fadblog

Our group this year welcomes several new participants:

Dr. Nicole Ambrosio, AP, HS for Arts and Technology

Jordan Bancroft, HS for Arts and Technology

Marc Kimmerly, HS for Media and Commuications

Amanda Marsick, HS for Arts and Technology

Ashley Robinson, IS 195 Roberto Clemente

Gary Sandberg, FDA II

Miguel Torres, Harbor Heights MS

In addition, some former participants returned:

Myrna Braithwaite, Wadleigh High School for the Performing Arts

Alexis Doyle Balkonis, HS for Arts and Technology

Robert Grippo, MS 44

Vanessa Rivera, MLK HS for Arts and Technology

Carlos Tabares, Harbor Heights Middle School

Last but not least, I am pleased to list those teachers who have participated continuously since this grant began:

Loretta Brady, PS 278

Lydia Caballero, LD Brandeis HS

Marek Farenholc, JKO HS for International Business

Michael Kaniecki, LD Brandeis HS

Anthony Klug, Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing Arts

Andrew Landers, Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing Arts

Robert McDougall, IS 195 Roberto Clemente

Glenn Mason, Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing Arts

Tamara Montano, Frederick Douglass Academy

Bonnie Page, IS 195 Roberto Clemente

Gerard Trimarco, HS for Math, Science and Engineering

Regina Zafonte, HS for Math, Science and Engineering

The third year of the FAD grant program was introduced at The New-York Historical Society on October, 1^st.  Our new facilitator is Ms. Mia Nagawiecki.  She started us off with a presentation about Yuri Kochiyama, a Japanese woman who had been interred during WWII in California.  As our theme for this year is, “Democracy in Time of War”, the amazing story of Ms. Kochiyama was right on target.  Ms. Nagawiecki has been wonderful in both the planning and coordinating of this year’s program, and I thank her sincerely.

Our second meeting introduced us to Professor Yohuru Williams of Fairfield University.  His enthusiastic lecture on “Democracy in Time of War, Part I” was fast-paced and very engaging.  It covered the theme from the Alien and Sedition Act through World War One with particular emphasis on the morphing of Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes’ opinions.  His presentation was woven with lots of historical ‘little known facts’ especially about the socialist, protesters of the World War One era.  We are all looking forward to his second lecture.  He has written several books on the Black Power Movement of the 1960’s so the modern era will allow us to share in his studies and recent work.

The Summer of ’09 was filled with wonderful experiences especially my Fulbright Seminars Abroad trip to Turkey for the  month of July. I was a member of a 16 educator delegation traveling to Texas and Turkey to enrich our understanding of  Turkish history and current events. Our first few days were spent studying Turkish history in Austin, Texas.

Then we were off to Turkey. After a week in the capital, Ankara, we traveled for two more down to and along the Aegean Coast. Traveling along the coast we visited several famous sites included Troy, Perge, Ephesus, and Gallipoli. The last week was spent in Istanbul where we again visited all the famous attractions, such as, the Topkapi Palace, The Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and the Museum of Modern Art. Each day was absolutely filled with one extraordinary experience after another.

The scholarly lectures were arranged for us in Austin, Texas, at the University of Texas at Austin by the Middle Eastern Studies Department. In Turkey, we visited many universities and were privileged to lectures on a variety of topics. For example, individual talks were given on economics, the European Union, the Ottoman Empire, and Women’s Rights, to name a few.

I encourage you to apply. Next year’s application is posted and due October 6th. The USDOE website is

http://www.ed.gov/news/fedregister/announce/index.html;

and the Fulbright is: http://www.fulbrightalumni.org/olc/pub/FBA/cpages/gfn/grants.jsp

I am developing a unit of study which I will post on this site.

As planned, The Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American Studies arranged for participants in the Foundations program to experience a slice of Professor Kenneth Jackson’s Columbia University course, “The History of New York City” with a two day tour. Professor Jackson began our tour with a pre-tour discussion at Columbia that allowed us all to get into the spirit of – “What makes New York City so unique?” Then we were off on a bus tour of Harlem and the Bronx with Professor Jackson pointing out the historic sites including his own historical notes as we went along. Next day we went on the boat ride to Ellis Island and then did a walking tour of lower Manhattan. As is natural down there, a lot of his talk that afternoon focused on the September 11th attack and its consequences. We said good bye to him, sadly but appropriately, at a dinner in China town.

