In Focus
If Walls Could Talk

If there's really a story behind every building--the abandoned storefront up the street, the old church around the corner, that brand-new house--one NEA member is making sure students unearth them.

Through "Listening to the Walls Talk," an online educational project, Rosemary Shaw is teaching children how to record the history of houses and neighborhoods around the world and giving them some geographic and research skills along the way.

A Web design and research teacher at Millennium Middle School in Sanford, Florida, Shaw created the site because of her own passion for historic preservation.

"I've always been very interested in historic homes," says Shaw, who two years ago bought a vintage home once owned by the town's undertaker. She was excitedly telling her students about its rich history when it dawned on her that many of her suburban dwellers didn't have a clue about the history of cities, much less the architectural gems within. That's a shame, Shaw says, considering that buildings tell so much about who we are.

"We have to teach the kids the importance of these buildings," Shaw says. "They're disappearing. And what do we put in their place? Strip malls?"

Determined to make a difference, Shaw designed "Listening to the Walls Talk" as a class project for students and their teachers. Teachers guide students through meticulously detailed lessons in geography, research techniques, and historic preservation. Then they create a webpage to post on the "Listening" site, telling their neighborhood's story through writings, photographs, maps, and diagrams. Students are encouraged, too, to work with their parents to research their own homes. Each class then submits the best of these individual home stories to the site for use by other students, museums, and historic societies.

So far, more than 20 U.S. schools are participating in the project, as well as schools in eight countries, including Romania, Poland, the Netherlands, and Uzbekistan. "The project is opening up the world to students," Shaw says, and also bringing history to life.

Shaw recalls one parent telling her how amazed he was when his son rattled off high points of downtown Sanford's history during a tour with out-of-town guests. "I want kids to connect with their communities, she says. "I think that's real important."

Shaw says the project will be ongoing despite the March 15 deadline for the first round of classroom submissions.

--Barbranda Lumpkins Walls

For More: Contact Rosemary Shaw at Rosemary_Shaw@scps.k12.fl.us or visit www.millennium.scps.k12.fl.us/walls.html.

You're 80? Whoa!

How do you get kids in baggy pants to appreciate the good old days? Simple: Get them involved, hands-on, with the elders in their community. NEA members Renee Oscarson, Ph.D., and Julie Bell of South Dakota State University at Brookings, found a way to do just that with an intergenerational learning project that's turned out to be a roaring success. "It's such a great opportunity for both groups to give back to each other," says Oscarson.

Collaborating with the state's 93 chapters of Family, Community and Career Leaders of America (FCCLA), Oscarson, an associate professor of human development, consumer and family sciences, along with assistant professor Bell, are tapping the ingenuity of FCCLA student members from the state's high schools and from their own university. The result has been some lively "face" time between the youth and hundreds of lucky seniors.

The students started the project last summer by evaluating specific senior needs within their communities and planning activities. By the fall, they'd fanned across communities, visiting nursing homes and assisted living facilities, participating in literacy programs, giving manicures and pedicures, and making table favors and door signs. Some students got so creative they even gave a group of elders a senior citizens prom.

Bell says students get a lot more than just a warm feeling of altruism from their involvement. They develop social skills, explore careers in aging and, most importantly, develop worthwhile connections with another generation. Seniors make up more than 14 percent of South Dakota's population, so programs like these, Bell says, are vital to helping them maintain a healthy quality of life. "These experiences need to occur," she notes. "It strengthens both groups by allowing the seniors to increase their resiliency, and the students to boost their self worth" by giving back.

Oscarson, whose project was funded in part by an Innovation Grant from The NEA Foundation, says even she got a boost she didn't expect. "Seeing those older adults transformed my own ideas about what successful aging is," she says. "It's a new perspective."

--Leah Lakins

For More: E-mail Renee Oscarson at renee_oscarson@sdstate.edu or julie_bell@sdstate.edu. For information on NEA Foundation Innovation Grants, visit www.nfie.org.

