Tag Archives: Teacher Activists

Henrietta Szold: Baltimore teacher and champion of Jewish children

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Henrietta Szold

Teacher and activist Henrietta Szold at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, circa 1920.

I love to tell stories about exceptional educators who have made significant contributions to the world community. One of these is Henrietta Szold, a Baltimore teacher and activist who worked tirelessly with an organization that helped save thousands of Jewish children from the Nazis.

Henrietta was born on December 21, 1860, in Baltimore, Maryland, the eldest of eight daughters. Her mother was Sophie (Scharr) Szold, and her father was Benjamin Szold, a local respected rabbi. As a young girl, she attended Western Female High School, where she graduated in 1877.

After her high school graduation, Henrietta taught courses in French, German, botany, and mathematics at Miss Adam’s School and Mrs. McCulloch’s School at Glencoe. She taught in these schools for 15 years. When Henrietta saw a need to educate newly-arrived immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe, she urged the Hebrew Literary Society to sponsor a program to teach them English. As a result, the first evening adult classes in Baltimore were established. This was the beginning of adult education in the city, and the program became a model for adult education in other American cities. Henrietta also taught courses in history and Bible studies for adults at Oheb Shalom Religious School.

In addition to her classroom duties, Henrietta served as her father’s literary secretary for many years. She became the secretary of the editorial board of the Jewish Publication Society (JPS), a position she held until 1916. She translated works, wrote articles, edited manuscripts, and oversaw the publication schedule. In 1899 she was instrumental in producing the first American Jewish Year Book, of which she was sole editor from 1904 to 1908. She also collaborated on the compilation of the Jewish Encyclopedia.

Henrietta is probably best known, however, for founding the international volunteer organization known as Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. With the Nazis rise to power in Germany, Henrietta recognized the extreme danger the party presented to European Jews. In 1932, a plan called Youth Aliyah was developed to send German Jewish Adolescents to Palestine to complete their education. Youth Aliyah was able to save between 22,000 and 30,000 Jewish youths from World War II death camps.Sadly, Henrietta passed away from complications from pneumonia on February 13, 1945, in Jerusalem, Israel, at the age of 84. She is buried in the Jewish Cemetery on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Following her death, Israel issued a coin and a stamp in her memory, the first American woman to be featured on Israeli currency. Inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2007, Henrietta Szold is truly a chalkboard champion.

You can read more about this remarkable teacher in the Jewish Virtual Library.org.

Teacher Aki Kurose: Civil Rights activist and advocate for minority students

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Elementary school teacher Aki Kurose: Dedicated civil rights activist and ardent activist for minority students.

American history yields numerous examples of inspirational teachers who have devoted their talents to important social causes. These causes include advocating for better conditions for the poor and promoting racial equality. One such teacher is Akiko Kato Kurose, an elementary school teacher from Seattle, Washington. She was a nationally-recognized social activist who worked tirelessly to increase access to education and affordable housing for low-income and minority families.

Akiko, known by the name Aki, was born in Seattle, Washington, on February 11, 1925. She was the third of four children born to Japanese immigrants Harutoshi and Murako Kato. Aki’s father was a railroad station porter, and her mother was the manager of an apartment building. In the Kato home, traditional gender roles were reversed. Aki’s mother studied engineering. She learned how to operate the building’s boiler room and furnace, and served as the building’s handyman. Her father enjoyed baking jelly rolls which he served at social gatherings he organized every Friday evening.

As a young girl, Aki was active in Girl Scouts, and  later in her high school band and drama club. She also attended Japanese language school once a week. OIn December, 1941, the Kato family’s typical American middle-class home life was dramatically altered. That happened when the Empire of Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Aki was a high school senior at the time. In February, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which ordered the Kato family and 112,000 other Japanese Americans to be forcibly removed from their homes to be relocated to internment camps throughout the United States. The Katos were sent first to Puyallup Assembly Center at the Washinton fairgrounds, and were eventually consigned to the internment camp set up in Minidoka, Idaho.

