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      Philippa Rappoport

      Lead, Education and Engagement
      Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology
      Smithsonian Staff

      I work in education and engagement, teacher professional development, and outreach at the Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology (OET), and have a particular interest in developing and producing trainings, programs, teaching techniques, and platforms that foster deep learning and contribute knowledge to improve practices in museum and preK-16 education and engagement. At OET over the last decade+, I created digital assets for schools, families, and new immigrant English Language learners to complement teacher professional development and pan-Smithsonian programming, including Learning Lab teaching collections, YouTube videos with tradition bearers, a handmade family stories book-making website, and online heritage tours.

      Philippa Rappoport's collections

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      We the People: Smithsonian-Montgomery College Faculty Fellowship 2018 Opening Panel Resources

      <p>This collection serves as an introduction to the opening panel of the 2018 Smithsonian-Montgomery College Faculty Fellowship Program. This year's theme is “We the People: America’s Grand and Radical Experiment with Democracy.” The title for the opening panel is "The Smithsonian Institution: “A Community of Learning and the Opener of Doors.” <br /><br />Four Smithsonian staff members will present, including Richard Kurin (SI Distinguished Scholar and Ambassador-at-Large, Office of the Secretary), Jessica Johnson (Digital Engagement Producer, National Museum of African American History and Culture), Lisa Sasaki (Director, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center), and Chris Wilson (Director, Program in African American Culture, National Museum of American History). Their bios, presentation descriptions, and other resources are included here.<br /><br /><br />#MCteach </p>
      Philippa Rappoport
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      Looking Past Words: An Exploration of Language, Systems, and Power through Three Case Studies

      <p>This teaching collection explores the role of language and power in American and European history through three case studies: the Holocaust, Japanese American incarceration, and Northern Plains treaties. Paired with discussion questions from Project Zero's Global Thinking routines, "Think, Feel, Care" and "The 3 Y's," the collection aims to develop in students a sense of how individuals interact within a particular system, and the significance of these systems and interactions from personal, local, and global contexts.<br></p> <p>#EthnicStudies</p>
      Philippa Rappoport
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      Facing Genocide: The US Response to the Holocaust

      <p>My aunt remembers sitting at the kitchen table as a child while her parents, my grandparents, read the Yiddish newspaper, <em>Der Tag. </em>Often one would cry out, <em>nishta </em>("gone"), <em></em>"this one <em>nishta</em>; that one <em>nishta,</em>" in response to the paper's lists of towns in Europe overrun by the Nazis. </p> <p>This collection examines the US response to the Holocaust, pairing historical documentation with four thinking routines from Harvard's Project Zero Global Thinking and Agency by Design materials - "Unveiling Stories," :Think, Feel, Care," "The 3 Y's," and "Circles of Action," - to prompt students to ask important questions about our individual and collective responsibility to humanity. </p> <p>Included here are photographs, documentation, and resources from the National Museum of American History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), including a teaching resource and USHMM's online exhibition, <em>Americans and the Holocaust, </em>which examines "the motives, pressures, and fears that shaped Americans’ responses to Nazism, war, and genocide." Examined with thinking routines from Harvard's Project Zero Global Thinking and Agency by Design materials, students will explore complex and deeply troubling issues that continue to have relevance today. </p> <p>This collection complements chapter 14 ("World War II and America's Ethnic Problem") of Ronald Takaki's <em>A Different Mirror for Young People: A History of Multicultural America, </em>and supports Unit 1: Intersectionality of Economics, Politics, and Policy, and Unit 3: Local History and Current Issues, of the Austin ISD Ethnic Studies Part B course.  </p> <p>#EthnicStudies </p> <p></p>
      Philippa Rappoport
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      (Re)Imagining Youth Engagement: National Museum of the American Indian

      <p>This collection serves as a preview for the sixth of six seminar sessions in the 2021 Smithsonian-Montgomery College Faculty Fellowship Program. This year's theme is “Facing the Complex, Multiple Challenges of the 21st Century."<br><br>Four colleagues from the National Museum of the American Indian - Gaetana DeGennaro, Carrie Gonzales, Adrienne Smith, and Ami Temarantz - will discuss and demonstrate key features of the museum's youth engagement strategy. <br></p> <p>Resources included in this collection have been recommended by the presenters for participants to explore before the seminar session itself. A fuller description and presenter bios are included inside the collection.<br></p> <p>#MCteach<br></p>
      Philippa Rappoport
      17
       