'Knightly' Pursuits

Katherine Wright Knight will tell you right off that her 9th- and 10th-grade English classes are not for the faint of heart. "My kids accuse me of being strict," she says, chuckling. "[They'll say] 'Mrs. Knight, we're just high school. We're not ready for that!'" So tough, in fact, is her reputation, that on a mural of a castle painted outside her classroom door, there's Knight--on a horse. And taped to the wall, courtesy of her charges, is a cartoon-like picture of a student slugging uphill, back breaking with books.

It's all in jest, of course, for to witness Knight's students preparing for yet another wild adventure in literature--donning Elizabethan costumes they made themselves, practicing character speeches--is to know for certain that nobody is racing to exit this class. That's because Knight, who teaches at the Parkview Arts/Science Magnet High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, is a firm believer in making reading and writing fun, engaging, rigorous, timely, and sometimes, just downright silly.

That she has been able to do this masterfully during 26 years of teaching is one reason Knight was named the 2002 national recipient of The NEA Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence. Her steady activism outside the classroom--as a leader in the Arkansas Education Association, a mentor for college students, a professional development trainer, a volunteer in numerous organizations--is another.

"What I know is that students are not the same as they were 20 years ago, so I can't use the same old methods," says Knight, who last year was also named Arkansas Teacher of the Year. "I believe in change, and in making the classroom as relaxed and humorous and relevant as possible, even as I make high academic demands."

Enter here cartoons, movies, hip hop music, and all manner of hands-on ideas Knight has dreamed up over the years--her famous medieval project, where students compete to find the most creative ways to bring alive topics like the Black Plague; her poetry readings and face-offs renowned now for the fireworks they spark; the book presentations by diverse groups of students, who decide on their own how they will "perform" their novels before the class. And there is the recent favorite--the Elizabethan Era project, where students spend weeks making their own costumes, researching history, and deciding how to write the monologue they will recite to "present" their characters.

"It's about letting them have fun even as they do all the work that's involved, and it's a lot," says Knight. "But I think this is what really motivates kids. With this project, they really get into it."

And, yes, so does she. This year Knight made her grand entrance as Cleopatra. "Truly," she says, laughing, "a sight to behold."

--Marilyn Milloy

For More: E-mail Katherine Wright Knight at katherine. knight@lrsd.org. To find out about the annual award process or to apply for NEA Foundation grants, visit www.nfie.org.

Stirring Up Activism for Kids

If of late you've been hearing some fun, quirky radio or TV ads urging parents to get involved in their children's schooling, there's a pretty good chance it's the collaborative doings of NEA, the Ad Council and...Connect for Kids.

Connect for Kids? Not exactly a household name--yet. But stay tuned. Since it was spawned six years ago, this advocacy organization has been reaching into more and more homes--and stirring up some old-fashioned activism along the way. The radio and TV campaign with NEA, a longtime partner, is just the group's latest effort to ensure as many people as possible hear and ponder its central message: People can do something to make their communities better for children. And should.

By all accounts it's an idea that's been catching notice. The parent involvement ads, currently airing in some 30 markets, help promote one of NEA's big issues. But the group's showcase offering, wwwconnectforkids.org, promotes many more.

"We actually began as an experiment to see what role the Internet could play in traditional public service campaigns," says Cecelia Garcia, Connect for Kids' executive director. "How could this new technology be used to inspire people to act?"

Scores of partnerships and thousands of "hits" later, the website is successfully showing the way. With some 2,000 links, it is a virtual storehouse of family-related information on everything from foster care and children's health to education, crime prevention, and parenting. Original news articles bring home issues that are global, and ideas for activism loom large. Garcia says everyday people regularly share how they've been inspired to do something after visiting the website, such as the woman who organized the Million Mom's March in her state and the South African woman who organized a community discussion around race.

This year the website features a monthly calendar, Celebrating Families, that highlights the diversity found across religious groups, cultures, races, and families themselves. Each month features a "toolkit" with tips for making communities better. Garcia says it's just one more way to inspire.

"We don't ask people for money," she says. "We just want them to spread the word: Help make life great for our kids."

--M.M.

For More: Visit www.connectforkids.org.