Friday, January 24th, 2014

And They're Off! Harvard Westlake Students Travel to Rwanda

Harvard Westlake students gather prior to departure for Rwanda.Harvard Westlake Upper School students are embarking on a one-of-kind educational trip to Rwanda.  For ten days the group will explore the beauty, healing and fascinating stories of Rwanda, a country preparing to recognize the 20-year anniversary of a genocide which claimed nearly one million lives. [Read Full Article]

Wednesday, January 22th, 2014

Workers of the World, Faint!

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Just over two years ago, at the Anful Garments Factory in Kompong Speu Province, a young worker named Chanthul and 250 of her colleagues collapsed in a collective spell of fainting. They had to be hospitalized; the production line shut down.Two days later, the factory was back up, and the mass faintings struck again. A worker… [Read Full Article]

Tuesday, January 21th, 2014

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Common Core A critical reading of “close reading”

Proponents of the Common Core have likened the struggle to implement it to the Civil Rights Movement.1 As we reflect on the 50th anniversary of the height of that movement, we must consider how these standards and the related testing are threatening students' rights to education, not upholding them. As one critical example, the Common Core's strict interpretation of “close reading… [Read Full Article]

Wednesday, January 15th, 2014

What Rwanda Did Right

Nineteen years after the genocide, Rwanda is one of the least corrupt countries in Africa. How did it happen?I almost didn’t see the roadblock in time to stop. It was early afternoon, but it was dark as dusk in the rainforest, with low inky clouds hovering over the treetops, releasing a wild downpour. The windshield wipers couldn’t keep up. It… [Read Full Article]

Thursday, January 09th, 2014

The right to the truth: how is Rwanda dealing with the legacies of its past?

November 14 2013: What role can memory and truth play in rebuilding communities in the aftermath of a genocide? In the second post of the series, Katherine Conway writes on the importance of the individual's right to the truth and on what the Gacaca courts have achieved in Rwanda.Truth plays a crucial role in bringing justice to war-torn communities and in… [Read Full Article]