One of the challenges many teachers experience is trying to meet the needs of their diverse student population in their respective classes. Differentiated instructions strategies (D.I.) enables teachers to better meet these varied needs and in turn enables students to be successful because their needs are met at their level of readiness, interests and learning styles.

In this interview, we asked Rob Simon, Assistant Professor of Multiliteracies in Education at OISE/University of Toronto (Dept of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning), to tell us more about the Teaching to Learn Project so we could better understand how and why collaborative (teacher-adolescent) curriculum planning worked, why he chose Elie Wiesel's Night as the study text, and where he got the idea to ask project participants to paint on the pages of the text as a form of reading response.

The images below are the culmination of those responses, which were mounted in an exhibition titled After Night.

As my students build their journals, ideas of injustice and intolerance flood their pages. Yet this month, the pens are down and students of Genocide are standing up and speaking out. Mathew Jones A.K.A “TESTAMENT” provided Waterdown students with the tools and the inspiration to put their thoughts into Spoken Word Art.

I recently completed a Guidance AQ with a heavy focus on counselling methodologies. In one session we previewed Solution Focused Counselling and in another Bereavement Counselling was the focus. Whereas Solution Focused Counselling relies heavily on the Active Coping Strategy concentrating on Problem Focused Coping including Cognitive Decision Making and Direct Problem Solving and Bereavement Counselling focused on Support Seeking Coping Strategies such as Support for feelings (CCSC & HICuP, 7), in both the importance of teaching coping strategies was highly emphasized. It became clear to me that the need to teach our students effective coping strategies is important (for further on this, see “Eight Important Reasons for Teaching Kids Healthy, Brain-based Coping Skills in School”).

Graphic imagery is used in this lesson. Please read the full post before teaching this.

I start by displaying the famous photo called "The Last Jew in Vinnitsa." 

I say, "This was the title given by the Einsatzgrup soldier in whose pocket it was found, scribbled on the back. Vinnitsa is a small town in the Ukraine whose entire Jewish population was wiped out by the Einsatzgruppen mass killing methods in 1941."

This is all I tell my students when displaying this picture. They have already learned about the Einsatzgruppen and read the selection on "Battalion 101" in Holocaust and Human Behaviour Chapter 7 Reading 3 . They have also been taught that there are three groups involved in genocide: perpetrators, bystanders, and victims.

In my last post I noted how saturated our students are by visual media. What a sharp contrast their lives are with mine at their age. In my high school history classes, the walls were adorned with old men, mostly with mutton chop whiskers and beards, staring down at me. Each of them had their name, dates of birth and death, and a sour stare that intimidated me when I glanced at them. My teachers reverently cited these old mens' careers and quoted them to the point of endless boredom.

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I am often asked why I would want to teach about genocide. What would possess me to spend so much time reading, talking, and thinking about some of the worst events in human history? My answer to this question has always been inspired by Wangari Maathai’s Story of the Hummingbird. Like many good stories, the way it is told varies. My delivery tends to be the following:

As mentioned in my previous post, doing professional development with Facing History has been a very transformative experience for me as an educator. Many teachers attend PDs, seminars and workshops, and quite often, there is not much follow-up afterward, but with Facing History, the staff ensures that they provide resources and follow-up with teachers attending their seminars.

Myra Novogrodsky, who connected with Facing History as a classroom teacher back in the early ‘80s, was just honoured with a Diamond Jubilee medal for her contributions in Ontario as a community organizer, writer, and mentor. Myra shared with Facing History one place where she found her inspiration as a teacher. Here’s what she had to say: