News

Summit teacher receives international award in New York City

December 2, 2011

Rosemarie Sansalone Alway, a Middle School Language Arts Teacher at The Summit Country Day School, received the Robert I. Goldman Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education on Tuesday evening from the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous (JFR). The award was presented at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City.

Mrs. Alway, who received a standing ovation at the ceremony, said the experience was a memory of a lifetime. “It was such a beautiful setting for such a powerful event,” she said. “One of my heroes, Roman Kent, a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz, presented my award.”

Mrs. Alway, of Kenwood, was selected from more than 400 of JFR’s Lerner Fellows across the United States, Canada, Poland, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, and South Africa. Only one educator receives the award each year. The award was established in 1998 as a tribute to the late Robert I. Goldman, a founding member of the JFR who was committed to Holocaust education.

“Character Education is one of The Summit’s signature programs and Mrs. Alway incorporates it into her Language Arts classroom,” says Middle School Director Mike Johnson. “She is teaching her students how to be good writers and how to comprehend what they’ve read; however, she is also teaching the lessons of the Holocaust. She challenges her students to recognize the dignity of each person, to respect all of life, and to realize the dangers of indifference.”

Mrs. Alway uses the classics to teach character for fifteen-year-olds who might be inclined to go along with the crowd. She shows how Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird” models integrity. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel demonstrates perseverance in his memoir “Night.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s “The Little Prince” shows the importance of seeing people “with your heart” instead of making snap judgments.

Her essay “The Ashes of Auschwitz” is the third in The Summit’s new online Educational Insights series. Read it here: http://tinyurl.com/cqqmbuh