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Jill
Spain

Jill Spain is a middle school language arts teacher in New Jersey. She has earned a bachelor of arts degree in special education and a master of arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. She is the recipient of an Outstanding Lessons Award for a Holocaust lesson for sixth graders, has participated in the “Lest We Forget” study tour to historic Holocaust sites in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic and is a member of her school’s curriculum council.

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Articles by Jill

Bridging Friendship on the Titanic

Sometimes school tracking sets students up for failure, academically and socially. My students with disabilities, who require extra academic assistance, often ended up on the short end of the stick. Because they were in all of the same classes together I noticed that they also clung to each other in the cafeteria. They had a difficult time fitting in and making friends with other students.
Jill Spain

Don’t Miss a Chance to Shift Hate Rhetoric

“I hate Jews.” That was the sentence, uttered coldly and dripping with vile undertones, from the mouth of a sixth-grader that nearly caused me to let a very powerful teachable moment slip through my fingers. Almost.
Jill Spain

Making Time for a Lasting History Lesson

Bryan had anger issues in sixth grade. One day another boy in my class called him “gay” and he flung his desk across the room and chased the boy all the way to the main office where he ended up in a heap of trouble...again. Despite all of the impulsive and often violent behavior, deep down underneath the tough-guy façade, Bryan had many likable qualities. But he still ended up being moved to our school’s alternative program for students with behavioral issues.
Jill Spain

‘My Dad Is a Racist’

Every now and again, a student will say something that leaves me speechless and desperate for the correct response. I can feel in my bones that the moment is about to become pivotal. One of these moments came while we were reading Katherine Paterson’s novel The Great Gilly Hopkins, in which the main character deals with her racism. We were in the process of analyzing her character, her motivations and her racist attitudes, and I could tell that my sixth-graders didn’t really understand the theme of racism, so I needed to step away from the novel for a moment and put the history in context for them.
Jill Spain

World News Becomes A Teacher of Tolerance

In order to enhance my sixth-graders’ ability to connect personally with topics we read about in class, I assigned a writing assignment. I ask students to make real connections to demonstrate their understanding of the topic. There are three areas of connection. First there’s the connection to their lives, then to another piece of literature and finally—the most sophisticated connection—to the world.
Jill Spain
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