18th Annual New England Conference on
Multicultural Education 

Welte Auditorium 

Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT, 
Wed. Oct. 16, 2013  - 8:30 am – 3:30 pm
Admission is free.  

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Note: We are not accepting proposals or exhibitor applications. Interested sponsors are welcome.

Sonia Nieto  - "Creating Multicultural Learning Communities: Lessons From Thriving Teachers."
Professor Emerita, Language, Literacy & Culture, University of Massachusetts, Amherst - School of Education, Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies.

When Sonia Nieto began her teaching career in 1966 at Junior High School 278, a school in Ocean Hill Brownsville in Brooklyn, the school’s environment was perhaps more challenging to her than was being a new teacher. Teacher turnover at the school was nearly 50 percent a year; for safety reasons, she was not allowed in her own classroom before 7:45 a.m.; and home visits were discouraged because “you never knew what would happen.”

Teachers, staff, parents, community members, and students were all angry. For Nieto, a young Puerto Rican teacher, it was a baptism by fire.

Yet she stayed.

With experience teaching students at all levels and from many socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, Nieto, now professor emerita of language, literacy, and culture in the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is one of the leading authors and teachers in the field of multiculturalism. She has won several awards in her field, most notably the 1997 Multicultural Educator of the Year award from the National Association for Multicultural Education and the 2005 Educator of the Year Award from the National Council of Teachers of English.

Kevin Jennings -  “American Dreams: My Multicultural Journey”
Kevin Jennings is the newly-appointed Executive Director of the Arcus Foundation a leading global foundation advancing pressing social justice and conservation issues. From 2009-2011 Kevin served as Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education, heading the department’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools (OSDFS). In this role, Mr. Jennings led federal efforts to promote the safety, health and well being of America’s students. Kevin led the Obama Administration’s anti-bullying initiative, which culminated in March 2011 with the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention keynoted by President Obama. Kevin began his career as a high school history teacher and coach, first at Moses Brown School in Providence, R.I., from 1985 to 1987, and then at Concord Academy in Concord, Mass., from 1987 to 1995. At Concord, he served as the faculty advisor to the nation’s first Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) leading him in 1990 to found the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a national education organization bringing together lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and straight teachers, parents, students, and community members who wanted to end anti-LGBT bias in our schools. 

James Loewen -  “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong”A sociologist who spent two years at the Smithsonian surveying twelve leading high school textbooks of American history only to find an embarrassing blend of bland optimism, blind nationalism, and plain misinformation, weighing in at an average of 888 pages and almost five pounds. A best-selling author who wrote Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong and Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong.

This year NECME will show-case the award-winning -

Echoes and Reflections

The Leading holocaust education PROGRAM that includes everything educators need to teach the complex issues of the Holocaust to 21st century students.

Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev (right) and Abraham Foxman (left), National Director, Anti-Defamation League, are joined by Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate, Elie Wiesel, in Jerusalem. Wiesel congratulated Shalev and Foxman on their award-winning multimedia curriculum, Echoes and Reflections. Wiesel is featured in Lesson 5 of this interdisciplinary curriculum about the Holocaust designed for US high schools. The three are holding the NAME (National Association of Multicultural Education) 2007 Media Award.

Echoes and Reflections, a groundbreaking multimedia curriculum on the Holocaust, has been honored for its use of visual history testimony and its educational Web site by the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) with its 2007 National Multicultural Media Award. The award recognizes individuals and institutions that make "outstanding contributions toward multicultural education, educational equity and social justice."

Echoes and Reflections is a comprehensive ten-part curriculum on the Holocaust that uses visual history testimony from survivors and other witnesses and additional primary source documents, including maps, photographs, timelines, literature excerpts and other materials. The curriculum was produced primarily for use in high schools in partnership with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, and Yad Vashem. Since its launch in July 2005, the curriculum has reached an estimated 600,000 students (2007 data) in schools across the country, and more than 4,000 educators nationwide have participated in intensive training sessions on the use of the curriculum facilitated by the three partner organizations.

Yossie Hollander, benefactor of Echoes and Reflections, states, "We have an obligation to teach our kids what hate and racism can cause. It is our only chance to prevent genocide now and in the future." Additional gifts from Larry Glick and Howard Berkowitz allow the curriculum to be distributed at training programs at no charge to educators.

Deborah A. Batiste, Project Director for Echoes and Reflections, accepted the award on behalf of the three partner organizations during the 17th Annual International NAME Conference in Baltimore on November 3, 2007.