Margot Stern Strom, the executive director and president of the Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation in Brookline, Mass., will receive this year’s Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Education.
She has been honored for her dedication to helping educators and community members bring a “moral sense” to the classroom, according to the New York City-based Dana Foundation, which sponsors the annual award.
Ms. Strom co-founded the Facing History and Ourselves program in 1976 as a professional-development program that encourages educators to use lessons of the past. In particular, the program helps educators link the history of the events that led to the Holocaust to contemporary moral lessons.
The program’s other mission is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism and prejudice to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry.
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Over the last 20 years, Facing History has grown from a small, federally funded model project to a nationwide educational organization that reaches more than 900,000 students each year. Nearly 21,000 teachers have participated in the program.
Facing History is also taking root globally, expanding its program in Central and Western Europe.
Ms. Strom will be presented with her award Nov. 5 in New York City.
“A person is a person, no matter how small.”
That sentiment from the popular book Horton Hears a Who best summarized the lifelong work of Theodor S. Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, the Anti-Defamation League said in honoring the late children’s author last week.
The New York City-based watchdog organization recognized Dr. Seuss, who died in 1991, for using his talent to speak out against racism, bigotry, and hatred.
The league presented its Hubert Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize to his wife, Audrey Geisel, at the league’s national commission meeting in San Diego.
The prize is presented annually to an individual or institution that has made lasting contributions to the preservation and advancement of the ideals of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
--Adrienne D. Coles acoles@epe.org