Aki completed the requirements for her high school diploma at Minidoka. There the plucky teenager became actively involved with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). The AFSC was a Quaker organization which donated books to camp schools and helped college-age internees obtain permission to enroll in universities outside of the camps. Aki was able to gain permission to enroll in the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, but shortly after her arrival there she transferred to nearby LDS Business College. At the conclusion of WWII, the Aki pursued her college education at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas. In 1981, she earned a Master’s degree in Early Childhood Education.

After her graduation from Friends University in 1948, Aki married Junelow Kurose, the brother of her best friend. Junelow had been recently discharged from the United States Army. After their marriage, Aki and Junelow settled in Chicago, where her husband’s parents had moved following their release from internment. Junelow was an accomplished electrician, but due to discrimination against Japanese American citizens, he was unable to find work in that field. This was true even though he was a veteran who had been honorably discharged.

Returning to Seattle in 1950, Junelow was eventually hired as a machinist at Boeing. Aki found employment as a secretary for the railroad porter’s union. Influenced by the discrimination she and her husband faced in their search for a home, Aki became involved in the open housing movement in the 1950s. She worked first with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and later, in the 1960s, joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

Over the years, the couple enlarged their family to include six children. Aki enrolled her brood in Seattle Freedom School, an offshoot of the Mississippi Freedom Schools established as part of the Civil Rights Movement. When she participated in CORE civil rights marches and anti-war demonstrations, Aki took her children along. She was also active in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the activist branches of the YWCA.

Aki possessed a lifelong passion for education, so she began taking courses in early childhood education and development and devoted her talents to working in preschool programs. In 1965, she collaborated with a group of neighborhood parents to form Washington State’s first Head Start program.

Aki began her career as a professional educator by teaching for Seattle Public Schools through the Head Start program. In 1974, she accepted a job at a local elementary school. Two years later, as part of the city’s move to desegregate its public schools, she transferred from Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary, an urban, predominantly African-American school, to Laurelhurst Elementary School. Laurelhurst was an affluent, predominately white school located in suburban North Seattle. Because of strong anti-Japanese sentiment, Aki had to work hard to overcome opposition to her transfer there, but she eventually won over the parents. When the first students of color were bused to the campus, Aki worked hard to ease their integration. She also advocated strongly for the adoption of a multi-cultural curriculum for the school.

In the classroom, Aki emphasized collaborative learning and encouraged her students to learn through hands-on experience instead of rote memorization. She taught principals of peaceful co-existence to even the youngest of students, her first graders, telling them, “If you’re not at peace with yourself, with your neighbor, with your community, you can’t really learn very much. We have to get rid of all this garbage, this angry, competitive feeling. Then we’ll all get along.” She received numerous awards for her innovative teaching style.

Over time, Aki became one of the schools most beloved and respected teachers. In 1980 she was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the National Advisory Council on the Education of Disadvantaged Children. In 1985 she was honored as Seattle Teacher of the Year. In 1990 she was awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics. Because of her innovative work to integrate peace advocacy with education, she was awarded the United Nations Human Rights Award in 1992. The Seattle Times said of Aki that she had “touched thousands of children, drew parents into the district, inspired many into public service, set an example for many teachers; she personified the best of what happens inside a classroom.”

This talented and dedicated educator retired in 1997 after 25 years of service in Seattle public schools. To honor her, students and parents from Laurelhurst school built and dedicated the Aki Kurose Peace Garden on the school campus. This Chalkboard Champion passed away the following year, on May 24, in Madrona, Washington, following a 16-year battle with cancer. She was 73 years old.

To read more about this amazing Chalkboard Champion, see this link at Densho Encyclopedia.

Robert Moses: Math teacher and 1960’s Civil Rights activist

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Math teacher Robert Moses was a legendary figure during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. He was the courageous educator from New York who became an activist during the Civil Rights Movement. He’s best known for organizing the Black voter-registration efforts and the Freedom Schools made famous during the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. This heroic educator’s revolutionary work, which was not without risk to life and limb, transformed the political power structure of entire communities.

