Haine Middle School holds Anne Frank Gallery Walk
CRANBERRY TWP — Parents and teachers on Friday morning, June 2, got to see the fruits of the labor of Haine Middle School students who have worked on a yearlong project to teach global tolerance and empathy through the lens of the Holocaust and other refugee crises of the last century.
Students built scale models, presented book reports and solicited donations. The project, now in its second year, was formally known as “Facing Today: Using Historical Empathy to Process the World.” Students made use of all of their learning skills, including language skills, math and social studies, for this project.
While last year’s project focused mainly on the study of Anne Frank’s diary and the Holocaust, students this year broadened their horizons to focus on more recent refugee crises, such as those that occurred in Cuba during the 1980s and ‘90s and in the Middle East starting in the mid-2010s.
“We wanted [students] to understand what these refugees are experiencing and build empathy, not just for refugees, but for all people in the world that have a different footprint than themselves,” said Julie Fornadel, sixth-grade teacher at Haine.
The rear wall of the gymnasium was lined with posters of artwork featuring quotes from Anne Frank herself, including one that read, “No one ever became poor by giving.”
Along the opposite wall of the gymnasium, groups of Haine students showed off cardboard scale models of Prinsengracht 263, also known as the Anne Frank House, the hiding place of the Frank family while Anne was writing her diary in 1943.
Some students were assigned to write “one-pagers” — one-page summaries of book reports with art to be posted for the public to see. Gabby Martinez wrote hers on “Words on Fire,” a historical fiction book by Jennifer Nielsen set in Soviet-occupied Lithuania.
“It wasn’t exactly about the Holocaust. It was what happened during the Holocaust,” Gabby said. “It was pretty much when Lithuania was trying to get freedom for their country.”
One group of students, which included Marco Acr, used a big ClearTouch board in the gymnasium to deliver their presentation on the Terezin concentration camp, a presentation which included a 360-degree virtual walk-through of Anne Frank’s annex.
Both Haine Middle School and the Jewish Family and Community Services organization in Pittsburgh organized a donation drive to collect toiletries for refugees who are spread out throughout Western Pennsylvania.
Before leaving, guests were encouraged to write positive messages on “Butterflies of Hope” for the numerous refugees and others being supported by the JFCS organization. This is inspired by “I Never Saw Another Butterfly,” a collection of short stories from children who lived in the Terezin concentration camp.
“These are to kind of just encourage [refugees] that there’s always something positive you can find in life and to look for that,” Fornadel said.
