Anne Frank iphone app in Vondel Park

Touring Amsterdam with the Anne Frank iphone app. A treasure-hunt app to find places around Amsterdam. Here, I'm in Vondel Park where Anne played before hiding. The park is very near to her future Secret Annex. It's a nifty use of technology.

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Lessons at Hilversum campus.

Students from the International Campus in Hilversum and I discuss Anne Frank's autobiography on July
These delightful and articulate young people, fluent in at least three languages.
Only two, however read the book but all had visited the Anne Frank Secret Annex on field trips.

The International School is located in a suburb of Amsterdam.

Arrival: Amsterdam, July 4, 2012

Landed in Amsterdam on July 4th, 2012. Despite my jet-lag, I'm excited to pick up my bike and begin the journey.

The term park and ride takes on a whole new meaning in Amsterdam. Bikes are parked everywhere and locked to anything. The bus station provides double-decker parking for thousands of commuter's identical-looking bikes.
I use my cell phone to take a photo of my rental bike so I don't forget where I parked it!

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Final Preparations!

Orientating myself to  Amsterdam. I pre-purchased all my Anne Frank museum entry tickets on-line through their excellent web site: http://www.annefrank.org/. Pre-purchase was great, as so many time slots were already booked! 

There is a wealth of information on the web site, including a nifty phone app for  treasure-map style discovery of places important to Anne and pre-war Jewish life. The app places Amsterdam's war time history into perspective with photos and information. 

I'm readying all my photo equipment, maps, books and rain gear...weather will be much different than hot, steamy Houston!

...A few of my favorite things: bikes, books, Fund for Teachers bag.

The Route: Amsterdam to Bergen, Germany

Above map shows journey from Amsterdam east through small towns and backroads into Germany ending at the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp

Fellowship Rationale: May 4, 2012

 Having lost her entire family to the Holocaust, my grandmother’s perspectives on war and prejudice fostered my lifetime commitment supporting education and human rights.

Reading The Diary of Anne Frank as a teenager was more than history; it was my benchmark against discrimination and demonstrated the power of writing. Although 70 years since WW II, fanaticism and genocide persist in the world but my passion promoting human rights remains a personal and professional ethic.

Although I’ve only "met” Anne Frank through her Diary, I yearn to see where she lived, hid, and wrote. I aspire to write a documentary of her intellectual best in Amsterdam to her most desperate where she died in Germany’s Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp.

The Diary of Anne Frank remains a relevant springboard to develop empathy for human rights and provides compelling frame work comparing current discriminations with the past.

This Fellowship will allow me to journey from the “The Secret Annex” in Amsterdam to Germany, and create a documentary of Anne Frank’s legacy. The documentary will research and compare human rights issues of WWII with current policy toward minorities in Western Europe and the United States.

My project will reflect sociological implications of prejudice, compare current cultural migrations and related policies in the U.S. with Western Europe’s and improve rapport on important political human rights issues.

Studying Anne Frank’s influence with lens and notepad will help me grow intellectually and spiritually while helping a new generation of students learn about Anne Frank, the Holocaust, the power of documentaries and current issues on human rights.

Briefly....

Four activities occupy my time: family, reading, teaching, cycling. The reverse order also works.

Cycling provides an excellent springboard for travel, meeting new people and engaging in dialogue of current events.

I am a high school teacher in Fort Bend ISD in Sugar Land, Texas.

Cycling as primary means for  exploration from Amsterdam to Bergen, Germany, seems the ideal method and metaphor to learn about Anne Frank, The Holocaust that consumed many of my grandmother's family, and Western Europe's sentiments toward immigration and tolerance.

A recent photo (4.1.12) of me in San Antonio, Texas, competing in the Senior Olympics Games, wearing the North West Cycling Club team jersey.