A Letter from Mr. Elie Wiesel

Teacher's Note: Upon finishing Night, I assigned my students to write a letter thanking a local Holocaust survivor for his visit to us. Two young men asked me if they could instead write to Elie Wiesel. I said of course! Below is Mr. Wiesel's letter back to them.

Dear (student names):

Thank you for your kind letter. I always enjoy hearing from young people, and your letter was no exception.

I am moved to learn of the effect that my memoir, Night, had on you. As a writer, nothing is more important. From your words, it is obvious that you are very sensitive to the darkness of which I wrote.

If Night has helped you better understand the tragedies of the past, I am grateful. It is my belief that one who hears a witness becomes a witness in turn. May you use your knowledge and understanding to educate those who are unaware.

Keep learning and reading, more and more.

With best wishes to you,

Elie Wiesel

Curiosity and Imagination

Einstein is quoted on bookmarks, coffee mugs and t-shirts as saying that imagination is more important than knowledge. I'd refine that (are you allowed to refine Einstein?) to say that the two reinforce each other. Rather unexpectedly, one of the most powerful writing prompts I've given yet this year simply began, "I've always been curious about...." Students were invited to continue the sentence from there. What responses! They wrote about wondering how big the universe really was, how different races emerged, the origins of different languages, why the continents are the size and shape they are, and how viruses survive. Some of them also took a more personal track, wondering about what would happen on an upcoming court date or why a loved one left. When possible, I found articles on subjects the students had expressed curiosity about. I had had another activity planned that day, after the writing prompt, but we didn't even get to it with some classes! Almost every student wanted to share, and the debate about their writings extended into the rest of the class period. It was a powerful reminder that our minds are, in fact, hard wired to learn. This should be natural (which is not the same as saying it's also not work).

I tried a similar activity to inspire some curiosity about a favorite short story of mine, Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergernon". I invited students to imagine what life might be like in the year 2081, the year in which Vonnegut sets his story. They imagined that we'd have cell phones implanted in our brains and have the ability to travel to a place just by thinking of it. They imagined that we'd have a female president by then, though I was most interested to hear that they didn't think we'd have a Muslim or Hispanic president. Such a simple little exercise, but even with my older students here, say seventeen or eighteen, every hand was in the air to imagine.

The question becomes, does this result in actual learning? That is, does the quality of curiosity and the ability to imagine result in a set of knowledge, skills or values which will serve them in their out-of-school lives? I must argue that yes, it certainly does and is a necessary skill in some very practical, concrete ways. Every leap forward in medicine, technology, education or other fields started in someone's imagination. Elise Boulding, in The Hidden Side of History, has even argued that the ability to imagine creatively actually protects democracy! Asar Nafisi has argued something similar in her memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran. Business leaders often talk about the need for creative thinkers as well. Especially with students for whom our educational system has failed, beginning with curiosity, a natural human trait for most of us, is an essential step for engaging students who too often don't see any connection between the classroom and their lives. The curriculum development and educational leadership question then becomes, how can we design learning experiences that begin with being curious about something.

The Kids Are the Curriculum

To understand many educators’ concerns with an exclusive focus on high-stakes, standardized testing, imagine a piano teacher who gave his students worksheets on the keyboard, and the history of the piano, but never asked his students to play.

What ails American schools and what to do about it has been a national conversation for decades now. In the maze of standardized tests, teacher accountability, metal detectors and school take-overs, we must take care that our efforts to ensure accountability are not counterproductive. Curriculum that is stripped of any connection to real community problems and to the lives of the students will not raise test scores, result in authentic learning, increase teacher retention or more result in more peaceful schools. Nor will it prepare our students to be the global leaders that our increasingly connected and competitive world will demand that they be. The key to successful curriculum reform is designing curriculum around a community’s most pressing challenges, rather than reducing it to multiple choice questions. Such curriculum reform also empowers especially at-risk students to address the violence and inequities which impact them and to understand the relevance of their classes to their lives. The kids become the curriculum.

