Our member schools work relentlessly to ensure that they are providing meaningful summer opportunities for their students. This summer, ten students from six different Texans Can! Academy campuses were the the first students from Dallas and Austin to participate in a week-long program developed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for students and teachers in Washington, D.C.
They will be participating in the summer leadership seminar called Bringing the Lessons Home: Holocaust Education for the Community Leadership Program. Arthur R. Brown, the Museum’s Manager of Community Programs, will lead the students and four faculty and staff members in an overview of the Museum’s program, in which students and teachers explore Holocaust history and why it remains relevant today.
Texans Can! students in the Dallas airport on the way to Washington, D.C.!
The following blog was written by Knycole Smiley, a sophomore at Texans Can! Academy who participated in the program.
7/23/2010
Yesterday, we went back the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. to hear from Henry Greenbaum, a holocaust survivor. He and his family were sent to the ghettos when he was twelve years old – not even a teenager.
The Nazis separated him from his mother, sisters, and younger family members. If you were too young to work, you were killed. Later, they were taken from the ghetto and sent to a concentration camp by train. Some were sent to the left, and others to the right. At that moment, he was separated from his mother and sisters, and never saw them again. He was not certain, but he believed that they had been murdered and buried in trenches that the Jews had been made to dig earlier.
Greenbaum had to sleep in the barracks on a board with two other people. There wasn’t a mattress, a pillow, or anything more than a small blanket to cover himself with.
Knycole Smiley (fourth from left) with Texans Can! classmates, visiting the White House.
I cannot imagine having to live under such conditions. We only got a taste of it at The Catholic University of America, where we lived in dorms that were bare. We had one sheet and a thin blanket, but no pillow. I complained all night and woke up with a crook in my neck, but when Mr. Greenbaum talked about his sleeping conditions, it put things in perspective.
After his speech, I went up to him and told him how grateful I was that he was able to share such a strong story with us. Many of the things he talked about reminded me of the segregation in America that was going on when my grandparents were younger. At that time, blacks weren’t allowed to walk on the sidewalks when whites were on the sidewalks. In Europe, Jews were being treated exactly the same by the Germans.
Mr. Greenbaum taught me a lot that day. I complain about a lot of things and give my mother a hard time, but the things I go through are not even half as bad as what Mr. Greenbaum went through. After that day, I promised to be more appreciative.
After this leadership training, I made pledge, a future commitment. I pledge to be responsible and to take a stand against hate and enforce unity. I pledge to be confident and encourage others. I pledge to make a difference in my community. I pledge to be a leader, so that something this tragic and terrible cannot happen again where I live.
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What do the students at your charter school do over the summer? What kinds of summer opportunities do your students engage in? We’d love to hear from you!