Educators That Rock!: Elizabeth Devine
FindingEducation met up with Elizabeth Devine at the annual National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) conference in Atlanta, Ga. in November. At the conference, Devine was named as one of the NCSS Outstanding Secondary Social Studies Teachers of the Year for 2009-2010. She also hosted a panel focused on helping teachers integrate the study of human rights into their curriculum.
Devine teaches human rights, government and AP history, and she team-teaches an American studies course with an English teacher at Hall High School in Hartford, Conn.
We recently spoke with Devine over the phone. She shared some of her own strategies for helping students take positive action in their communities and on a global scale. “When you talk about how to address the problems of the world it all comes down to one thing, and that’s education, because education is hope,” Devine said.
fE: Tell me about how you got started as a teacher, and how you began the human rights course at your school.
ED: I started teaching in 1978 in West Hartford and one of the first people who had an impact on me was a Holocaust survivor. She was a teacher at the school. We became friends, and together we started to write the Human Rights manual for the state of Connecticut.
Then, in about the late 90s, there was a specialist in the Cambodian genocide that came to speak at the school. And I just became more and more interested in the topic. I realized, at a high school level, we do teach the Holocaust, and if you’re in a world history course, you do learn about things like Stalin. But most often there’s no discussion of anything going on in Africa, and very little about Central Asia.
My colleague, Sarah Lawrence, and I approached our department head and asked, “Could we devise this course and run it, because there seems to be a gap in the curriculum?” And he said, “Yes.”
One of the focal points of the course is that the kids had to implement some kind of an action project that would help to educate other people or in some way address the issues that are being discussed.
fE: What is an action project and how can other teachers and students create their own?
ED: Simply learning about an issue is step one of taking action. Most courses stop there. Rather than giving tests, and final exams, Sarah and I decided we wanted students to see themselves as active learners.
One way to do that is to say to them, “Now that you’ve done the research on the topic, how can you affect positive change on that topic on a local level?” That’s what the point of the project is: To see themselves not only as having a circle of concern but also a circle of influence, and to show that one person can make a difference.
It’s absolutely a challenge but if we give them suggestions, and guides and a long the way, consult with them about what they’re doing, they generally come up with some really fabulous ideas.
fE: What impact have these projects had on your students?
ED: One part of that project is the evaluation after the project is finished. Was I successful here? What were my obstacles? If I had to do it again in the future, what would I do? And that’s a really great learning experience because reflection is a really important part of education. We often find students saying that they realize they could have done it a different way.
fE: What are you teaching your students right now?
ED: Right now I’m doing a unit on trafficking, which is very compelling to the kids. I’m having a judge come in to speak, who is the father of one of my students, and who actually just heard a trafficking case in Hartford. We also have an immigration customs agent coming in; they deal with human trafficking and kids are very compelled by this topic.
fE: How did the Human Rights Coalition develop?
ED: The first year we ran the human rights course, there was a young lady who decided that for her project, she was going to initiate a human rights coalition. That was her project and we’ve been meeting ever since. Just recently we were working on a domestic abuse and violence project. We’ve also done work with the Central Asia Institute, which is Greg Mortenson’s organization [Mortenson builds schools especially for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan]. We always do our fundraising on March 25 because the 25th article of the Human Rights Declaration is about the right to education. And for two years in a row, we’ve collected over $2,000 for his organization.
fE: Have you ever had parents or the administration get upset about what you’re teaching students?
ED: Never. Never. I generally deal with topics that most nobody else wants to talk about and I feel that’s one of the reasons the kids like the course. They can be challenging topics. It’s a little gritty. But we do teach in what is a very liberal community, so I’ve never had any complaints. But Sarah and I have made a great attempt to make sure we don’t exploit the topic. We have to make sure that we do a lot of background work and find appropriate examples. I watch all the films before I show them, and I read the materials; that’s partly just the experience of being a teacher.
fE: Can you tell me about the Memory Portraits program?
ED: That’s just the most beautiful project. Again, Allegra Levy, this young lady [a graduate] who started the Human Rights Coalition at Hall High, came up to me in the middle of the semester and said, “I just saw this thing on CBS News and it was called The Memory Project. This sounds like something we can do at our school.”
What she saw was Ben Schumaker being interviewed by Katie Couric. And I think the story goes: He was an aid worker in Central America and he recognized that where he was, these kids had no portraits of themselves, no pictures, nothing about their identity.
So Ben takes Polaroid shots of the kids and then he sends them to the schools and our students draw the kids’ portraits. We send them back to Ben and then he hand delivers them, and takes pictures of the kids holding their portraits.
The first year we had kids from Kenya. Their parents had died from HIV. The second year we had kids from India, whose mothers worked in brothels. And last year we had kids from Myanmar. This is our fifth year and it’s really taken off.
fE: One of the other projects you mentioned in your panel was Red Hand Day.
ED: Red Hand Day is celebrated on Feb. 12, all around the world. The idea of the day is to raise people’ s awareness about child soldiers in conflict. Our kids get red paint and they have kids put their handprint on the banner. We put the banners all over school. And we hand out pamphlets, we do teach-ins and write petitions to put pressure on other governments to not use child soldiers. Go online to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers to find out more. Because it’s usually around Valentine’s Day, we also educate kids by selling fair trade chocolate.
fE: What are students doing within their own communities?
ED: One young lady had a summer experience where she worked as a mentor. She came to school and said, “I really want to do something because there are so many kids who need a positive relationship to help get them through school.” She and another young lady put together a mentoring/tutoring program. They instituted it in one of the schools in our town that borders Hartford and that takes in a lot of “at-risk” kids.
Last year, I had a young lady who apparently had some friends who were at risk in terms of suicidal behavior. She was involved with an NGO that dealt with helping prevent teen suicide. She was working with a social worker in our school and they developed a protocol for teenagers. And she actually coordinated several concerts at a local playhouse and raised money for this organization.
fE: One of your colleagues pointed out that what makes you a good teacher is that you are emotionally connected with the material. Do you agree? Do you think all teachers should be emotionally connected with what they teach?
ED: I have a lot of passion. I am an emotional type of person. You can always sort of read my face. And I’m a very positive person. And I love teaching Human Rights because the kids this year are having an epiphany. When you talk about how to address the problems of the world it all comes down to one thing, and that’s education, because education is hope.
I also like teenagers a lot. They can be crazy. There’s no doubt about it. And they test you but ultimately they are the most hopeful people to be around.
I can’t prescribe to people how to teach. My husband’s a teacher and he teaches at the same school, and he’s totally different than I am. And he’s a good teacher. He has a different way with kids and that’s just my way.
fE: What would you do if you weren’t teaching?
ED: I have no idea. I wanted to be a teacher since I was in third grade. I think when I retire, I would like to work with an NGO and I’d like to do something in the community and maybe something broader. I don’t know.
fE: What was it in third grade that made you so sure you wanted to be a teacher?
ED: I went to a Catholic school and I had this one nun that I liked very much. Part of it may have had to do with the fact that I was a stutterer, and she was very kind to me. I had to make a speech in front of the class and I was so nervous, and my mother and this nun guided me through it. It was great!
Elizabeth Devine’s Favorite Sites:
The New York Times
The Daily Dish
Politico
Los Angeles Times
Indian Country Today
AllAfrica
KIVA
Sierra Club
BBC
