FBLA sponsor Maria Bicknell reports that at the 2012 Future Business Leaders of America Regional Conference, Pueblo students came home with gold, silver, and bronze medals!
Ludwing Nunez: 1st place in Management Information Systems
Andrea Bakos: 2nd place in Management Information Systems
Carlos Meraz: 3rd place in Job Interview
Great job, Warriors!
On Thursday and Friday, April 14 and 15, seven Pueblo Biomedical (Biotechnology) students attended the HOSA Spring Leadership Conference at the Doubletree Hotel in Tucson.
The following students placed in the top 5 of their event:
Brian Bishop: 4th Medical Math
Tricia Hindley: 4th Biotechnology
Karla Placencio: 3rd Dental Terminology
Carlos Ramirez: 1st Epidemiology
Christina Verdugo: 4th Human Growth & Development
Other students that competed were: John Woods & Gabrielle Reid
This was a statewide competition and our Warriors did very well! Congratulations to all that participated.
HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America) Biotechnology students participated in the HOSA Spring Leadership Conference at the Doubletree Hotel from April 14 to 16.
Our students were great these past two days. They were polite, articulate, and full of Pueblo Pride.
Carlos Ramirez was elected Secondary Vice President of HOSA for the Southern region of Arizona. We have a state officer. This position required a speech and question and answer period. He ran successfully against the current HOSA HIstorian from Sunnyside. Carlos was wonderful.
Nine students attended the State Leadership Conference. Most had to be in the top 20 in the state after an online test in February.
Biotechnology Story
In Biotechnology, 95 students took the online test. Michael Dedrick was 5th, and Tricia Hindley was 9th. On Thursday both participated in the skills competitions. The two skills were microscopy and culturing bacteria. Today the final results were announced.
In the Arizona State HOSA Biotechnology competition, Michael placed second, and earned a trip to Nationals (Orlando), and Tricia placed 5th.
In the following competitions, students worked almost exclusively on their own, since these subjects were not explicitly covered in the biotech curriculum:
Jeffery/Brian Bishop- Medical Math
Cynthia Lona- Human Growth and Development
Hector Mendoza- Prepared Persuasive Speech
Carlos Ramirez- Epidemiology
Patrick Swindell, Gilberto Valenzuela, and Christian Vasquez- Creative Problem Solving Team
Students earned 4 medals:
Gold: Carlos Ramirez
Silver: Jeffery/Brian Bishop
Silver: Michael Dedrick
Silver: Hector Mendoza
They all qualify for Nationals.
Education Professions students made the trip to Phoenix for the Diamondback Line Up for Learning Field Day at Chase Field. Eight Pueblo students attended on April 21st.
The event included Phoenix Science Center demonstrations and Character Education videos by the Diamondback players. Darren Sutton was the host.
There were over 5000 elementary aged students and Education Professions students from five high schools in attendance. Pueblo was the only group from Tucson.
The culminating project for the Education Professions students was to write a lesson plan based on the lesson at Chase Field. The Pueblo group wrote a lesson on the Water Cycle.
Education Profession is a class for student interested in Education as a career. Students learn about leadership & learning styles, learning disabilities, creating lessons, participate in field based learning in elementary classrooms.
On Saturday January 31st, twenty eight Pueblo Sophomores attended a Holocaust Education Program at the JCC. They heard life stories from survivors who retold the horrible truth of the Holocaust. As one survivor, Bill Kugelman told his life story, students were in complete silence and brought to tears at times. Bill was also brought to tears. Although he had told his story times before, he said that his “heart was bleeding” as he recounted the sadness, grief and inhumanity of the Holocaust. He mentioned that he did not like to read about the Holocaust, watch movies about it or discuss it, but that he allows himself to be torn apart by retelling his experiences so that we would not forget it and would stand up when an injustice is occurring. “I do it for you. I allow myself to be torn apart because you have to hear it.”
Students were struck when he showed them the number that the Nazi’s had tattooed on his arm. Isabel Jimenez said that for her, this was the saddest part of his story, “when he showed us where they tattooed his number on his arm, and he no longer had a name.” Many students were shocked at the role that education played in making the monstrosity of the Holocaust possible. They were able to look at children’s books which spouted Anti-Semitism. Another student, Jasmine Magdellano was struck by one woman’s story. She recounted watching her mother being taken away from her because she could not walk after being transported for five days in a cattle car. Her mother was tossed into a truck by SS guards and driven away. This was the last time that she saw her. Although these sophomores have been learning about the Holocaust and have read Night, many commented that it sounded almost unreal. Derek Gunnels said that he was surprised at how similar Bill Klugelman’s story was to what he read in night. What really stood out to him was the idea that one of the worst violations of the Holocaust was the fact that it stripped one of their humanity. Bill Kugelman made this point, as did Elie Wiesel in Night. A member of the audience asked Bill how he regained his humanity. He explained that it was only through time, through rubbing shoulders with other humans and through finding support.
The overall message that unified the survivor’s stories was the fact that hate was the root of this inhumanity. This is what hate does when it is allowed to fester and grow. We hear the figures so often- over eleven million were killed in the Holocaust. Six million of those were Jews. Mr. Kugelman pointed out that when we hear those numbers, we are not sure what they mean. But that every one of those million-every one of those people had a family, had a husband, a wife, a mother a father, a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister. Every one of those murdered lives is precious and lost. Even just one life is significant, whether it is a million or 1. This stood out to me.
As we’ve watched the atrocities of Darfur unfold, I wonder, is this what it was like? Around the world, people “heard stories” of the atrocities that occurred in the Holocaust as they were occurring. Even prior to Hitler unleashing WWII, they knew that particular groups were being targeted. But who took action to prevent the stories from multiplying- to prevent the victims from multiplying? Was there a unified organized international movement to help? No. There wasn’t. In fact, at the Evian Conference, European nations closed their borders to Jewish refugees. Hitler scoffed at this and the Holocaust was allowed to occur. It was only brave individuals who attempted to organize and do whatever they could to help at least one person and in turn helped generations. There were political reasons as to why a nation could not help. Some refugees that arrived off the coast of Florida (Cuba) were turned away and sent back to Europe, only to be placed in concentration camps. Whether someone is Jewish, Sudanese, Mexican, Christian, Muslim, Palestinian- a life is a life. We should do what we can to help each other. I hope that my students pulled this idea away from what they’ve learned. Allowing bullying, harassment and hatred to occur only aids the oppressor. It is what allowed the Holocaust to occur.
Below is a summary of Bill Kugelman’s life:
BILL KUGELMAN was born in Sosniwice, Poland in 1924 where he lived with his brothers and sisters. Following the German invasion, the family was forced into a single room in the Srodula Ghetto. In 1942 Bill’s family was sent to the Annaburg labor camp in East Germany. In 1944 the Kugelman family was sent to Auschwitz/Birkenau. From here, his mother and sisters were sent to the Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. Bill and his brothers were sent to Landsberg Labor Camp, a sub camp of Dachau, where his oldest brother was killed. After being evacuated to Allach, another sub camp of Dachau, Bill and his brothers were liberated. (taken from the JCC website)
[Via Andrea Ayala]