Education Project
Performances:
One of the most important aspects of our work is presenting
this story to high school, college and university students, highlighting the connections between our history and our lives today.
Ian Ruskin has performed a special version of “From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks” in high schools throughout California. It is designed to be performed within a single class period and raises specific issues relevant to students’ lives, which can be explored in the dicussion following the play. The perfomance is supplemented by a student questionnaire, lesson plan and list of (California) Academic Standards addressed by the play.
These performances were made possible with generous grants from the Diane Middleton and Silicon Valley Community Foundations.
He has also performed at universities and for teacher’ organizations –
– the California Teachers Association
– the California Federation of Teachers
– United Teachers of Los Angeles
– the Los Angles College Faculty Guild
Please see the letters of recommendation.
Lesson Plans
With a generous two-year grant from the Los Angeles County Arts Commission we have nearly completed 12 high school Lesson Plans which comply to California Academic Standards for English and History teachers.
Each plan is teacher friendly and uses web sites and MP4 files as learning tools. We plan to also adapt them to Oregon and Washington Academic Standards and then expand them for community colleges – eventually 144 different versions.
The MP4 files will be based on "From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks" and our Two New Radio Documentaries.
They will focus on:
- History, Government and Mass Communication (threats to democracy, government responsibility vs. citizens' rights, and media as the Fourth Estate)
- Workers' rights – for union and non-union workers
- Writing a play/recording an oral history
- How music illuminates society and inspires social change
- The role of women in American music and social and political change
The Plans will be free and available to schools on our web site. We will actively encourage teachers, with the support of the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers, to visit our site, learn about the Project, download the materials and use the plans.
We owe a debt of gratitude to our two wonderful education consultants, Kara Hunter and Karen Mowrer, who came to the Project through idealist.org