Linda Hooper

  • Inspired the Emmy-nominated Paper Clips Documentary
  • Whitwell Middle School Principal



A middle school principal, Linda Hooper is a consummate educator, once asking her students to collect six million paper clips as a way to visualize the magnitude of the Holocaust. A firm believer in the power of education as a vehicle to tolerance, Linda Hooper speaks movingly about teaching to change the world.

 

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Rave Reviews About Linda Hooper
I just wanted to let you know that Ottawa had an absolutely incredible time with Linda Hooper. She is an extraordinary person, and the feedback has been phenomenal. Her speech was inspirational and heart warming. We had a wonderful time just talking with her before and after the event.”

A Sample of the Groups That Have Hosted Linda Hooper
  • Jewish Community Center of Greater Rochester
  • The Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis
  • Jewish Federation of Northeastern New York
  • Congregation Beth Shalom
  • Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago
  • Yeshivah Day School of Flatbush
  • Sarasota-Manatee Jewish Federation
  • Jewish Federation of Las Vegas
  • Minneapolis Jewish Federation
  • Palm Beach Post
Explore Talks By Linda Hooper

The Power of One

Changing the World – One Class at a Time

Holocaust Awareness in Public Schools

Teaching Tolerance in Turbulent Times

Building Respectful Relationships

Learn more about Linda Hooper
Biography
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Linda Hooper’s speech “The Power of One,” tells the moving story of how the students behind the Paper Clips Project responded to what had been to them a completely unfamiliar chapter in human history- the Holocaust. In 1998, the children of Tennessee’s Whitwell Middle School took on an extraordinary project inspired by their principal, Linda Hooper. The Paper Clips Project grew out of a sense that the students in the homogeneous community weren’t learning about the lives and experiences of other groups.

Struggling to grasp the concept of six-million Holocaust victims, the students decided to collect six-million paper clips to better understand the extent of this crime against humanity. This amazing project would change the students, their teachers, their families and the entire town forever...and eventually, open hearts and minds around the world as this remarkable story became an award-winning film entitled PAPER CLIPS.

In Linda Hooper’s words: “The Paper Clips Project has been an affirmation of my beliefs that education is absolutely essential to change; that evil must be constantly battled by education; that everyone must study the past so that we do not forget nor repeat our mistakes; and that there is a higher power guiding our destiny.”

Linda Hooper has been a public school educator for 30 years. Ms. Hooper believes that educating our children is the most important task we have as a proper education will give them the tools to make responsible, informed and compassionate decisions. This is what Ms. Hooper’s family and teachers did for her, it is what Ms. Hooper did for her own children and it is what the educators at Whitwell Middle School continue to do on a daily basis.

Ms. Hooper is married to Edward Hooper, a retired pharmacist. They have two sons and four grandchildren. Ms. Hooper’s hobbies include- reading, traveling, furniture refinishing, painting, and hiking.