SPRING 2006 • NUMBER 130 - Winston Churchill

Although a fire alarm interrupted Sir Martin’sspeech at the 50-minute mark, and cost us the best partof an hour, teachers were to hold an interactive discussionwith Sir Martin on Churchill’s relevance to thechallenges of the 21st century.Seminar Evaluationby Suzanne SigmanEducational Programs CoordinatorThe Churchill Centre deeply thanks TheGeorge Washington University for providing our roomat the Marvin Center, and the amenities at low or nocost—and for the delicious buffet lunch, which is certainto bring back many of the participants. It would nothave been possible to operate this event so well withoutthe generous aid of the University.The seminar was a very good first effort by TheChurchill Centre. With the exception of the fire alarm,the day went smoothly. In retrospect, it might have beenbetter to go right to the teacher Q&A and let the publicremain, rather than allow a Q&A with a diminishednumber of attendees, but these decisions have to betaken on the fly and you do the best you can.The majority of teachers rated most aspects ofthe seminar as excellent but there are areas that requireevaluation and improvement. The good news is thatwith the help of Professor Harmon, it will be possible toimplement many of the suggestions and aspire to excellencein future events of this kind. It is mostly a matterof preparing the teachers well and balancing the topicswith the allotted time and the appropriate format.What the Centre learned is that teachers havewidely diverse backgrounds and varied knowledge of thesubject matter. The seminar format requires that eachparticipant has an opportunity to prepare for it, eitherby closely-related suggested readings or a short lecture offactual material before discussion. Teachers rated highlytwo of the three readings, mailed to them in advance ofthe seminar; but we did not include sufficient backgroundreading on the causes of World War II. The seminarformat was inspiring to many and ProfessorHarmon was highly rated. Discussion is good, but factsare necessary.We might change the furniture: from classroomdesks/tables to a more relaxed arrangement for groupdiscussion. We also learned, to our pleasant surprise, thedepth to which teachers want us to go. In the future wewill emphasize fewer topics and more depth, concretecurriculum materials and ample discussion time.Attendance exceeded expectations. We wouldhave been happy with twenty, but thirty-three teachersactually enrolled. There were nine no-shows, one owingto family matters, but we know how ad hoc teachers’schedules are. While our teachers made no financialcommitment to the seminar, they still had to arrange fora substitute to cover their classes.Most teachers turned in useful evaluationpapers. The sections on the evaluation included session1, causes of World War II; session 2, strategic cooperationbetween Churchill and Roosevelt; session 3, theFINEST HOUR 130 / 30