Every educator, no matter their subject, comes into their profession with the crude outline of a puzzle. There are pieces missing along the border and some sporadic pieces in the middle, but most of it is empty space. As we grow in our profession and lives some of the empty spaces are replaced with a puzzle pieces. They may be one piece or a handful. Those pieces show up with every book we read, class we teach, documentary we watch, and discussion we have. As we grow so does the puzzle. It expands the corners and adds new sections seemingly overnight. Those blank spaces become larger, and we strive to fill them.
Classrooms Without Borders allows us to add more puzzle pieces to our every growing puzzle. These seminars provide context behind the topics we teach. They provide stories, places, and names. These puzzle pieces are added to our puzzle and allow us to become educators. They put faces to names we teach about and the stories we are chosen to tell. This seminar gave us the puzzle pieces to teach about the Holocaust in Austria and the Czech Republic. The puzzle pieces showed Terezin, Mauthausen, and Schloss Hartheim. They showed Sir Nicholas Winston and the children of the Kindertransport.
We collected these puzzle pieces as we participated in each portion of the Vienna-Prague study seminar. We will take these pieces home and add them to our growing puzzle. We will continue to strive to tell the stories of the Holocaust and educate others. As others participate in the Classrooms Without Borders seminars, they will receive their own puzzle pieces and continue to grow in what they know and teach.
As the study seminar concludes and plans for the upcoming school year start to take shape, retrieve those puzzle pieces you have collected. Reflect on every puzzle piece you add and watch the picture come to life. Collect your puzzle pieces.