ALBA’s Teacher Institutes Grow
With the support of the Puffin Foundation, ALBA has now successfully conducted educational outreach workshops in New York; Tampa, Florida; Oberlin, Ohio; and Alameda County, California. Similar programs are slated to take place this fall in New York, New Jersey, and Chicago. Scores of high school teachers all over the country are enjoying the opportunity to work with experts on developing ways of incorporating the stories and the archival materials of the Lincoln volunteers into their classes in U.S. history, world history, Spanish literature, English literature and art.
As the programs expand to new participants, we are also intensifying our follow-up efforts, trying to stay in touch with, and lend continued support to, the alumni of our outreach initiatives. To this end, in early July, James D. Fernández and Juan Salas led an intense workshop at NYU, attended by five former participants who were invited back to the Archives to further develop and refine lesson plans and curricular units focused on the Lincolns.
At the start of the three-day workshop, Professor Robert Cohen, of NYU’s Steinhardt School, told the participants of his plans to edit a book on “Teaching the Spanish Civil War” and encouraged them to consider collaborating with him on that project. The participants also enjoyed one-on-one tutorials via skype with Peter Carroll and Sebastiaan Faber. The lesson plans and curricular units that the teachers worked on address a broad range of topics, from the motivations of the volunteers in the Spanish Civil War as compared to those of volunteers in other wars, through the representations in poetry written by IBers of the horrors of war, to the historical and artistic context of Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica.
The New Jersey Association of Federal Program Administrators, NJAFPA, will hold a professional development event, its’ Winter Training Institute, December 2 2011 at the Eatontown Sheraton in Eatontown NJ. For more information check out http://www.njeducatorsprofessionaldevelopment.com/winter-training-institute/ .
The event has a full line up of excellent presentations by individuals hailed as literal superstars in the field of education. Mr. Mike Miles, the Superintendent of Schools for Harrison Two School District in Colorado Springs CO and Professional Education Developer for Focal Point will be the keynote speaker. He will present information from his work in salvaging over 50 failing school districts as well as practical strategies to arm classrooms for the 21st century. Other outstanding presenters include; Bari Erlichson, PhD, Assistant Commissioner and Chief Performance Officer for the New Jersey Department of Education speaking about how the state is implementing policies to link teacher pay and tenure decisions based on how students perform on selected standardized tests. Karen Cambell, Office Manager for the Title I Department of the NJDOE will discuss findings accumulated from the implementation of No Child Left Behind and also discuss factors that school districts should know to ensure they receive federal funds based upon the mandate. Mr. Jeffrey Hauger, also of the NJDOE, will be presenting about PARCC, or Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.