PBS NewsHour: N.Y. Teacher Takes Students on a Virtual Trip to Learn Realities of Refugee Life

[alp227]

Run time: 07:58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSh6uhJ_fk8   Posted on YouTube: June 21, 2011 By YouTube Member: PBSNewsHour Views on YouTube: 202   Posted on DU: June 21, 2011 By DU Member: alp227 Views on DU: 637

 
A high school teacher in New York City decided to set aside the usual curriculum and take her students on a virtual five week journey to the Middle East to learn about the millions who have fled the war in Iraq and became refugees. Special correspondent John Tulenko of Learning Matters reports. Transcript.

JOHN TULENKO: Here, a few months back, ninth grade English teacher Lauren Fardig decided to set aside the usual curriculum and instead take her students on a virtual five-week journey to the Middle East, to bring them as close as she possibly could, without leaving the classroom, to the millions of people who have fled the war in Iraq and become refugees.

LAUREN FARDIG: It's the people that are really suffering from the war. It's the everyday people that are trying to go to work and go to school and do the same things that we're doing here who are really, really being impacted by this.

And it's also, like, the world is so interconnected. And I think the things that are happening in the Middle East really do affect things that are happening over here in ways that they don't necessarily see. And so I want to try to illuminate some of that for them.

So, start coloring in the countries that you think are Middle Eastern countries, and I will come back and help you, OK?

JOHN TULENKO: Guided by a curriculum designed by the Morningside Center, an education nonprofit, Fardig began her course just as waves of protests were spreading across the Arab world.

We wanted to find out how much these ninth graders knew about people, places and recent events there. So, at the outset, I gave them a little quiz.

Name four countries in the Middle East.

STUDENT: India.

JOHN TULENKO: Big protests in the Middle East, do you know where they are happening?

STUDENT: I'm not sure.

JOHN TULENKO: Who is Gadhafi?

STUDENT: Gadhafi?

Fardig teaches at Banana Kelly High School in The Bronx, N.Y. It's good to see a positive story about a difference-making teacher for once; according to Arne Duncan, teachers are just selfish, greedy, bums who leech off the taxpayer dole thanks to those darned unions!

[elleng]

1. Great story. Thanks for posting.

[chervilant]

2. Thank you

for showing how much we teachers impact our students' lives, AND how much our students' lives impact us.