As a child I read The Diary of Anne Frank, as well as many other works dealing with the Holocaust. Although there was much in these works to sadden and depress me, I was buoyed in reading that in the midst of these heinous acts, there were people who refused to collaborate with the perpetrators. Their actions gave me hope as a child that good people—ordinary heroes—existed.
Years later as an adult, I was touched when Miep Gies, who had helped hide the Frank family, published a memoir titled Anne Frank Remembered (1987). In her prologue to this gripping, intimate perspective, she offered this self-appraisal: I am not a hero. I stand at the end of the long, long line of good Dutch people who did what I did or more.... There is nothing special about me. I have never wanted special attention.
In addition to her self-deprecating evaluation of her own efforts in assisting the Franks, Gies provided the myriad multi-generational readers of Anne's diary with another perspective on her story.
What Is a Hero?
I began to think of how I could use this work to engage my inner-city, multiethnic middle school students in a study of ordinary heroes. It was not that the curriculum ignored ordinary heroes, only that it was informed by a heavy emphasis on the glitzy heroes celebrated in today's media—sports figures, multimillionaire executives, rock and film stars, and so on. We even had discussed such well-known anti-heroes as O.J. Simpson and Joey Buttafucco.
I decided to use Gies's very honest, personal thoughts on heroism as a springboard for a student search of authentic, unheralded, contemporary heroes. I distributed a sheet of quotes from her book to my 7th graders, some of whom had read The Diary of Anne Frank. For example: Dutch children ... learned faithfulness in friendship very young.Many Dutch Christians, deeply rankled by this humiliation of our Jews, also wore yellow stars on their coats.... Signs appeared in some shops asking Christians to show special respect for our Jewish neighbors ... anything to show them that they were not alone.Ten Christian Churches in Holland had banded together and issued a public protest.... [they] expressed profound “outrage” at the German deportations of Jewish people.
I then divided the class into teams of three students each, and asked them to react to the quotes and also to come up with their own definitions of the terms hero and ordinary hero.
Someone who does a brave or good act.
Someone who helps a stranger.
Someone who does not expect a reward.
Someone who is selfless.
Someone who has a positive effect on another person's life.
Anyone can be an ordinary hero if he or she affects another person. The act itself can be heroic and the person can still be a hero if it fails.
A person who bounces back after a tragedy.
A person who fights for causes for common people.
Someone who on the spur of the moment does something heroic.
Someone who is willing to help someone else even if he or she might lose his or her life.
Heroes I Have Known
I asked the students how they reacted to the quotes from Anne Frank Remembered. Did they agree or disagree with any of them? Was there anything they would have said themselves? Although none of my students saw himself or herself as an ordinary hero, several said they knew ordinary heroes. (The box on this page shows the students' descriptions of these people.)
Students' Ordinary Heroes
“My mother tried to save her sister's life. But by the time she got her into the hospital, it was too late; the cancer was too far gone.”
“My cousin keep a woman whose husband was beating up on her in her apartment overnight. But the woman went back to her husband the next day.”
“My friend saved his aunt whose hands had been burned when she put the oven on wrong. He just pulled her back, ran to the freezer, got ice, put her hands in the sink, and called an ambulance. I only found out a week later when I asked her why her hands were bandaged. Philip made me promise I'd never tell anyone. He said he didn't know why he did what he did anyway. He just did it.”
“I think that the guidance counselors and the advocates who help battered children are heroes every day, though they don't get respect. Defenseless hurt children are rarely in the news unless they get killed or thrown in the garbage. The kids who get it each day but keep on going don't get written up in the newspaper. The counselors who look out for them don't get honored either.”
“When my African-American Grandma heard some of my friends saying that a light skinned girl was a white man's black girl, she said we all were child of the `Colored People.' She said we Colored Children had enough enemies without being our own enemies too. But my friends didn't stop making fun of Hamesha's skin. To be honest, I did it too. But I still think my Grandma was a hero for telling my friends off.”
Once the students had discussed their own concepts of ordinary heroes and reacted to Miep Gies's comments, I asked them if they felt that newspapers report on ordinary heroes. Most couldn't cite any ordinary heroes in the news by name. But they did recall occasionally reading about firefighters or police officers who qualified.