What does this look like in practice? Consider the opportunity in one of our most challenged school systems, Washington D.C. Reducing gang violence, AIDS and other public health threats, community food security, environmental degradation, and unemployment all remain entrenched challenges. As history’s greatest educators, such as Paolo Freire, Maria Montessori and John Dewey, might point out today, these problems themselves make great curriculum. Yet only rarely, especially in our most violent and troubled public schools, are students invited into such critical inquiry of their own lives and communities. Multidisciplinary projects in which students are invited to be young leaders in their communities, which make math, science, reading, writing and research come alive, are possible. I have seen this in my own writing and literature classroom in a Virginia Juvenile Detention home, where my students have used their writing to grapple with everything from domestic violence, gangs, addiction, homelessness on their streets, racism in their schools and the origins of genocide. Additionally, this approach to curriculum design directly addresses the needs of the very students that NCLB most intends to reach: the poorest rural, urban and minority students. The most effective reforms will be those that empower students to actively use the skills and knowledge we want them to gain in authentic ways, and empower teachers to assess them in authentic ways. Standardized assessments, while they do have their utility, cannot really measure the communication, collaboration and problem solving skills that the 21st century is going to demand if the U.S. is to remain competitive, let alone a global leader.

Carefully Taught

I couldn't be more energized by the discussion I have had with students today about racism, tolerance, and the origins of hate. It was one of those days where kids were still debating as I collected pencils, after class had ended.

After several concerned discussions with colleagues about some of the clear tension here between some of the African American students and the Hispanic students, several of us decided we needed to address the comments and behaviors directly. I have long argued for this being a part of every kid's classroom, everywhere, and so the discussion was a natural extension of the literature we read (currently 12 Angry Men), and the topics I suggest for writing.

Today's topic asked students to consider whether we have to be taught to hate, or if we come by it naturally. The evolution of their thinking over the course of the discussion was great to see. Many students initially answered that it's natural. One even wrote that there's "no choice". But when I prodded for examples, and asked follow up questions such as "Where'd those negative feelings come from?", students began listing everything from communities and schools to parents, the media and even U.S. foreign policy as ways in which kids are taught to hate. When one student mentioned Iraq as reasons why he feels the U.S. is hated by Arabs, I reminded them that Dr. King had written similar sentiments in his speech "Beyond Vietnam". King wondered how we can credibly tell kids to not solve problems by fighting when their country solves problems with bombs.

Quite rightly, I think, they also emphasized the role of envy in hatred. One student mentioned the inequalities of how students are sometimes treated in schools, a sure "hidden curriculum" if ever there was one. Another mentioned how, years ago in her kindergarten class, a classmate colored on her paper and the teacher instructed her to color on the other girl's paper, to be fair. An eye for an eye? I don't see how that's problem solving, myself. Cooperation and conflict resolution are not simply skills we absorb by day to day life. Nor are they skills teachers just intuit how to teach. It must be direct, explict and a part of every classroom.

Problem Solving

I've long been advocating for more problem-solving, cross-cultural communications and team work in the English/language arts classroom. Nancy Atwell put it beautifully: "Problems make the best curriculum." She echoes Dewey, Freire and Montessori here in recognizing that experience is the best teacher. As best I can in the context of the Juvenile Detention Home (security is always a factor of course), I try to build team problem solving and an awareness of (mis)communication and culture into my lessons.

Just a few days ago, I posed what seems like it should have been a simple enough problem: the kids were to line up in order from youngest to oldest--silently. They could not speak during the game; of course this forced them to cooperate and communicate in a variety of other ways. A breakthrough occurred in at least two units where it dawned on one student that they could use my whiteboard. The leading students wrote their birthdays up and other students soon caught on, allowing them to all line up in order, without having ever said a word. When we debriefed, I praised the use of alternative strategies and resources. I will continue to advocate for such goals being viewed as a valid aspect of any Language Arts/English classroom. Problem solving is critical to any aspect of life, and if communicating clearly and effectively isn't a "language art", I don't know what is.

It is always a good day when

one of your students, working on his Martin Luther King, Jr., essays, says he's "not used to thinking this hard." Dr. King would approve, I think.

I'm always amazed at what an intimidating process writing is for so many kids, which is why I repeatedly counsel them to "get it down before you get it right." When we wrote a class rubric together, detailed what an "A" essay should have and do, and so on through an "F" essay, spelling and grammar are always the first thing they think of. That's important, of course, but what about the ideas? Weaning them away from the mechanics over substance is a difficult process, and there is so little time with each kid here to accomplish it.

Savage Inequalities: Invisible Edition

So a particular student of ours here was meant to have been released Sept 5, and meant to have been released May prior to the Sept tease. Our leadership was pushing a bit to have him released on the 2nd instead, as that was the first day of school, to let him begin a new school year fresh. This young man has been hear since before Christmas 2007! According to our principal, he has not received a visit from his P.O. or lawyer; I'm also told that his lawyer has not returned phone calls.

How is this possible? How can anyone consider this equal justice?

Amazing, the kid manages to come to class each day with a smile on his face. We hear now his new court day is early Oct. I wouldn't blame the kid if he didn't believe it. He's written "never" under Release Date on his class folder.