Milken Family Foundation National Education Conference: How Stakeholders Can Support Teacher Quality

By Jane Foley, Senior Vice President, Milken Educator Awards, Milken Family Foundation

Dr. Jane Foley introduced Grammy-nominated Mona Golabek's presentation at the Conference.

For nearly four years, the Milken Family Foundation (www.mff.org) and others have been working with Grammy-nominated pianist Mona Golabek to help her spread the story of The Children of Willesden Lane  across the country and build educational resources to support its use with students.

Co-authored by Mona and Lee Cohen, The Children of Willesden Lane tells the inspirational story of Mona's mother, Lisa Jura, a 14 year-old musical prodigy who escaped 1938 Vienna aboard the Kindertransport, a train that took 10,000 children out of Europe to England. Lisa lived in war-torn London throughout WWII at a hostel for displaced children but kept her dream of becoming a concert pianist alive and ultimately earned a scholarship to the prestigious London Royal Academy of Music.

In 2002, we asked a cross-section of Milken National Educators to read the book and provide feedback on the its relevance for classroom use. They overwhelmingly recommended that it be used as a curriculum resource for English, social studies, music, and interdisciplinary studies.

Based on their recommendation and the unique nature of this book's potential to impact a wide range of students, Milken Family Foundation Chairman Lowell Milken commissioned Facing History and Ourselves to co-develop a study guide to support the book's use in classrooms.  The study guide includes a music CD, performed and narrated by Mona, to reinforce the musical selections referenced in the book.  With the CD that is packaged with the study guide, students can listen to a concert pianist, author, and the daughter of the heroine tell the story and play the music from the story they are reading.

The Annenberg Foundation is another partner and is creating a suite of video resource materials to complement the study guide and assist teachers, all available free online this fall through Annenberg at learner.org.

We at the Milken Family Foundation believe this project is unique and important for a number of reasons.

• First, Mona's inspirational story.

• Second, a companion study guide and music CD that anyone can download free-of-charge from the Milken Family Foundation Web site (www.mff.org/cw).

• Third, Mona's own foundation called Hold On To Your Music (www.holdontoyourmusic.org) that can help get the books into schools and libraries for reduced rates.

• And finally, an academically relevant story that teaches tolerance, history, geography, music appreciation, and the life lesson to "make something of yourself," all within the context of a book that everyone in a class, school, or community can read and enjoy.

We're pleased to report that we have school, district and state adoptions as well of citywide reads active across 28 states.

Why this book, why this story?  Everyone who uses the book with students reports that The Children of Willesden Lane spans across ages, religions, races, and academic disciplines.  Students today face some of the same situations that Lisa Jura did — growing to maturity without parents, moving to another country and adapting to a different language, facing prejudice.  What students learn is the importance of acceptance between cultures and the overwhelming motivation to overcome adversity.  Students relate to this story socially and emotionally because Lisa is their age. They are inspired because it is a story of hope and triumph.  Boys enjoy the book because of the range of interesting male characters.  A strong educational aspect is that Lisa's experiences gave her a first-person account of many major events of WWII, so the story becomes a window to reading other literature and non-fiction on this period.  Even for struggling readers, the readability gets them into the material easily.

One high school student said: "Lisa Jura inspired me to dream the impossible dream even when you think all is lost … this book teaches people to use the gifts God gave them to inspire others and never give up hope."

We invite you to take the leadership to get the book and study guide endorsed and used in your schools and community.  How? First, read the book yourself.  Then share it with teachers, administrators, librarians, mayors, etc.. Organize a book study.  Brainstorm other possibilities.  Think big and help coordinate a district and city-wide read.

What we have witnessed in the schools and communities that have adopted the materials is something I would think would be especially gratifying.  Entire families, yes thousands of people, reading and talking about a book!

For more information on the Conference—including the agenda, bios of Conference presenters, photos and videos—please visit the Milken Family Foundation Web site at www.mff.org

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