As we were going around, participants were encouraged to take photos. On our last day, we went up the tech center on 123rd Street to learn “Movie Maker”. FAD participant, Robert McDougall, coach from IS 195, facilitated the workshop and Carl Cambria, Wadleigh Secondary School for the Arts, showed us all how it should be done as he shared his ‘Movie’ that morning.

Other participants were:
Lydia Caballero
Tamara Montano
Carlos Taberas
Anthony Klug
Russell Lerner
Bonnie Page
Shannon Taylor
Kerry Powers
Martin Toomajian
Claire Lundahl-Scesney
Nicole Stromer
Amanda Bauman
Loretta Brady
Danielle Chatman
Andrew Landers

I was pleased that those teachers who had not been able to attend the program during the year were able to share in this extraordinary professional development experience.

Our webmaster, Virginia Pruitt, was on hand too and her photos of the event are displayed elsewhere on this website.

Last but not least, four teachers were sponsored for The Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History’s Summer Program in the ‘Summer of ‘09’. They were: Tamara Montano, Gerard Trimarco, Loretta Brady, and Michael Kosciol. Not surprisingly, all reported having had an extraordinary learning experience. Ms. Montano was on her way back to the University of Manchester in England to continue her work after her week long Gilder-Lehrman seminar at Oxford.

The summer was fabulous and I am looking forward to continuing our work in September.

As I look back over the past school year, I am a little breathless. The program delivered 40 PD sessions totaling 99 hours; and I attended them all! At the end of such a marathon, I feel happy to have completed everything, but it’s too soon for me to make any critical comments, frankly. Hopefully, when the dust settles down for all who participated, they’ll feel better prepared to deliver high quality instruction in American History and enjoy a deeper appreciation of its study. Their stamina has certainly been increased.

The last part of the year, i.e., the weeks after the Spring vacation, workshops continued to be given at the schools. Happily, teacher participation increased at those events as planned. Thanks again to Anthony Klug and Ms. Jennifer Rozmus at Wadleigh Secondary School and Ms. Carla Ling at MS 44 for helping to make that happen.

Continuing on the note of thanks, this is a good time to extend them to Ms. Virginia Pruitt. She is the webmaster of the Foundations of American Democracy website, www.etah.info. She has created a rich resource for us and it has been gratifying to receive more and more positive feedback from its users.

Our Photo-Story workshop turned out to be an exercise in self-directed instruction. Thanks again to Virginia Pruitt and Anthony Klug for jumping in and making the morning a success. We’ll be doing another technology workshop this summer to build upon what we learned at this Photo-Story workshop.

The Morgan Library was a fitting venue for our penultimate meeting and an opportunity to be reminded of the depth and breadth of riches and resources that the Gilded Age brought to New York City. Thanks to Regina Zafonte of the High School of Math, Science and Engineering for reviewing her experiences and materials from this year’s NCSS Conference. Her packet of Global Studies materials were happily accepted by many other participants.

Our trip to the Biltmore Estate was shared, too, by Tamara Montano (Frederick Douglass Academy), Marek Farenholc (J. K. O. High School of International Business), Denise Hand (Center School), and Anthony Klug (Wadleigh Secondary School for the Arts). They created a fabulous CD with lots of images, curriculum ideas and activities. It will be sent to our facilitator in Ashevillle, Ms. Leslie Klinger shortly.

The charming library of the Museum of the City of New York lent another rather ‘gilded’ atmosphere to the last event of this year’s program, the document study round table. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing what everybody chose and going over the individual ‘stories’ behind the documents. Well done, all!

I extend my very best wishes to you all for a very happy summer.

Since I reported on our ‘opening day’ for the Spring Term, February 2nd, the FAD program broke up a little in so far as my long-hoped for goal began to materialize in the form of school workshops specifically tailored to teachers’ requests. With that, our regular meetings at the New-York Historical Society have lessened and we have had several meetings at Wadleigh Secondary High School for the Arts and IS 195. Other individual workshops have been delivered at Gregorio Luperon High School and another is scheduled at MS 44. As expected, it has enabled many colleagues who ordinarily aren’t able to attend the workshops to do so. My thanks to Anthony Klug at Wadleigh, Bonnie Page and Yolanda Calimano at IS 195, and Rocio de Felix at Gregorio Luperon for working so hard to make these in-school events happen. Lots of ground has been covered, as those of you have been able to attend regularly know. Recent seminars have included: - the Teacher Created Material liaison, Eric LeMoine, presenting the TCM materials at MOMA using the Westward Expansion era; - the DBQ Project methodology was delivered twice by Janine Corrin, once at IS 195 and again at the Whitney Museum; - Ms. Margaret Krug took us on a gallery walk at the Whitney as we continue to focus on visual literacy; - Carolyn Semet reviewed the Track Star program with our colleagues at Wadleigh; - Tara Davidson repeated her high school Regents review workshop at Gregorio Luperon High School; - Dr. Annelise Orleck presented two lectures on immigration and the women’s movement at the N-YHS; - Yours truly presented the “Picturing America” portfolio at Wadleigh. As the school year progresses, I’m looking forward to our culminating event at the Museum of the City of New York to have a chance for us to present and get to know each other better.

