Episode 6—Jason
It’s wild to think that fall is here already, and school is back in session. I always loved back to school season, with fresh pencils and new classes, but this year of course brings more challenges than ever.
With COVID-19 still a major threat, school districts have adopted a wide variety of policies to prevent any spread of the virus among their students. In some districts this includes remote learning, in others in-person classes, and still other districts have opted for complex hybrid systems.
Regardless, education in the United States relies, as it always has, on one all-important factor—the teacher. In the early days of the pandemic, chronically underpaid teachers rose to the challenge of moving classrooms online so students could learn and, perhaps more importantly, have a peer-based space to process the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meet Jason. He teaches Social Studies at a vocational-tech high school on Boston’s North Shore. He moved his classroom online when the pandemic first began. I spoke to him in late June about his experiences, and how it affected his students learning.
As we spoke, he told me about the challenge of teaching Social Studies to high school students today, about his passion for teaching Genocide Studies—and raising awareness for the need to teach Genocide Studies. He told me about how he sees students putting lessons from his classroom into practice as young adults and what he thinks, as a history teacher, about our current moment in American history.
If you haven’t had a chance yet, I hope you’ll take a moment, find a seat, and listen to Jason’s story.
Jason, and his teaching partner Justin, have testified before the Massachusetts State Legislature about the need to require Genocide Studies in high schools across the state. Jason shared his family’s story with lawmakers, just as he does with his students. You can learn more about Jason and Justin’s Genocide Studies class, and their work promoting the teaching of Genocide Studies to high school students in this recent profile from The Atlantic.
Jason’s unique school, Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical School in Danvers, MA, offers a unique blend of specialty courses and required core content. You can learn more about Jason’s school, and its students, in this profile by the Hechinger Report.
Sharing your story is hard, especially with a stranger, especially when that stranger is planning to share your story with other strangers. Take a moment to thank Jason for sharing his story so bravely and vulnerably by making a contribution of any amount to a non-profit close to Jason’s heart—the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
About the United States Holocaust Memorial Musuem:
The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies and collaborators. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum teaches millions of people each year about the dangers of unchecked hatred and the need to prevent genocide. Learn more about the Holocaust, antisemitism, and genocide below.
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