Educational Residency

When students read history through the voices of people who lived it, they discover the individuality and humanity of those whom persecution sought to make anonymous. In this educational residency, personal narratives from a particular time and place lead to inquiry; inquiry leads to research; research deepens historical understanding.

Built around the book Invisible Years, students read interwoven first-person narratives aloud, much like a play; follow one narrator into hiding; explore an animated film; develop evidence-based questions from texts, photographs, and artifacts; and interview family members. They then apply the same methodology to a human rights investigation of their own, moving between individual experience and historical context.

By examining both the distinct circumstances and recurring patterns of human rights abuses, students learn to recognize how discrimination develops, how individuals respond, and why these histories continue to matter today.

“We are reading for them, speaking for them, they are in our body.”
– Natalie, student, Fairfield Ludlowe High School

“It has been a dream partnership. Ms. Geismar is thoughtful, flexible, mindful of the school’s and students’ needs and strengths, and creative in her approach. She willingly worked with me to adapt the material for different grade levels and formats. She is authentically interested in what students bring to the material, connecting her family’s history to pressing contemporary issues in meaningful ways.”
– Meredith Gavrin, Co-founder and Administrator, New Haven Academy