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Blake Hensley (right) and Phillip Whitt, 5th graders at Jones Intermediate School, learn about the Holocaust from a book provided through a Teaching Tolerance grant. |
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Mount Airy, N.C. — When she learned that some of her students were hiding their Jewish identity because they feared being bullied, Linda Myers knew she had to address the problem.
"There wasn't just one incident, there were several of them," said Myers, "We had a teacher who abandoned a course of study because some students were making fun of their peers."
When she realized the extent of the problem, Myers, who teaches more than 60 students at J.J. Jones Intermediate School here, went home and wrote an application for a Teaching Tolerance grant. Her idea for the project was to use different picture-based texts to address growing up in an environment where not everyone shared the same religious beliefs.
"I always knew that if 3rd and 4th graders are teasing someone about their religion, it's because they don't understand," Myers said.
Myers received a $500 grant from Teaching Tolerance which she used to purchase 40 new and used books about the Holocaust. Myers' students looked through the books, which included Tell Them We Remember, Star of Hope, The Harmonica, The Cats in Krasinski Square, Four Perfect Pebbles, on their own. The students then read one of three novels about the Holocaust: Number the Stars, The Devil's Arithmetic and Daniel's Storye.
Myers says she chose the picture books because she believed they would help her students identify with victims of the Holocaust, without frightening them. Over the course of a week, the students read the picture books and watched the movie Six Million Paperclips. All along, Myers introduced ideas of propaganda, bias and intolerance.
"We talked about the stereotypes the students have encountered and heard, and we discussed the impact that stereotypes and propaganda have," Myers said. "The idea was to make them less nervous when talking about these issues."
One way the students looked at propaganda and bias was by examining their own textbooks. They looked at their own books critically and compared them to other reading they have done on the Holocaust. They were then encouraged to offer their own opinions on whether the books present an unbiased view of the Holocaust.
In addition to the Holocaust, Myers' unit covered the Civil Rights Movement and ended with the terrorist attacks of September 11.
"If you look at it, the lesson of the Civil Rights Movement is the lesson of the Holocaust is the lesson of 9/11," she said. "In education, we are the teachers of good citizenship. All of those are examples in history where citizenship failed."
Teaching Tolerance grants administrator Rhonda Thomason said Myers' project exemplifies the kind of work the Center aims to support through its Teaching Tolerance grants.
"Linda Meyers' grant project is a fine example of the kind of program that we hope to see implemented in classrooms across the country," Thomason said. "Her comprehensive literacy project actively involves students in dialogue about religious tolerance and immigration acceptance and helps break down barriers. Her project models tolerance education that can make a difference in every classroom and in every school."
Since its inception in 1997, the Teaching Tolerance grants program has awarded more than 1,000 grants — totaling more than $1 million — to educators nationwide. The money supports a wide variety of innovative, student-centered projects that promote tolerance and respect.
SPLC Report
Spring 2007
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