more meaningful tnan regular ol’ school.

My students, after watching a bit of Paper Clips today, and after learning that today is the 62nd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, were a little bummed. They kept telling me I’d ruined their days, and that I am the sole person responsible for creating
depression among teenagers.

So I mentioned a little bit about this endeavor with you and your students and what you and I cooked up this morning over a few emails, and they perked up. They jumped up. They’re on board.

So, I guess, if anything (and if you have the time this weekend to shoot a few emails back and forth) we should have talk a little about what you want your students to do and what I want my students to do in this project, and how we can accomplish those goals together.

I’ll make a list tonight and shoot it off to you in the morning.

Cheers!

From Dana

I’m glad they’re so excited. My headmaster liked the idea, and Monday I’ll talk to my colleagues, who (my headmaster) suggested could help.

One colleague set up a Holocaust Remembrance ceremony today. We were all asked to wear white shirts, and students shared the accounts of two survivors in our morning program.

Yom Ha-Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) is on April 15 (27th day of the Hebrew month Nisan). That’s just FYI for future reference.

We’ll get this project figured out this weekend, like you say.

From Me

Sorry I didn’t get a chance to email you yesterday. For some reason, I couldn’t access any of my mail accounts.

I wanted to give you a little more informaiton about my classes and what I’m looking for them to do with this project. So here it is:

• I want my kids to do some research, and to do a little more reading about the Holocaust. That’s why I had a few other kids cooking up a website for research.
• Once the students are done with research, I want/need them to write an MLA standard research paper.
• I want them to do something fun and exciting, rather than going down to the library to use the outdated texts they have.

and here’s where you guys come in!

I was thinking we could hold a sort of question-and-answer session over the itnernet, where your students create short biographies of family members and family histories, backed up with historical/timeline information (maybe) from your colleagues.

My students could pose questions for further information and meaning, and possibly find links to your students’ families — geographic location, time periods, etc. (sort of “tagging” these histories to see where they’re linked.)

–my students become informaed interviewers asking specific questions.
–your students become biographers and family history researchers

Beyond that I get a little worried, because I feel like I’m asking too much of you and your kids. So I need to know what you want out of this and what my students and I can do to help you.

Hope this isn’t too convoluted.

From Dana

I don’t think that’s asking too much. One thing you have to remember is they KNOW their family history, especially if they have Holocaust survivors. It is such a big part of their culture to pass history along — to never forget. I think we can handle what you’re asking.

As far as what more we need, I’m not sure. I have a feeling knowing my students that they will want to get involved, but until I get a chance to speak with them, I’m not sure how involved.

From Me

That sounds wonderful — y’know, I’d been ignoring the “never forget” aspect of this.

A few more questions for you: I have roughly 160 students throughout the day. They’ll all participate in this. But my classes are roughly 30 - 33 strong. How many students do you have throughout the day?

From Dana

My schedule varies by day (block schedule), but I have 58 students. My largest class is a 9th College Prep class of 19 (I know, you want to tell me to shut up, now). I have one group of 15 students twice — once for American Lit. and once for a writing class.

Our school has about 190-195 students, and my thinking was to open up the project to other students who I am not currently teaching. Given the small size of our school, I think it would be more successful to do that. Sounds really small until you remember that we started 10 years ago with 19 students. When I started at the school two years ago, we had about 130, so we are growing at a pretty good rate.

Anyway, I think we would meet with more success if we approached it as a project open to the entire school, especially because at the end of February, many of our seniors will go to Israel to complete their education for the second semester.

I will, of course, announce the project to my classes tomorrow, but getting the rest of the school on board may take a week or so — I need to announce it in our Monday meeting, and tomorrow won’t work — we’re having a guest speaker on drunk driving. I will, however, try to get Moshe and Hana on board to help. I think a few other teachers can announce the project and tell students to see me for details, too.

Dana and I have sent some messages back and forth over the past week and have created a website where we’ll share this work. We’ve talked about a possible culminating project, and we’ve discussed the whole aspect of anonymity.

See, I’m trying to stay as anonymous as possible here, and this will give it all away. I hope that my disclaimer would cover anything truly awful, but there are times I use this blog to talk about some transparent issues.

But this is a very exciting project. I’m so happy Dana is on board, and I can’t wait to hear from the rest of the student body at her school. I think that we have the opportunity to make learning an exciting thing for our students, and I think this could make the whole idea of interviewing and storytelling (for Dana’s students) and research and writing (for my students) something truly meaningful.

As much as I write here, I’d like to say that I don’t do this for myself. I do it for the kids. I write here to get out of myself my feelings about the work I do. I write here to make myself a better teacher. For the students. Not a better teacher for myself….A better teacher for the students.

If anything (should I get in trouble for this), I’d like to offer the words directly from the administrators.

• Admin 1: Wow! That’s a fantastic idea! It’s so immediate that I can’t expect the kids could NOT find it interesting.
• Admin 2: I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any teacher doing anything like that. It sounds awesome.

And if anything, some of the posts here in the future will be password protected.
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UPDATE: Read what Dana has to say about all this, and listen to a completely appropriate musical selection on her blog.

We couldn’t have done this without our current technology, and let me just say this: this idea would’ve gone nowhere were it not for Dana’s enthusiasm. This idea wouldn’t have been born without her comments here.

I thought my day was serendipitous, but this was unexpected.