Chatham school awarded grant

‘NEVER FORGET’  Janet Gibbs, middle school literature teacher at St. Patrick School, Chatham, was recently given a 2016 Joan Lavine Keats Social Justice Award. This grant will enable the school to expand St. Patrick’s middle school Holocaust- and genocide- studies curriculum. Gibbs (third from right) is pictured with students and related reading materials: (from left) Molly McHugh, Matthew Fernandez, Michelle Portal, Brian Boler and Ellie Sims.

CHATHAM  A grant was recently awarded that will enable St. Patrick School here to broaden the scope of its middle school Holocaust- and genocide-studies curriculum — which now brings students face to face with its victims through literature — by adding more related books and other features, such as inviting an expert in the field to speak.

On Nov. 14, the Julius and Dorothy Koppelman Holocaust/ Genocide Resource Center at Rider University, Princeton, informed Janet Gibbs, St. Patrick’s middle school literature teacher, that she received one of its 2016 Joan Lavine Keats Social Justice Awards. The grant supports educators who are concerned with confronting prejudice and furthering social justice through the study of the Holocaust or other genocides. The $200 award can be used to support school field trips, such as a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., an invited speaker series and videos and books, said Gibbs, who applied for the grant.

“This grant aligns with the mission and philosophy of St. Patrick School. While witnessing to Jesus’ message of peace and social justice, the school enables its students to acquire the knowledge and values needed to prepare them to be active members of society,” Christine Ross, principal of St. Patrick’s, which will celebrate its 145th anniversary in February.

The grant will deepen St. Patrick’s middle-school Holo­caust and genocide curriculum, which already includes sixth-graders reading the book, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” by John Boyne, seventh-graders reading the play, “The Diary of Anne Frank” and eight-graders reading the book, “Night” by Elie Wiesel. St. Patrick’s plans to expand its offering of books and to sponsor a speaker from a local college Holocaust studies center to speak to students, Gibbs said.

“We were very impressed by your proposal and your efforts to further Holocaust education. We are delighted to support those efforts,” Harvey R. Kornberg, Ph.D., director of the holocaust/genocide resource center, wrote in a letter to Gibbs, announcing the grant award.

Gibbs facilitates the reading of age appropriate books on the Holocaust that lead them from innocence in sixth grade with “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” to knowledge in seventh grade with “The Diary of Anne Frank” and discussions in eighth grade with “Night.” Students read these books to “understand the personal toll this catastrophe wrought on the populations of Europe during World War II and to this day,” writes Gibbs, who also makes connections, in a non-political way, with modern atrocities, such as those in Syria.

“As a teacher in a Catholic middle school I feel it is vital we discuss the Holocaust by presenting the personal stories of those who were persecuted. Putting a ‘face’ to such a catastrophic event helps students empathize with the horrors. In order for an atrocity of this magnitude to never happen again, we must educate the next generation to ‘never forget,’ ” said Gibbs, a St. Patrick’s teacher since 2002, wrote in the application. She told The Beacon, “We must carry the story forward to now. We want our students to ask themselves if they can make a difference.”

The novel of historical fiction, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” invites sixth-graders to follow the friendship between Bruno and Shmuel as they are placed on opposite sides of a death camp and hinges on Bruno’s innocence about his father’s responsibility there. It “speaks to the innocence of the students and how difficult it is for them to grasp the magnitude of the unspeakable cruelty of the concentration camps,” Gibbs writes.

“This novel is an excellent introduction to the unknown horror that lay before Jews in Europe and is an excellent portrayal of morality through the lives of two innocent boys,” Gibbs writes. “It prompts questions, yet still protects the young 11-year-old readers from the true horrors of the camps.”

The play “The Diary of Anne Frank” focuses on a young girl and her attempt to bring some normality to her two-year exile in the Annex in Amsterdam. Seventh-graders learn about the Holocaust through the eyes of the seven inhabitants, tucked away behind a factory, Gibbs writes.

“Their lives are punctuated by hours of silence and their nerves are frayed by the idea they might be discovered at any moment. This play is a catalyst for students to ask questions about why they were hiding, what would happen if they were caught and where would they be taken,” writes Gibbs, who noted that students also watch the first half hour of the 1960 film of the play.

Eighth-graders read “Night,” a powerful memoir by Wiesel, who survived the horrors of the death camps as a young man and his capacity to forgive his tormentors. It “overwhelms students yet they cannot stop reading it. They need to talk about it.” The book also prompts them to “discuss how they would behave in this situation,” Gibbs writes.

“This memoir serves as a catalyst to discuss if their faith would sustain them in such a place of evil,” writes Gibbs, who noted that Wiesel answered her students’ questions in letter in 2007 that she has framed in her classroom. Instead of anger or hatred he wrote, “I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead and anyone who does not remember betrays them again,” she writes.

In addition, Gibbs gives eighth-graders information on the Warsaw uprising and the underground resistance movements and shows them parts of the propaganda film, “Triumph of the Will,” which gives them a sense of the magnitude of the Nazi movement.

One St. Patrick’s eighth-grader, Mary Kate Vowells said that she looks forward to reading “Night” later and was moved emotionally by both Holocaust-related reading selections in the two previous grades.

“ ‘The Boy with the Striped Pajamas’ had a sad ending but I enjoyed the book. It was a great opportunity to learn about history through historical fiction. I learned that some Nazi soldiers were forced [to commit atrocities] and some of the kids didn’t know what was going on,” Vowells said. “Later, I learned that Anne Frank had to stay quiet for eight hours a day, which would be impossible for me to do. She was trapped in this house but just wanted to be heard by the world,” she said.