Jane's Pocket Change: It Is Personal

On Tuesday evening of this week I was treated, as has become tradition, to the annual Facing History and Ourselves Benefit dinner in Boston. I attend as the guest of David and Nina Fialkow P’10, (Olivia ’10; Nina is a current CSW trustee).

This year’s featured speakers – Jasmina Cesic, Ron Haviv and Phillip Martin – were joined on stage by two compelling student speakers, Cinthia Marques Pineda and Joseph Dieudonne Alphonse. Cesic was the first Bosnian refugee granted permission to seek medical care in America; before she turned 20, Cesic had lost a home, a husband, two brothers and her right arm. Now an author, she spoke of her life in Bosnia before and during the civil war. Her message of hope, in spite of her personal tragedy and tragedy of her country, was compelling.

 

Through a radio-style interview, Philip Martin from WGBH talked with Ron Haviv, an Emmy-nominated photojournalist whose pictures, shown on a big screen, captured poignant moments of important international unrest in places such as Panama and Bosnia.

 

Throughout the evening the themes of history, memory and the necessary messiness of democracy rang out and I was moved. [And I got to chat with Howard Gardner!] A second layer of this event played out, too: two of the benefit co-chairs, Ben and Wendy Fischman, were students of mine when I taught at Beaver Country Day School in the 1980s. They each spoke; Wendy gave the introduction to the evening and Ben spoke before dinner. As I listened to them and their personal commitment to Facing History, I was drawn into their passion for the organization and its good work – equally though, I was drawn into the power of teaching, my profession, and the tremendous effect that students have on teachers.

 

I have never forgotten my relationship with Wendy, whom I believe I taught during all four years of high school and I was her advisor. I was part of her high school life and I watched her grow – what a privilege now to see the impact she has on education as a member of Gardner’s research teams and her work at Harvard’s Project Zero. It was also an honor that night to catch a glimpse of the impact she has on her own family – I met her kids and I hugged her Mom.

It is personal, this educator’s life. The backdrop of the power of the Facing History program and my belief in the power of the intimate setting of independent schools go hand-in-hand. My personal appreciation goes out to my friends the Fialkows, the Fischmans and the folks at Facing History and Ourselves.

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Pocket Change is a web diary written by Jane Moulding, head of school.