Nearly forty years later, Robert advocated for yet another transformational change: the Algebra Project. Robert asserted that a deficiency in math literacy in poor neighborhoods puts impoverished children at an economic disadvantage.

Radical Equatioins by Robert Parris Moses describes the Civil Rights activist’s work during the 1960’s, and his philosophy about math literacy.

The deficiency makes students unable to compete successfully for jobs in the 21st century. This disenfranchisement, he declared, is as debilitating as lack of personal liberties was prior to the Civil Rights Movement. Robert’s solution was to organize people, community by community, school by school, to overcome the achievement gap. He believed this would give impoverished children the tools they need to claim their share of economic enfranchisement.

Robert described his philosophy in depth in his  book, Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project written with fellow Civil Rights worker Charles E. Cobb, Jr. The volume can be found easily and reasonably-priced on amazon. A fascinating read for anyone who is interested in Moses’s story, either past or present. A chapter about this remarkable teacher is also included in my second book, entitled Chalkboard Heroes: Twelve Courageous Teachers and Their Deeds of Valor.  This book is also available on amazon; click on this link to view: Chalkboard Heroes.

The intrepid Prudence Crandall: She braved danger to teach African Americans

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Prudence Crandall

Teacher Prudence Crandall: The Chalkboard Hero who taught African American students.

There are many courageous teachers who have made great sacrifices for the sake of their students. One of these was Quaker Prudence Crandall, a Connecticut teacher who lost everything in order to educate African American girls in a time when doing so was unheard of.

In 1831, Prudence opened a boarding school for young ladies in Canterbury, Connecticut. By the end of the first year, she had earned the praise of parents, community members, and students throughout New England.

Then one day an African American student named Sarah Harris asked to be admitted to the academy. Sarah said she wanted to learn how to be a teacher so she could open her own school for black students. Prudence knew admitting an African American student would generate some resistance from her neighbors, but after some soul-searching, she decided her conscience would not allow her to refuse the request. Prudence had severely under-estimated the resistance.

Figuring the complaint was that she was operating an integrated school, the intrepid teacher closed her academy for white girls and re-opened as an academy for “misses of color.” That just made the situation worse, causing ripples all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court and resulting in Prudence’s brief incarceration in the local jail. Eventually, Prudence was forced to close her school and leave town.

Years later, however, the courageous stance taken by this heroic teacher caused her to be named the Female State Hero for Connecticut. Read the gripping account of what happened in my newly-released book, Chalkboard Heroes, now available on amazon.com.

Ruth Frances Woodsmall: English teacher and global activist for women’s rights

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Ruth Frances Woodsmall: English teacher and global activist for women’s rights.

There are many exceptional educators who have also made significant contributions to society as a whole. One of these is Ruth Frances Woodsmall, a high school English teacher from Georgia who is well known as a post World War II global activist for women’s rights.

Ruth was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on Sept. 20, 1883. She was the daughter of Harrison S. Woodsmall, a lawyer and teacher, and Mary Elizabeth Howes, an art teacher. Ruth grew up in Indiana and attended local schools. She earned her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Nebraska in 1905. She earned her Master’s degree from Wellesley in 1906.

After she earned her degrees, Ruth worked as a high school English teacher in both Nevada and Colorado from 1906 to 1917. Between 1917 and 1928 she held various positions in the YWCA, including a stint as Director of Hostess Houses in the US and in France. From 1921 to 1928, she was Executive Secretary of YWCAs in the Near East. Based in Istanbul, the former classroom teacher supervised branches in Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon. In 1923, her jurisdiction was expanded to include Egypt and Palestine. From 1935 to 1948 Ruth served as General Secretary of the World’s YWCA.

From 1949 to 1952 Ruth served as the Chief of the Women’s Affairs Section of the US High Commission for Occupied Germany. For this work she received the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of West Germany. At the same, she did extensive research on the changing status of Muslim women in the Middle East and published several important works on the subject.

In recognition of her work with women and international relations, this exceptional educator received honorary degrees from the University of Nebraska in 1945 and the University of Indiana in 1954.

Sadly, this Chalkboard Champion passed away in New York City on May 25, 1963.