2011 Year End Event a Real Success

Nora Tabler, Communications Chair

On May 24, 46 students from three IIY schools joined 23 tutors and IIY staff for our annual “End of the Year” event which began at the Seattle Center fountain. Delicious box lunches were distributed to all and after lunch, the students had fun running around the grounds and “playing tag” with the bursting water spouts from the fountain. Soon it was time to line up for our entrance into the Children’s Museum to see “Jackie and Me,” a play that introduces the idea of racism in a way that’s engaging to kids and also shows them what it was like for African-Americans who grew up with segregation.

The play is based on a book written by Dan Gutman, and is about a kid named Joe Stoshack who travels back in time using baseball cards. In the play, he travels back to 1947, Jackie Robinson’s first year with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the year that Robinson broke the color line in professional baseball. While Joe is back in time he conducts research for a Black History Month school assignment and ends up getting a glimpse of what it was like to be black in post-World War II New York. When he goes back in time, his skin darkens as well so it becomes a “real’ experience for him.

At the end, we agreed that you didn’t have to be a baseball fan to enjoy this play, although it was fun to learn about a famous baseball player who was also an American hero. The play is well worth seeing for many reasons – entertaining and also instructive about the evolution of civil rights in America.

Below are some photos this year’s event:

Tutor Wayne Hollister and his student

Tutor Nora Tabler and her student

Excited students gather in line for Jackie and Me performance

Tutor Sylvia Bailey and her student

A students drawing after seeing the Performance