Thank you to everyone who joined us on November 18 for an entertaining and stimulating virtual event about the power of storytelling to create change.
It was an honor to team up with 2021 National Book Award nominee, bestselling author, poet, and former Facing History educator Clint Smith for a conversation with current Facing History teachers and special guests from the hit Netflix comedy Never Have I Ever, including actor Adam Shapiro, who plays a teacher on the show.
Featured Speaker
Clint Smith
Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times Bestseller, and the poetry collection Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. He has received fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New America, the Emerson Collective, the Art For Justice Fund, Cave Canem, and the National Science Foundation. His essays, poems, and scholarly writing have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, the Harvard Educational Review and elsewhere. Clint is also a former Facing History teacher IRL!
Featured Speaker
Adam Shapiro
Adam Shapiro currently plays the Facing History teacher “Mr. Shapiro” on Netflix’s Never Have I Ever, and will be seen in 2022 in upcoming features for Universal and FOX. His recent film and television credits include The Affair, The Good Lord Bird, and the Academy Award-winning film Mank. Adam is co-founder of IAMA Theatre Company, and has also been seen on stage on Broadway as “Ogie” in Waitress. Adam is the founder of Shappy Pretzel Co. in LA, where he resides with his wife, Katie Lowes, and their children Albee and Vera.
Facing History Educator
Kimberly Young
Kimberly Young is currently a doctoral student at UCLA and an Ethnic Studies teacher at Culver City High School. She is passionate about all things Ethnic Studies. She has an unwavering belief in the power of education to transform lives and her passion for social justice and equity has kept her rooted in the Social Science classroom for over a decade. Kim began her journey as an educator at Stanford Teacher Education Program, where she learned how to build strong learning experiences for all students.
Facing History Educator
James Waller
As an educator in South Los Angeles for over 20 years, James has held many roles ranging from tutor to teacher, from coach to principal, and from mentor to vice president. He has worked in both the Los Angeles Unified and the Charter school worlds and is proud of his efforts to get low-income Black and Brown students in South LA into and through university and beyond. He currently serves as a principal coach with Ensemble Learning, supporting their Multilingual Learner programs and communities. He recently served on the board of the ONE Archives Foundation, assisting with the foundation’s K-12 education initiatives focused on LGBTQ history.
Moderator
Lisa Conn
Lisa Conn is Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Gatheround, a culture building platform designed for how humans actually connect. She's held leadership roles at Facebook, the MIT Media Lab, FWD.us, and President Obama’s campaign, consistently focused on healing societal division and reducing polarization through community and technology. Lisa's roots are in community organizing. She led large-scale community organizing programs as the National Organizing Director of FWD.us, and as a field director in the battleground state of Florida for President Obama. Lisa is a member of the Facing History and Ourselves Los Angeles Advisory Board.
We are deeply grateful for the following individuals’ generous contributions, and for their commitments of time and talent.
Kira & Jordan Bahat
Crystal Brown
Kim & Donick Cary
Aaron & Stacie Cohen
Elizabeth Cohen
Edda Collins Coleman
Luisa Conlon
Lisa Conn & Joe Wilson
Mitzi & Kobie Conner
Lilly Farahnakian
Grace Kim
Eunice Lee
Katie Lowes & Adam Shapiro
Marissa Munoz
Stacy Sharpe & Lamont Jones
MyKhanh & Scott Shelton
Perri & Phil Sun
Margaux Susi
Ashley Thompson
Judy Wise
List in formation.
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