Unabomber's Brother, Aurora Massacre Survivor to Speak at 'Living Lessons' Event

Some lessons are not learned at a desk or from a book. Some lessons are learned through merely living life.

The Robert R. Lazar School student body will soon be listening to the lessons some have had to learn through trying circumstances during the school's "Living Lessons" event on May 15.

The "Living Lessons" program has garnered national attention in years past for bringing a large group of people who have overcome adversity together under one roof. While "Living Lessons" is bi-annual, nationally-known speakers like David Kaczynski, the brother of "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski, have piqued interest even beyond the Lazar School.

David Kaczynski, and many more speakers, will be part of this year's "Living Lessons" program, according to Judy Gothelf, an English teacher at Lazar and organizer of the program. Other speakers include a survivor of the Aurora movie theater shooting, a Columbine shooting survivor, Holocaust survivor, survivors of the World Trade Center bombing, mothers whose sons committed suicide, an anti-bullying advocate, a man who confronted the KKK and more.

"We have about 40-something speakers coming," Gothelf said.

"Living Lessons" was the idea of Gothelf and a former colleague, Joe Keiser, back in 2005. The duo worked to come up with a way to expand education beyond the classroom and teach the students that even some of life's greatest challenges can be overcome.

"Education is very much about going into a classroom and teaching the kids and teaching them lessons of grammar, but I think we have so much more of a responsibility and I think we have to teach the children what the world is like outside of their own little world," she said.

By having people who have faced these situations and forgiven their attackers talk to the students, Gothelf said, students walk away from the presentations with a different perspective on life. The students hear from different presenters based on their age and the appropriateness of the topics they are speaking about, but after the day's events, each student returns to their classroom and writes letters to those they heard from. Students have written in the past about how much they learned from the day and how they plan to respect others in the future.

To bring so many speakers to the school, students and community members help raise money, including during a walk-a-thon. This year's walk-a-thon was held in October and the physical education teachers set up a course in the back of the school. About $15,000 was raised during the walk-a-thon alone.

"It's the community that really pitches in big time," Gothelf said.

The school's PTC and the Montville Education Foundation also contribute, in addition to a grant the school receives from the New Jersey Education Association.

Gothelf thanked the community for their contributions, administrators for supporting the program and other organizers for their assistance.