February 2^nd High School PD Day at The N-YHS, and Gregorio Luperon H. S. /Flocabulary

PD days are double-edged in the Foundations of American Democracy program.  On the one hand they provide wonderful opportunities to have more time to come to our work in a relaxed fashion.  On the other hand, many schools opt to use the time for school specific initiatives so some of our colleagues are not able to join us.  Further, since this PD day is for High School teachers only, our Middle School colleagues by and large cannot join us.  Happily, technology will help allay our difficulties this go round as Dr. Ed O’Donnell, our guest lecturer for the day, has given us a CD of his slide presentation which I’m looking forward to sharing at our next event.

Since his presentation on “The Gilded Age” at the Teaching American History Conference in January was such a success, our own Dr. Liz Grant asked him to give a repeat performance on our PD day.  The New-York Historical Society’s theatre made a perfect setting for his presentation.  Most of the group this time was from the Frederick Douglas Academy including Ms. Tamara Montana, a long-time participant and member of the FAD Steering Committee.

While the group continued the day at The N-YHS with an American Musical Project’s “Fiorello” workshop and a visit to the Luce Center, that afternoon another workshop was delivered at the new and beautiful, Gregorio Luperon High School.  It was a treat to work with a musician this time, Mr. Alex Rapaport (founder of Flocabulary).  Flocabulary is a pedagogic method infusing rap beat and hip hop lyrics into all the subjects.  Naturally, we did a sample in American History.  It was fun and I think everyone came away wanting more.  It was a pleasure visiting the new building and working with Mr. Villar and his faculty.  Thanks to Rocio de Felix for helping me bring this type of experience to the group.  I’m hoping to visit her and other educators at

The Choir Academy of Harlem who are enthusiastic to use the materials with their students to see the results.

If possible, I plan next year to bring the Flocabulary team back to present to the regular FAD group.    It’s difficult to get these PD workshops set up and in addition to Rocio de Felix, I want to thank, Anthony Klug, Bonnie Page and Yolanda Calimano for their continued efforts. 

Finally, there is one slot open for the FAD/GLI Summer Seminar.  Please let me know if you are interested.

Our group braced for the cold and met at The Tenement Museum on Saturday, January 17. This was the last meeting of the Fall term that was devoted to the study of Immigration, and we couldn’t have asked for a better venue nor event. The Museum offers several PD workshops. We did the Using Personal Narrative in the Classroom.

The workshop included a tour of two of the immigrant apartments at 97 Orchard Street which have remained as they were since 1930. In addition to artifacts and documents, we were treated to a taped recording of one of the tenement dwellers. As we listened to her story, we were scanning the apartment and imagining the family activities that went along with the various furnishings in the apartment as she was describing them.

Most of us commented that we would have enjoyed going through all the apartments with their complementary family histories. It was just the kind of experience the program hopes to foster in that it left us wanting to go deeper into the history.

Of course, I hope that some of the participants will take their students there even though reservations need to be made several months in advance.

December 30, 2008

As this year winds down, I’d like to recap the rest of our workshop activities for ’08.  It’s easy to lose track of all the work we’ve done without reflecting back. 

So here it is:  we had Professor O’Donnell’s second lecture on immigration with an interesting focus on the Italians this time.  It was fun to go upstairs to the Luce Center and try to guess what one of the objects was.  It turned out to be an old fashioned voting ballot box and, of course, Ed had lots of historic tidbits to go along with the artifact.

We received a beautiful education package at the Grant and Lee Exhibit workshop on Election Day when the entire Brandeis Social Studies team came to join us.  A tour of the exhibit proved rich in treasures, including, Lee’s sword and Grant’s original handwritten terms of surrender.  The event ended with a lecture by Professor Montoya from NYU on Westward Expansion.

