Dr. Peiffer hopes to be able to implement effective instructional and outreach programs studied at the Academy within the district over the next several years to benefit students.
Dr. Peiffer will also travel June 26 to July 4 to Poland as part of an educators study seminar on the Holocaust with the intent to develop a Holocaust semester course at the high school. The development of a Holocaust curriculum is recommended by Act 70 of 2014, which strongly encourages schools to offer instruction in the Holocaust, genocide, and other human rights violations. This is being done with the goal of developing a curriculum that provides students with an understanding of the importance of the protection of human rights and the potential consequences of unchecked ignorance, discrimination, and persecution.
This opportunity is being offered through Classrooms Without Borders. Other teachers and
Superintendent Gary Peiffer students from the Greater Pittsburgh and West Virginia areas will also be participating in the study tour. Among the places in Poland the group will visit are Warsaw and Krakow, as well as the Treblinka Extermination Camp, Majdanek and Auschwitz concentration camps, Kazimierz Dolny, Lublin, Schindler’ s Factory and the Wieliczka Salt Mines.
Dr. Peiffer will study Jewish culture and heritage in Poland, the rise of anti-Semitism and the impact of the Holocaust on that culture. He will examine the effects on the greater population as well as those individuals who suffered and those who survived. He will also have the opportunity to meet with survivor Howard Chandler in the town of Wierzbnik and will follow in his footsteps as he relates to his journey of terror to life today.
Following his return, Dr. Peiffer, a former history teacher, intends to work with teachers Laura Begg and Jamie Sonnie to develop a multifaceted Holocaust curriculum which will then be offered to students as an elective. Dr. Peiffer hopes to be able to implement the course in the 2017-2018 school year.
Cultural Days Embrace Diversity
In May, students from Carnegie and Crafton elementary schools held Cultural Days to recognize the birthplaces of pupils, parents and ancestors. Every grade was assigned a country or region to research. Assignments required each grade to locate the country on a map, discover the official language, population, currency and type of government. Carnegie students tackled the countries of Italy, Africa, Iraq, the Ukraine, Poland, India, Ireland and Asia. Crafton Elementary students researched regions, including Western Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and the British Isles, while fifth graders were asked to explore the ancestry and culture of Native Americans.
Carnegie Elementary has been hosting a Cultural Day since 2013 when Principal Carla Hudson perceived the event as an approach to embrace diversity within the school and the community. The program was correlated with the district’ s Olweus anti-bullying program, which encourages impartiality and tolerance.
In addition to learning about the location and statistics of countries or regions, students explored the various holidays and celebrations, as well as customary foods, the arts, the structural design of buildings and the style of dress or fashion and textiles. Projects included following recipes to prepare and sample different foods, constructing two and three-dimensional buildings with cardboard to display architecture and learning dances and music specific to a particular culture. The Culture Day preparations allowed each grade level to reap a broad introduction to the culture and customs of a particular nation.
On Culture Day, held May 13 at Carnegie Elementary and May 14 at Crafton, some classes presented videos or PowerPoints to illustrate what was learned, while other classes displayed their work throughout the room and presented an oral summary of their research. With a replicated passport in hand, students and visiting parents could“ travel the world” by exploring every classroom to observe the results of hard work and discover the varied culture of many countries.
Carnegie Elementary included residents of the community, dressed in customary garb, who demonstrated dances or shared artifacts specific to a native country. Students were showcased performing the tarantella, an Italian dance, and the Ukrainian Hoka.
Cultural Day builds positive identities and a respect for differences by weaving diversity into the fabric of children’ s lives. The event is an important educational experience and a step in helping youngsters accept, understand and value the rich and varied world in which they live.
Clockwise from top left: Parent Anpriece Hart performs a traditional African dance; Crafton fifth graders Garin O’ Leary and Kaylee Shipley offered samples of Eastern European foods to visitors on Cultural Day; Using watercolors, second graders Hayleigh Werner and Emily Steiner of Carnegie Elementary painted drawings they made after studying Ukrainian architecture; Carnegie kindergarten students Aarna Pendey, Natalie Daugherty, Grace Turko, Milina Eitel and Dalanney Tate gathered in the auditorium with classmates to learn the Italian tarantella; Crafton Elementary third graders designed Molas to illustrate the textile art created by the Kuna Indians of Panama. arlynton-Montour
CARLYNTON SCHOOL DISTRICT NEWS
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