By Meg Boedeker |News|
The first week of March, 2018, Dr. Wendy Pearlman, a Lincoln native and Irving Middle School alumni who is also a professor in Northwestern’s Political Studies department will visit Lincoln High to speak of what she and others have experienced within war-torn Syria. Pearlman has devoted her life to her studies of the Middle East, and has traveled there to gain a better
perspective of life there. She has written a new book called, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria, which includes the perspectives of those who fled Syria, due to the Syrian war, which began in 2011. Lincoln High is a diverse place, and there’s people from every country within these brick walls. This book allows the perspective and the vision of those who may otherwise be unheard, be heard.
English teacher and Fork in the Road sponsor, Christopher Maly met Pearlman when he was in seventh grade at Irving Middle School. Pearlman went to a different high school. “I have followed her [Pearlman’s] work throughout the years after she earned her doctorate from Harvard,” Maly said.
In 2011, the Syrian war began, which caused many of the inhabitants to leave their homeland. Everyone that had left Syria has a different story of their journey, but the way their stories are told is what matters. Pearlman chose to write about the conflict from a more “intimate” point of view that allows the reader to delve deeper into the thoughts, feelings, and perspectives of the person rather than the “textbook perspective.” This “textbook perspective” is filled with only factual information and no person-person connection. Lincoln High is a diverse place, and perhaps this book will allow those who have been lucky to stay out of war and violent conflict to get a wider perspective on the world and the people around them.
“The book [We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria] is relevant for all to read. The Syrian war created the largest mass movement of people in Europe since World War II,” Maly said, “Dr. Pearlman is a professor in the Political Studies department of Northwestern University. She has dedicated her work to studying conflicts in the Middle East and collected these stories. The power of her work is she humanizes the issue and provides her audience with narratives that have names rather than broad ideas and theories.” Maybe reading/hearing these life stories can hit “close to home” for some students and make them feel understood and not alone in their struggle in a new country, the United States of America.
Reading her book, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria, may aid students in, “understanding history and understanding the social and political needs for today,” Maly explains. Listening to Pearlman’s stories could give students a new, more gracious perspective on their own lives, and hopefully, help to ignite a spark within those who are driven to create change within the world.
Lincoln High’s Fork in the Road, according to their Facebook page is, “a student run organization based at Lincoln High School with a mission of eliminating academic and cultural barriers in our community.” This ideology is partly behind the reason why Fork in the Road chose Pearlman to visit–to make Lincoln High more unified and aware of others and their differences. Differences are beautiful, and every person has their own unique life story because of that.
Although Fork in the Road hasn’t assembled for this year yet, Maly, a sponsor of the LHS branch of the organization, was able to contact Pearlman. “When her book was published, Dr. Pearlman and I began corresponding about her work. The focus and dialogue of her work was reflective of the dialogues we have been having in Fork in the Road the last two years […] I asked if she could lecture for a day at LHS and Dr. Pearlman was gracious in granting this request,” Maly said. As stated earlier, the Fork in the Road group is still coming together. Contact Maly, Shawn Williams, or Laurel Maslowski if you are interested in joining.
“She [Pearlman] will be here the first week of March and will be speaking with students about her work. It will be a great time for the LHS community to listen, connect, and share,” Maly said, “I am incredibly excited about the dialogues it will produce.”
