Lawrence Middle School focuses on ‘Names, Not Numbers’

Staff and students at Lawrence Middle Schooll celebrated their recent achievements in a town hall-style meeting in the auditorium on Jan. 31.
“The town hall meetings we have celebrate all of the good things that happen here at Lawrence Middle School,” said Assistant Principal Christine Moore, “We are focusing on our core values. We are ‘R.I.C.H.: Rich (respect, integrity, caring and honesty in character.”
Students are practicing these tenets through the “Names, Not Numbers" project. It is a copyrighted oral history project that was started in 2004 through the efforts of Tova Fish-Rosenberg (director of the Hebrew Language Department at the Yeshiva University High School for Boys in Manhattan). This is a film project, where middle and high school-level children practice using videotaping and interviewing skills. They are paired with Holocaust survivors. Then the students interview the survivors on videotape.
“The program was started last year with our students,” said Linda Kelsch, the school’s eighth grade guidance counselor. “It builds community between our school and HAFTR (Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway in Lawrence). I liked seeing diversity and friendship. It’s a different world for all. When our students were sitting and having lunch with the HAFTR students, I liked listening to their conversations.”
Stacy Portillo is a project participant. “We were all chosen from a group of our eighth grade class,” Portillo said. “I decided to be a part of this project because I wanted to actually talk to Holocaust survivors. My sister is a lot younger than me, so by the time she’s in my grade, she might not get the chance to do this project.”
Perry Vacchio, another participant, wanted to learn more about the Holocaust’s survivors. “I wanted to learn more about the Holocaust from primary sources,” Vacchio said. “I wanted to know that I spoke to the survivors, not just read about them in a book otherwise.”