Pleasanton Middle School teacher takes part in selective national program

An eighth-grade teacher at Pleasanton Middle School was one of 36 educators selected nationwide to take part in a humanities-focused institute in Massachusetts this past summer.

Katie Orenberg, who teaches history and drama to eighth-grade students, was chosen from an applicant pool of 328 teachers from across the country to participate in the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for Teachers in Lowell, Mass., the nation's first large-scale planned industrial city.

Orenberg said attending the week-long institute will be instrumental in her teaching going forward.

"Having the opportunity to participate in The Lowell Experience will have a transformational effect on the way I teach social movements and reform in industrializing America," she told the Weekly. "I will take back with me, and share with my students, the honor and privilege of 'spending time with' the young women and immigrants who worked in these mills, pouring myself into their letters and diaries in the place where they experienced it."