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Project Dates/Times:
Kick-off Videoconference Event with Gerda Weissmann Klein
Thursday, November 15, 2007
10:30 a.m. ET - 12:00 p.m. ET
Prepare for this event!
Service Learning Projects: November 16, 2007 - March 13, 2008
Read more about designing your service learning project!
Wrap-Up Videoconference/Project Collage Event:
Friday, March 14, 2008
10:30 a.m. ET - 12:00 p.m. ET
Prepare for this event!
Target Grade Levels: 8-12; Higher Education
Requirements for Participation: There are two ways to participate in this project!
Interactive Videoconference Participants: Must have H.323 videoconferencing capabilities and be on the MAGPI and/or Internet2 networks - - ALL INTERACTIVE VIDEOCONFERENCE SITES ARE FULL
REGISTRATION CLOSES ON FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2007
Description:
In the winter of 1945, on the day of her liberation from six years of Nazi rule, Gerda Weissmann clung to life at the end of a 350-mile death march. She weighed 68 pounds, her hair had turned white, and she had not had a bath in three years. She survived with courage, grace and dignity.
Gerda Weissmann Klein, renowned motivational speaker and Holocaust survivor, teaches each one of us about tolerance, understanding and making a difference. Gerda Klein’s spirit helped her survive six years under Nazi rule; through her story, and her unique perspective, she continues to help each one of us to understand the dangers of hate and extremism.
Students involved in STAND UP. SPEAK OUT. LEND A HAND will hear from Gerda during a special interactive videoconference event and then embark upon their own service learning projects. Each participating school will be tasked with designing and implementing a service learning project that combats social issues in their community. Schools will have access to an online service-learning curriculum from The Gerda and Kurt Klein Foundation.
Students will then reconvene via videoconference to share their service learning projects with Gerda and the Klein Foundation during a celebratory "Project Collaboration Videoconference" in March.
It's a four-month service learning challenge. Are your students ready to STAND UP, SPEAK OUT, and LEND A HAND against extremism and hunger?
Resources:
Preparing Students for the November 15th Videoconference Event:
The top five questions should be emailed to Heather Weisse at hweisse@magpi.net. Sites can submit their questions for Gerda up until 12:00 noon on Thursday, November 8, 2007. Those schools who have a question selected will be notified via email by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, November 12, 2007. If we do not receive any questions from your site, your students will not be able to ask questions during the event. For those sites who are webstream only, a selected question will be asked by the videoconference moderator on your behalf.
Creating and Implementing a Service Learning Project
Preparing your presentation for the Collaboration Collage Videoconference Event
- Multimedia
- Video presentation or "Public Service Announcement"
- Drama/Skit
- Create/Perform a song
- Create/Describe a piece of artwork
- Website design/presentation
- Mini Game-Show
- "News Report"
- Anything else you can think of!
During your presentation (however you decide to present!), you should incorporate the following information:
- The problem your service learning project addressed
- What made you decide to address this issue
- What you did as part of your service learning project
- Who your service learning project helped
- What you learned from participating in this service learning project
- How others can help address this same issue in their community
For those schools who may be unable to participate interactively in this event and will be watching the live webstream (instead of being interactive videoconference participants), we still want to include your school's presentation! Please videotape your students presentation and send it to me at 3401 Walnut Street, Suite 233A * Philadelphia, PA, 19104. You can send the video on a VHS tape or DVD and we'll play the tape as part of the videoconference event. Videos must be received by Friday, February 29, 2008 in order to be a part of the videoconference event.
Please note that all presentations must be 2 minutes or less. Due to time constraints, your school will be politely cut off if they exceed the time limit.
The final videoconference program agenda will be emailed to everyone on Tuesday, March 4, 2008.
For years author, historian, and speaker, Gerda Weissmann Klein has captivated audiences worldwide with her powerful messages of hope, inspiration, love and humanity. In her speeches and books, Klein draws from her wealth of life experiences: from surviving the holocaust, meeting her future husband on the day of her liberation, to her journey to the United States , accepting an Oscar for a documentary based on her life, and her constant fight to promote tolerance and fight hunger.
In 1939, 15 year-old Gerda Weissmann Klein’s life would change forever as German troops invaded her home in Beilsko, Poland. This day would be forever ingrained in Gerda’s memory, as it was the last time she would ever see her family. Never losing hope, Klein would spend the next three years in a succession of slave-labor camps, until she was forced to walk in a 350-mile death march in which 2,000 women were subjected to exposure, starvation, and arbitrary execution. Despite such atrocities, Klein never lost the will to survive. Klein’s account of living through the Holocaust is documented in her classic autobiography, All But My Life, in print for 46 years in 57 editions. It was the foundation for the Oscar Winning HBO Documentary One Survivor Remembers.