Although an old favorite, it still delivers, when it comes to student engagement and American History content – The New-York Historical Society’s American Musical Project curriculum and DVD on “West Side Story”.  One of our participants, Mr. Shawn Harris of IS 286, immediately wrote a lesson plan using the materials. 

It is always gratifying when a participant reports back that they were able to successfully use something from a workshop with their students.  It so happened on the same occasion when Shawn told me about the “West Side Story” lesson, Mr. Carlos Tabares, Harbor Heights Middle School, who has been a long-time participant also brought in two of his students’ ‘interactive notebooks’.  The interactive notebooks had been presented by History Alive last year at our Spring workshop series at MOMA.  Carlos explained that the practice has been very successful with his students and for his own assessment practice.  Kudos to his students too!  They were really beautifully arranged and maintained.

During our last meeting in ’08, Ms. Kim Sekel, Museum Educator at The N-YHS, recalled her work with Gifted and Talented students.  We also did one of the exercises from the Center for Gifted Education’s text.

Plans have begun for this year’s summer institute with the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History.  So far, Messrs. Tabares, Trimarco and Mason, and Ms. Tamara Montano have applied for individual summer institutes.  We should have one more participant by the application deadline.  Ms. Sarah Morgan, who did such a great job in Philadelphia last summer, is revving up to do so again for us this summer.  As soon as the plans are set, I’ll let everyone know the details.

Very Happy New Year 2009 to all.  

FAD’s Second Year Welcomes Old and New

This year’s Foundations of American Democracy program began at The New-York Historical Society and welcomed several new participants:

Meghan Carroll, Urban Assembly School for the Performing Arts

Danielle Chatman, a new teacher from Bread & Roses High School

Bridget Hozumi, AP, Hudson Cliffs School

Deborrah Karim, Choir Academy of Harlem

Andrew Landers, Wadleigh Secondary School

Mingyang Liu, Urban Assembly School for the Performing Arts

Anne Livosi, Hudson Cliffs School

Valeriano Small and Liz Fletcher from Mott Hall II

Patricia Benjamin, Brandeis High School

Jennifer Thomas, Urban Assembly School for the Performing Arts, and

Robert McDougall, IS 195

We also have a new N-YHS Museum educator, Ms. Shira Federman, who will be planning and facilitating some of our workshops this year.

It was a pleasure to have so many teachers return, including:

Shari Allbright, Wadleigh Secondary School

Loretta Brady, P. S. 278

Martin Espinal, Wadleigh Secondary School

Marek Farenholc, JKO High School

Andrew Frederick, Harbor Heights Middle School

Shawn Harris, IS 286

Judith Hartmann, The Center School

Anthony Klug, Wadleigh Secondary School

Russell Lerner, MS 256

Glenn Mason, Wadleigh Secondary School

Tamara Montano, Frederick Douglas Academy

Bonnie Page, IS 195

Claire Scesney-Lundhal

Ilyce Siegel, Wadleigh Secondary School

Carlos Tabares, Harbor Heights Middle School

Gerard Trimarco, High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering

Regina Zafonte, High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering

Lydia Caballero, Brandeis High School

Michael Kaniecki, Brandeis High School

Kerry Trainor, Brandeis High School

Our first two meetings combined administrative start-up duties, that is, going over the program requirements for the new folks and reviewing it for the returning participants, and introductory activities facilitated by Dr. Elizabeth Grant.  In the second half of our first meeting, Dr. Grant brought us into The Luce Center where an exhibit on “The Vote” set up the lesson on integrating on-line research with creating a time line.  Ms. Deborrah Karim took the time line back to The Choir Academy of Harlem to use with her students.  The second lesson had us all studying documents on Immigration (the theme of this Fall’s program) to elicit our term’s inquiries on the subject.

Since then, our first lecture was presented by Dr. Ed O’Donnell of Holy Cross University.  Dr. O’Donnell’s lecture was comprehensive, yet filled with lots of deeper insights into the history of the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

On October 19, the Uptown Treasures event took place and gave us all the opportunity to visit and learn about some of the most historically important sites in the area where our schools are located.  In the course of the FAD program, we will have visited many of them; but this event gave those who have not been able to join us at The Dyckman Farm House or The National Track and Field Hall of Fame another chance to do so.  Ms. Lydia Caballero, of Brandeis High School and I went that day and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  Ms. Caballero continues to be one of the most enthusiastic participants in the program.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the Immigration program that is lined up as well as the special all day event on “Grant and Lee” that is scheduled for Election Day.