Hello from DC

To my friends at the Advanced Institute:
Greetings from Washington DC! The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Teacher Fellowship is not only a long name, but an absolutely amazing experience.  I hope that I can do it justice in a few lines...
The first piece that thrilled me is that the Fellowship and program are based on the same philosophy of NWP in that it is really a "teachers teaching teachers" model.  We are participating in activities that we can take with us and emulate in the classroom and demonstrate to other teachers. One example of this is a timeline activity that we are working on in small groups. The Museum emphasizes the importance of Content, Context and Complexity. Each group has been  assigned a different topic to research while keeping in mind the "3 Cs" as well as the pedagogical guidelines (some examples: Do not teach or imply the Holocaust was inevitable, Avoid simple answers to complex questions, Strive for balance in establishing whose perspective informs your study of the Holocaust, Do not romanticize history, Contextualize the history...) The timeline covers the years 1933 - 1945 and already has information about individuals under some of the dates.  Our mission, in our groups, was to add 10 images with captioning information in various layers to show the complexity of the Holocaust.  The five group topics that form the layers:
1. Events from history
2. Events that represent the world's response
3. Anti-Jewish laws and decrees
4. Primary source documents that represent the themes of collaboration and complicity
5. Literature of the Holocaust - in context (from a single work or a combination of works)
On the surface it seems like a simple enough task to identify 10 images in our particular group for our topic... Not so much though, when we considered that it was not just the surface content, but the context had to be recognized and the nuances of complexity had to be apparent as well. The conversations, thinking and writing has been amazing.
Secondly, the program challenges us to grapple with the same questions that our students struggle with in the classroom - albeit at a different level of understanding and complexity. We have been looking at a wide variety of topics, such as the history of anti-Semitism, the sliding scale of collaboration and complicity, contemporary genocide, dangerous speech and the incitement to genocide, teachers and education in the Third Reich and deciding what individual outreach projects we will be working on over the next year. Phew! As with NWP, the opportunity to be a student again and look at things through a fresh lens is so rewarding and is both draining and energizing.
The days are long - starting at 9 and ending around 8, but the opportunity is incredible.  While I am missing you at Warner and can't help but think how much you all would "get" this, I do feel at home here as well, Several of my new colleagues are NWP consultants as well and this has provided another layer of common ground.
I hope the week is going well for you and I look forward to seeing you on Friday!
- Jeff