I then gave my students three days to comb newspapers for ordinary heroes. They were encouraged to use not only daily general newspapers but also neighborhood and community newspapers and foreign language newspapers, such as El Diario.
When they shared the results of their searches, there was wide agreement that very few ordinary heroes were mentioned. Several students noted that even when ordinary hero stories did appear, they never appeared on page 1 of the general newspapers, but tended to be buried somewhere near page 7 or so. Even the community or foreign language papers, which did include more ordinary heroes, did not put these stories on the front page.
Single women of the '90s who are mothers.
A hospital chaplain who raises money to pay the bills of people with AIDS.
An off-duty police officer who rescued a family in a car crash.
Two brothers who are firefighters.
Hospital volunteers.
Argentinean rescuers who freed a man buried under the rubble of a terrorist bomb site.
The “angel of mercy”—a woman who saved a person from a car crash.
A Little League coach who tries to instill positive values in his team.
Lt. George Hener, a firefighter who died as a result of a fire set by an arsonist.
The medics and children in Rwanda.
Emergency Medical Service workers.
Carolyn McCarthy, a widow who lost her husband to the Long Island Railroad shooting on December 7, 1993, and whose son was critically wounded. She is advocating a ban on assault weapons.
One student wrote a letter to the editors of all three daily newspapers, advocating more coverage of ordinary heroes. He suggested places to find these people—schools, fire stations, hospitals, senior centers, police stations, and so on.
Ordinary Hero Hall of Fame
Another enthusiastic student suggested starting our own Ordinary Hero Hall of Fame, an idea that intrigued fellow students. We decided to follow through on the idea. We began by organizing a plenary team of ordinary hero researchers. These students issued a call for Ordinary Hero Hall of Fame nominations (See the box on this page), requesting explanations of why someone deserved the nomination, some personal data, and a photo of the person.
Sample Form for Ordinary Hero Hall of Fame
Calling All Ordinary Heroes (or those who know them)
Do you know someone who does good without expecting a reward?
Do you know someone who has overcome tragedies, illness, or difficulties without being acknowledged for it?
Do you know someone who volunteers his or her time or helps out on a regular basis, but has never been publicized?
Do you know someone who is an unsung Ordinary Hero?
If so, write down your nominee's home address and phone number and explain in up to 250 words why your nominee deserves to be inducted in our Ordinary Hero Hall of Fame.
Include a black-and-white photo of your nominee, preferably doing his or her ordinary hero activity.
Submit to: The Ordinary Hero Hall of Fame Team.
The Ordinary Hero Hall of Fame team suggested that students use their own families and other sources close to home: neighbors; community and volunteer centers; community, daily, and local foreign language newspapers; police precincts; and hospitals. Although I didn't require it, I suggested that students nominate people they knew or had met with; this would make the concept more concrete and also allow for authentic community outreach.
Students submitted nominations within a month. Among the nominees were family members who had survived cancer, a man who had volunteered his services at a neighborhood senior center, a decorated Korean War veteran, a woman who delivered hot meals to AIDS shut-ins, a mother who had divorced her abusive husband and made a better life for her children, and a teenager who was undergoing chemotherapy. For each of these nominees, students created a display of photos, quotes, and other relevant items. Each nominee came to school or was visited at home (or at the volunteer site or hospital) by a team of students who had not nominated anyone in the group. No votes were cast—everyone nominated was accepted for the Hall of Fame.
Heroes in the Flesh
Finally, an induction ceremony was held. Some of the inductees and representatives from the civic organizations involved attended, as did three other classes of 7th graders. The inductees were genuinely touched. As several students noted, some of their remarks echoed the quotes from Miep Gies (which were distributed at the ceremony)—the quotes that had begun our quest. The students seemed inspired not only by the inductees, but also by the range of achievable, ordinary activities in which they were involved.
At the ceremony, we began discussing ways in which some students could volunteer on weekends at a local senior center. Many students who had not nominated someone asked if we could hold another induction ceremony next fall so that they would have this opportunity.
I look forward to expanding our Ordinary Hero Hall of Fame. I see this active and authentic community outreach project as a way to excite and engage students in ordinary civic heroics.
