Dallas South Newswire (Culver Public Relations)
Students from six different Texans Can! Academy campuses will be the first students from Dallas and Austin to participate in a week-long program that was developed by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for students and teachers in Washington, D.C. The ten students range in age from 15 to 18 years and will be part of 150 students from around the nation attending the seminar from Sunday, July 18th through Saturday, July 24th.
They will be participating in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s summer leadership seminar called Bringing the Lessons Home: Holocaust Education for the Community Leadership Program. The week-long seminar is part of the seven week Stephen T. Johns Summer Leadership program that students from the Washington D.C. area experience each year. Arthur R. Brown, the Museum’s Manager of Community Programs, will lead the students and four faculty and staff members in an overview of the Museum’s “Bringing the Lessons Home: Holocaust Education for the Community” program in which students and teachers explore Holocaust history and why it remains relevant today.
The students will lodge at Catholic University of America while attending the classes. As part of the week’s activities they will travel to Quantico, Virginia for a VIP tour of the FBI Academy and DEA Academy, which are not open to general public tours. They will meet with the FBI and DEA instructors for lessons about ethical behavior and leadership development.
The purpose of the seminar is to share the history of the Holocaust and human rights and how it might relate to their personal experiences. Bringing the Lessons Home: Holocaust Education for the Community was launched in 1994 by the Museum. The summer leadership seminars began in 1995. The program has since developed long-term partnerships with over 40 high schools and middle schools that serve the Museum’s local community, our nation’s capital. Through these partnerships, more than 60,000 students, teachers and parents have received special programming and participated in discussions about the importance of accepting different cultures, religions and beliefs.
Several of the students will be making their first trip on an airplane and for some it will also be their first trip out of Texas. The students were selected by their campus principals to participate in the all-expenses paid trip because of their on-going commitment to change their lives. Once they complete the course they will be expected to share what they learned about the importance of accepting diversity and differences in their world.
“We are honored to have our students chosen as the first from Dallas and Austin to attend the Bringing the Lessons Home summer curriculum,” said Richard Marquez, CEO of Texans Can! “This seminar is going to give our students the opportunity to discuss their personal experiences with intolerance from others while also giving them the tools to have positive impacts from those situations.”
The students of Texans Can! have overcome obstacles to complete their education. Each student is enrolled in the school by choice. They realize the value of returning to high school and working to earn their diplomas. The mission of Texans Can! is to provide a second chance for at-risk youth and their families to achieve economic independence and hope for a better life through relationship-based education and training.
Celebrating more than 26 years of serving academically at-risk youth, Texans Can! is a unique network of 10 public schools of choice located in Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, Houston and San Antonio. Using Texans Can! three core values – discipline in private, rewards in public; rules without relationships breed rebellion; and behavior is based on need – more than 4,700 students a year are getting a second chance at life. For more information, visit www.texanscan.org.
A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum inspires leaders and citizens to promote human dignity, confront hatred, and prevent genocide. Federal support guarantees the Museum’s permanence, and its far reaching educational activities and global outreach are made possible by donors nationwide. For more information, visit www.ushmm.org.
Feature Image by AgnosticPreachersKid via Wikipedia.
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