His Story
Drew Beiter is the youngest of a family of six that included three educators. After college he was torn between teaching and going into government until a professor asked him, “Drew, who do you think teaches the politicians?” During his student teaching, a local eighth grade teacher asked what he would teach about the Holocaust, and when Beiter admitted that he knew little about it, he recommended a teacher training workshop at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. That workshop began his lifelong work in human rights education. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political philosophy at Michigan State University, a teaching certificate at the State University of New York at Buffalo and a master’s in education at SUNY Fredonia.
He taught in West Seneca and Panama, New York, before joining Springville Middle School in 1999, where his principal says he has taught roughly 2,500 students and earned the highest rating of Highly Effective every year. Before school starts each day he reads one student’s “get to know you” questionnaire so that he can say something supportive when the student arrives, and he greets students with energizing music. They sit at tables, not desks, and he often sits with them.
His rule for eighth graders is that whatever they are learning about, they become. They dress as immigrants passing through Ellis Island inspection stations, act as the president’s cabinet in a White House Situation Room, serve in an outdoor Great Depression soup kitchen, and recreate the Treaty of Versailles and the 1911 Triangle Factory trial. He then asks students to apply what they learned to current events and to take informed action. After studying Alice Paul, for example, students take part in a voluntary “Day of Silence,” and the pledges they collect go to scholarships for a girls’ school in Afghanistan.
Beyond the Classroom
In 2007, after the genocide in Darfur, Beiter and several students started Springville Students for Human Rights. The club has raised close to $30,000 for projects including a classroom in Sierra Leone and scholarships for a school for girls in Afghanistan, and students have written, produced and performed a play, Ripples of Hope. He also founded the Summer Institute for Human Rights and Genocide Studies, which has worked with more than 500 area high school students. It is now the nonprofit Academy for Human Rights, where he is executive director and which also holds conferences for educators.
After a 2009 trip to Rwanda, he used his connections with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Federation of Teachers to organize a conference for Rwandan educators, which led to the creation of the Educators’ Institute for Human Rights, where he now chairs the board. The institute has trained teachers in Rwanda, Bosnia and Cambodia. He co-organized eight conferences with the Holocaust Resource Center of Buffalo and the Robert H. Jackson Center, and helped create teaching websites on Syria and North Korea. His honors include the Irena Sendler Award for Repairing the World (2008) and the New York State Education Department’s Louis Yavner Award for Human Rights Education (2013).
Philosophy Into Practice
There is no state test for his eighth grade course, so Beiter consults the seventh grade teacher and the special education staff about incoming students. He combines formative assessments with summative ones and reads every assignment as data. He uses persuasive writing, graphic organizers and inquiry assignments to see how his students think, and he follows up one-on-one with those who do poorly. He says that data is a means to an end.
He names two problems in education: a lack of professional development on contemporary issues, and a shortage of ready-to-use online teaching resources. He says that most districts have put their professional development toward exam preparation or school safety, and he has tried to fill the gap with the conferences and websites that he has created.
“The world is changed one student at a time.”Drew Beiter, recalling a speaker at a Teaching American History seminar
In His Own Words
“Teaching is the art of inspiring and empowering others to reach their full academic, social, and personal potential.”Drew Beiter
“Whatever students are learning about, they become.”Drew Beiter
“I realized that my career could be a catalyst toward training others and inspiring my students to use their talents for humanity.”Drew Beiter
What Others Said
“Drew Beiter is one of America’s most innovative teachers.”Megan Felt, nominator, colleague
“Andrew truly excels in engaging students both in and out of the classroom.”Shanda DuClon, principal, Springville Middle School
“Andrew Beiter is at the top of his field.”Joseph D. Karb, colleague, social studies teacher
“Drew makes learning fun and relatable.”Julie Francisco, parent of a former student
“Mr. Beiter is part teacher, part activist.”Rainah Umlauf, former student