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      Central American Traditions Festival: Demonstrations, Interviews, and How-To Videos

      <p>This collection comes from a Hispanic Heritage Month family festival celebrating Central American traditions, and in support of an exhibition at the National Museum of the American Indian, "Ceramica de los ancestros: Central America's Past Revealed." Held at the National Museum of American History, the festival featured a sampling of music and dance performances, food demonstrations, and hands-on activities. The museum's terrace featured fair tables that included demonstrations of foods such as papusas and tamales, traditional weaving from Guatemala using a back strap loom, and musical and dance performances, including El Salvadoran chanchona by Los Hermanos Lovo, garifuna by the New York-based group Bodoma, and Latin punk rock by DC-based Machetes. Inside, activities included designing a family "bandera" (flag), making a clay cacao pot, making "alfombras" or carpets, which are temporary artworks made with sawdust based on a 400-year-old Guatemalan tradition, a lecture on Central American ceramics with Alex Benitez, archeologist and George Mason University professor, and engaging in conversations about immigration based on objects in the museum's teaching collections.</p>
      Philippa Rappoport
      14
       
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      Raven Steals the Sun: A Celebration of Tlingit Culture

      <p>This collections comes from an American Indian Heritage Month family festival focusing on Tlingit culture from the northwest coast of America. Included here are music and dance performances by the Dakhka Kwaan Dancers, storytelling by Gene Tagaban, Shelly Laws, and Maria Williams (of her book, "How Raven Stole the Sun"), a moiety game, and hands-on demonstrations by Shelly Laws of how to weave a two-stranded basket and to make Tlingit-style beaded ear loops .</p>
      Philippa Rappoport
      10
       
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      Exploring the History of Rice Cultivation in the United States

      <p>This collection serves as a preview for the fifth of six seminar sessions in the 2020 Smithsonian-Montgomery College Faculty Fellowship Program. This year's theme is “Humans and the Footprints We Leave: Climate Change and Other Critical Challenges." </p> <p>The National Museum of African American History and Culture tells American History through an African American lens. After a welcome and introduction to the museum by Deputy Director Kinshasha Holman Conwill, STEM Education Specialist Christopher W. Williams will engage participants in an exploration of the history of rice cultivation in the United States, and how enslaved West Africans used indigenous knowledge and technology to turn rice into the first globally exported cereal grain from the U.S. <br></p> <p>Resources included in this collection have been recommended by the presenters for participants to explore before the seminar session itself. A fuller description and presenter bios are included inside the collection.<br></p> <p>#MCteach</p>
      Philippa Rappoport
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      Interpreting Content from the Smithsonian Transcription Center: Oral Interviews from the Faris and Yamma Naff Arab American Collection

      <p>This collection is a topical collection guiding students to a fascinating trove of content from the Faris and Yamma Naff Arab American Collection at the National Museum of American History, with discussion questions from Project Zero's Global Thinking routine, "Step In, Step Out, Step Back," to help them explore the content. Also included is additional content from the Smithsonian Transcription Center that students can explore and volunteer to transcribe. By volunteering with the Transcription Center , students would help transcribe these stories of early Arab-America immigration, and contribute to our collective knowledge of Arab American History.</p> <p>The Faris and Yamma Naff Arab American documents the immigration and assimilation of mostly Christian Syrian-Lebanese who came to America at the turn of the twentieth century. The immigrants were predominately-small land-owning peasants and artisans from the village of Syria and Lebanon. It was in these Syrian communities created by Arab immigrants that Dr. Naff sought interviews, photographs and personal papers.<br></p>
      Philippa Rappoport
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      Serving Community in the 21st Century: Presentations from the National Museum of African American History and Culture

