I am expert and degreed in two fields. Beyond those, I have accrued a significant understanding of Holocaust Education and Human Rights issues thanks to this organization. I am a member of the early cohort that formed the Educators Planning Committee (EPC) following a summer institute taught by Shel Grebstein and Steve Goldberg in 1993, almost 16 years ago. It has been a rich, long run, -- one you should be proud of as an organization. The programs grow richer by the year and the impact becomes greater as more and more teachers and students come through your wide range of programming.
One of my degreed areas of expertise is professional development. I am well versed in all of the research that points to embedded, long-term training for maximum effect in the classroom leading to positive change in students. That is where this organization has succeeded so well. When new teachers become part of the EPC, they paricipate in deep discussions with their more experienced colleagues. They hear what goes on in other teachers' classrooms across the county and region. They beoome excited and participate in substantive summer institutes and academic year courses to deepen their knowledge of Holocaust Education and Human Rights Issues. It becomes embedded in their schools when they recruit fellow teachers, and create study and book groups in their schools - when they pass on what they gained from their professional development to their students, bring n survivors and guest lecturers, and create a visible and respected Holocaust and Human Rights Program in their schools that is so much larger than themselves and their classrooms. And they stay on the EPC for years and years and years, answering the requirement for long-term training.
I have watched this happen time and time again. I am sure this body has wondered how to measure the impact on students of the many continually- and extensively-educated teachers who have passed through these very doors and through the wonderful programs of this organization. I would encorage you perhaps in a better economic time to study that impact with funding for outside expertise -- you'll need that outside expertise because this would be a massive study of thousands of students and their evolving attitudes and choices -- to find and study the grown up formmer students of teachers who have come through your programs year after year after year. Think what a wonderful quantitative validation of your work that would be. That is my charge to you.
Congratulations and warmest thanks to the Board for enabling the EPC and the wonderful programs this organization offers; my eternal thanks to the EPC for the richness of understanding and collegiality it has brought to my professional and personal life. Thank you for this opportunity to offer these reflections.
Mary Beth Anderson
Director,
The Teacher Center of Central Westchester |