One of the most remarkable chapters in Gerda’s life began when her future husband, Kurt Klein, an American intelligence officer, liberated her. Their story of meeting and life together has been featured on numerous television shows including Oprah, 60 Minutes and CBS Sunday Morning. A book of their letters to one another The Hours After, is a poignant collection of actual correspondence between Gerda and Kurt Klein following the war.
In 2004 Klein released, A Boring Evening at Home (dedicated to her late husband). The book offers glimpses into her life, and into the thoughts that have always vindicated her belief that the most treasured place on earth is home, and that the most beautiful and desirable aim for people is to spend “a boring evening” there with family.
The Kleins’ story is portrayed in the film Testimony, a permanent exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. In June 1997, President Clinton appointed Klein to the council of the Holocaust Museum. The 1995 HBO documentary, One Survivor Remembers, in which Gerda Klein recounts some of her wartime experiences, won a TV Emmy Award, two Cable Ace Awards, and an Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Gerda Klein’s editorial credits also include The Blue Rose, a story about the mentally retarded that subsequently became a film in India. Her work, Promise of a New Spring, is devoted to teaching young children about the Holocaust, while A Passion for Sharing is a biography of New Orleans philanthropist Edith Rosenwald Stern, which garnered its author the Valley Forge Freedom Award. In 1996, Klein was one of five women to receive the prestigious international Lion of Judah award in Jerusalem. More recently, she was featured on the cover of a McDougall-Littel educational textbook, The Americans, alongside such other notable figures as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., Ronald Reagan, and Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf. She was recently awarded the Brandeis University Sachar Award as well as the Blue Valley Good Neighbor Award. Gerda Klein served as the keynote speaker at the United Nations on January 27, 2006 at the first International Holocaust Remembrance Day Program.
Klein’s constant striving for the preservation of human rights and dignity has earned her seven Doctorates of Humane Letters, along with countless other awards. In 1998 along with her late husband, Klein founded the Gerda and Kurt Klein Foundation (www.kleinfoundation.org). Dedicated to easing human suffering wherever it maybe, Gerda has worked tirelessly with her foundation to fight hunger and violence, and to promote tolerance, lessen prejudice and encourage community service focused on local hunger relief. As a public non-profit, this small but most important foundation relies upon contributions and grants in order to accomplish its mission.
In October 2003 and again in September 2005, The Klein Foundation partnered with TIME Classroom to create a unique multimedia educational kit sent to almost 2 million high school students across the country entitled: “Stand Up, Speak Out, Lend a Hand.” This special school supplement s hares the Kleins’ experiences as the basis to teach students about the importance of respect, responsibility and acceptance of differences.
In the Fall 2005 a significant and exciting partnership was created between the Klein Foundation and Southern Poverty Law Center addressing the issues of anti-Semitism and intolerance in its larger context. To date, there have been over 68,000 requests for this kit in just over 10 months. This project is available FREE to every school in the country upon request. This Klein Foundation’s two educational programs were nominated as one of four finalists for outstanding student publications from the prestigious Educational Publishers Association of America in June 2004 (Stand Up, Speak Out Lend a Hand) and June 2006 (One Survivor Remembers).
About the Gerda and Kurt Klein Foundation
In 1998 along with her late husband, Gerda Weissmann Klein founded the Gerda and Kurt Klein Foundation. Dedicated to easing human suffering wherever it maybe, Gerda has worked tirelessly with her foundation to fight hunger and violence, and to promote tolerance, lessen prejudice and encourage community service focused on local hunger relief. As a public non-profit, this small but most important foundation relies upon contributions and grants in order to accomplish its mission.
In October 2003 and again in September 2005, The Klein Foundation partnered with TIME Classroom to create a unique multimedia educational kit sent to almost 2 million high school students across the country. This special school supplement s hares the Kleins’ experiences as the basis to teach students about the importance of respect, responsibility and acceptance of differences. This Klein Foundation/TIME Classroom program entitled Stand Up, Speak Out, Lend a Hand , was nominated as one of four finalists for outstanding student publications from the prestigious Educational Publishers Association of America in June 2004.
In the Fall 2005 a significant and exciting partnership was created between the Klein Foundation and Southern Poverty Law Center addressing the issues of anti-Semitism and intolerance in its larger context. To date, there have been over 70,000 requests for this kit in just over a year. This project is available FREE to every school in the country upon request.