I am writing this letter to inform you of some of the good things the Idaho Humanities Council is doing with their funds. This year I wrote a grant to the Idaho Humanities Council and received $1,000 for an ongoing professional development for teachers at my school. This professional development and training class is for the teachers at Holy Spirit Catholic School grades pre-K-8 in Pocatello. It is a class for children’s literature studies with social justice themes.

Our group meets monthly to discuss a chapter book and picture book. I do research with other colleagues to find the best of children’s literature to fully utilize our time and funding. The schedule is created for monthly classes throughout the school year months. University credit is available enabling teachers to use this class toward recertification of their teaching credentials.

The books are selected for quality and themes. The school has monthly themes to be taught and emphasized at our school. Some of the themes, for example are: kindness, dignity of the human person, family, rights and responsibilities, and options for the poor and vulnerable. The class participants are expected to read the books before each class and participate in discussions. The discussions include ways teachers can teach with these books, activities for learning, and ideas to utilize children’s literature in all areas of the curriculum. This grant helped to pay for the books. Teachers receive these books to read, and then they can be used in the school’s library as well as classroom libraries, which all teachers keep in their classrooms. The discussions and ideas shared are very helpful and have become a favorite way to do professional development among the faculty. We have chosen to do this class for 8 years, and we have begun our 9th year of this ongoing training.

The Idaho Humanities Council has awarded our school over the last 8 years support of our professional development program. Their support has been invaluable. The Idaho Humanities council is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting public awareness, appreciation, and understanding of literature, history, law, anthropology, and other humanities disciplines. This professional development course supports the literature of the IHC’s goals. IHC’s funding to support others throughout Idaho come from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

I would like to thank the Idaho Humanities Council for supporting the arts and humanities in local schools like Holy Spirit Catholic School in Pocatello, Idaho.

Margie Gabiola,

4th Grade Teacher at Holy Spirit Catholic School