How in the face of the complexity of history?
Teachers will be briefed on how to explore extensive archives from important sources, the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center Museum, and the camp’s original structures, and participate in sessions with former inmates, their descendants, and education experts on the most productive training practices, creating a foundation of wisdom. to take back to the classroom.
“History is not as undeniable as it is written in a textbook,” Emborg said. “Our goal was to create a workshop that would allow others to perceive those broader criteria as they have been identified. »
“It’s very important for teachers to be informed about how to teach this subject and what works in their classrooms because they know their students better than anyone else,” said Sybil Tubbs, Heart Mountain’s director of education. “Heart Mountain fills those gaps in so many ways. “
Although the workshop focuses on history, it is not just for history teachers. Part of the purpose of the workshop is for teachers of all subjects and grades to find an angle to introduce the history of Japanese American incarceration into their respective subjects. A math professor will read about how the federal government received $20,000 in reparations for surviving prisoners under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. An English teacher plans to use poetry created at Heart Mountain.
For Leslie Gore, an art professor at University School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the workshop is an opportunity to intertwine curriculum and personal history. Gore’s parents, uncle, and grandparents were imprisoned at Heart Mountain. She has visited the site before, but this is the first time she has seen it from a coaching attitude and it is the first career progression workshop she has attended in her coaching career. instructor.
“I’m here to learn, to build anything that’s meaningful, that resonates with who my mother was,” Gore said. “Not only am I here to honor her legacy and feel her spirit, but I’m also here to do what she wants me to do. “
In the past, Gore scholars have created bouquets of flowers for pipe cleaners similar to those made by inmates at Heart Mountain celebrations. Origami cups, fan-folded books with painted pictures, and stamps are other projects Gore has created with his students founded on his Hitale family. Thanks to the Heart Mountain workshop, she is very happy to be able to link a more concrete story to art.
“Sculpture is taught, but it is the story that began. . . We think about what happened in Hitale and we think about Ms. Gore’s story,” he said. “And to be able to teach that Hitale and Hitale, especially in a very artistic way. “, makes a lot of sense. “