Sewickley Academy teacher completes exclusive humanities workshop

Katherine Lukaszewicz, a Middle School teacher at Sewickley Academy, recently completed a workshop for educators sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

According to a news release, the workshop, “Heart Mountain, Wyoming, and the Japanese American Incarceration,” taught participants about the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II and the related issues of the treatment of Native Americans, the racism behind many government decisions and the settling of the American West.

Lukaszewicz received a $1,300 stipend from NEH, as well as a certificate of successful completion. All faculty and staff at Sewickley Academy complete professional development annually, and Lukaszewicz, who primarily teaches civics, regularly seeks challenging topics to explore.

“The increase in hate crimes and incidents against Asians and Asian-Americans since the onset of covid has required Americans to look at historic examples of individual and state-sanctioned discrimination,” Lukaszewicz said. “The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation did an outstanding job of tracing the throughline of government-endorsed discrimination from Teddy Roosevelt’s 1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement that limited Japanese immigration to a series of laws that forbade Asians from seeking naturalization or owning land in some states, and finally, to Franklin Roosevelt’s executive order to intern Japanese-American citizens despite the lack of evidence that they posed a threat to national security after the Empire of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.”

The week-long workshop was part of NEH’s Landmarks of American History and Culture program, specializing in place-based education that lets participants experience parts of American history where they happened.