      <p>This collection serves as a preview for the fifth of six seminar sessions in the 2021 Smithsonian-Montgomery College Faculty Fellowship Program. This year's theme is “Facing the Complex, Multiple Challenges of the 21st Century."<br><br>Five colleagues from the National Museum of African American History and Culture - Kinshasha Holman Conwill, Candra Flanagan, Anna Hindley, Kelly Elaine Navies, and Esther Washington - will discuss signature programs of the museum's engagement, education, and outreach strategy. </p> <p>Resources included in this collection have been recommended by the presenters for participants to explore before the seminar session itself. A fuller description and presenter bios are included inside the collection.<br></p> <p>Special thanks to Candra Flanagan for the beautiful slides, and to Danielle Lancaster for keeping us all on track!</p> <p>#MCteach</p>
      Philippa Rappoport
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      Introductory Activity to Generate Discussion about Ethnic Studies and Digital Museum Resources (#EthnicStudiesY2)

      <p>This collection is a standalone flashcard or online activity designed to generate discussion for Ethnic and Area Studies classrooms and workshops. The collection includes:</p> <ul><li>images to spark discussion</li><li>questions to guide you in considering and selecting objects</li><li>a word document template that educators can use to edit (or create from scratch) and print flashcards with images and descriptions on opposite sides of each flashcard.</li><li>the Learning Lab Getting Started Guide</li></ul> <p>This collection was co-created with Maritza De La Trinidad, Laura Esparza, Francisco Guajardo, Chris Milk, <a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/profile/9">Tess Porter</a>, <a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/profile/212">Philippa Rappoport</a>, and Elizabeth Salinas, and serves as a preview of the Learning Lab platform and springboard for discussion during the <em>Exploration of Ethnic Studies</em> workshop, held online with the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department, <em>Academia Cuautli,</em> Texas State University, the Museum of South Texas History (MOSTHistory), and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley's (UTRGV) <em>Historias Americanas </em>program during academic year 2020-2021.<em> </em>The collection can be copied and adapted for use in your own classroom. </p> <p>This program received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center.<br></p> <p>#EthnicStudies #HistoriasAmericanas</p> <p>Keywords: TEKS</p> <p></p>
      Philippa Rappoport
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      American Indian Responses to Environmental Challenges

      <p>This collection serves as a preview for the third of six seminar sessions in the 2020 Smithsonian-Montgomery College Faculty Fellowship Program. This year's theme is “Humans and the Footprints We Leave: Climate Change and other Critical Challenges.” <br></p> <p>National Museum of American Indian colleagues Edwin Schupman, Christopher Turner, and Mandy Van Heuvelen will explore how the National Museum of the American Indian's educational resources, exhibitions, and interpretive programs address the issue of climate change. <br>Resources included in this collection have been chosen by the presenters for participants to explore before the seminar itself.<br><br></p> <p>#MCteach</p>
      Philippa Rappoport
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      Reimagining a National Symbol: The Immokalee Statue of Liberty, by Kat Rodriguez

      <p>This teaching collection helps students to look closely and think critically by examining Kat Rodgriguez's <em>Immokalee Statue of Liberty</em>. In 2000 members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in Florida carried this statue on a two-week, 230-mile march for “dignity, dialogue, and a fair wage.” The CIW brought together diverse, interracial groups including agricultural workers, environmentalists, and community organizers, to negotiate for better working conditions and higher wages in the agricultural industry. The statue represents liberty, diversity, inclusion, and liberal rights, and seems to asks us to examine our ideas of national identity. <br></p> <p>This collection prompts students to consider both the Immokalee Statue of Liberty and the Statue of Liberty at Ellis Island, and our changing notions of liberty. Included here are </p><ul><li>the statue</li><li>a suggested Thinking Routine, "See, Think, Wonder," from Harvard's Project Zero Thinking materials</li><li>a bilingual video with Smithsonian National Museum of American History curator Margaret Salazar-Porzio</li><li>two poems - "I, too, am America" by Langston Hughes, which was featured on the Immokalee statue's original pedestal, and "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, which is featured on a bronze plaque on the pedestal the Statue of Liberty at Ellis Island, after which the Immokalee statue is reimagined</li><li>a discussion/writing prompt</li><li>supporting digital content from the National Museum of American History<br></li></ul> <p>For use in Social Studies, Spanish, English, and American History classes<br></p> <p>#LatinoHAC #EthnicStudies</p> <p>This collection supports Unit 1: Intersectionality of Economics, Politics, and Policy, of the Austin ISD Ethnic Studies Part B course.</p> <p><em>This Smithsonian Learning Lab collection received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center. </em></p> <p><br><br></p> <p></p>
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