The book club goes online
When a family lives in times of turmoil, what do you tell the children? Do you shield a 9-year-old from Moammar Gadhafi’s Libya? Adolf Hitler’s Germany? How much do you tell them about slavery? Apartheid? The Holocaust? Fourth-grade teacher Madeleine Keller faces such questions daily in the classroom. In August, she was able to reflect on those issues more fully, thanks to an unusual online book club of webinars organized by five of Harvard’s international study centers. “I think of these webinars as professional development of the highest quality,” said Keller, who has been teaching for 23 years at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore. “They help me further my understanding of cultures different from my own and make me think about current events, history, and geography from a much stronger background of knowledge.” The Global Literature Online Book Group for Educators kicked off in August with a discussion of “In the Country...