Lighthouse Community Charter School Teacher Receives Grant from Facing History

SAN FRANCISCO, California (May 28, 2014) - Facing History and Ourselves will award over $47,200 in grants to support innovative teacher education projects around the world, the international education nonprofit organization announced today, including Lighthouse Community Charter School educator Sarah Purdy.

Sarah will begin a digital storytelling project at Lighthouse Community Charter School that will help students, parents, and educators share the stories of the school community. The project will sharpen the researching, writing, and media skills of students in upper-level humanities courses and will lead to the creation of an oral history database for all students in the school. With support of the grant, Sarah will also create a storytelling booth, inspired by the ones used as part of the StoryCorps project. The booth will focus on collecting stories of identity and migration, as many of the parents and students at Lighthouse Community Charter School are first- or second-generation immigrants.

“This award recognizes those educators who are going above and beyond to nurture the intellectual as well as the moral development of their students,” Facing History Associate Executive Director Marty Sleeper said. “These are teachers who are making an enormous difference in the world.”

The Margot Stern Strom Innovation Grants grew out of a teaching award established in 2006 to recognize Facing History-trained educators who are thinking outside-the-box to transform schools and impact student learning. 

This week, Facing History awarded over $42,200 to fund 18 cutting-edge classroom projects around the world that focus on technological innovation and collaborative learning. In the coming months, the organization will also award a $5,000 grand prize to a 2013 Innovative Grant winner to further his or her work.
  
Find out more about the individual winners and their winning projects here.