Teaching with Testimony: 2010
In 2010, enrollment opens up nationally, and eighteen new Master Teacher candidates from across the US attended the workshop at USC.
Participants of the 2010 Teaching with Testimony workshop, held at USC
Meet The Participants
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Lesly Culp
Vista Murrieta High School, Murrieta, CA
Project Title: Coming to America After the War
Description: As part of a larger unit on, “The American Dream through Race, Class and Gender”, this lesson focuses on the American immigration experience throughout history, utilizing testimonies of those who were forced to flee during and after the Holocaust.
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Mindy Davis
Mt. Carmel High School, San Diego, CA
Project Title: Holocaust Liberators and the American Civil Rights Movement
Description: This project bridges units on World War II and the Civil Rights Movement by focusing on testimonies of African American liberators who discuss how the concentration camps resonated with them because of the bigotry and racism that they faced at home.
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Judi Freeman
Boston Latin School, Boston, MA
Project Title: Survival in the Epicenter of the Nazi Enterprise: Berlin Jews during the Holocaust, 1938-1945: Five Classroom Lessons
Description: Intended to be used within a larger study of the Holocaust, these lessons delve into the experience of Jews who remained in Berlin after Kristallnacht and throughout the war, exploring their very survival as an act of resistance through the use of survivor testimonies.
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Robert Hadley
Clackamas High School, Clackamas, OR
Ginny Hoke
Thurston High School, Springfield, OR
Project Title: Voices from the Wall: Oregon Survivors Speak
Description: This joint project is comprised of two modules that feature the testimonies of Oregon Holocaust survivors, Leslie Aigner and Miriam Greenstein. Each module consists of a 30-minute series of excerpts from each survivor’s testimony, video viewing guides, and an associated classroom lesson that explore topics such as life in the ghettos, camp life, resistance, and liberation. Currently, Rob and Ginny are working on expanding this project by developing two additional modules featuring other Oregonian Holocaust survivors.
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Susan Kacvinsky
32nd St. USC Magnet High School, Los Angeles, CA
Project Title: Consequences of Hate
Description: Connecting the Pyramid of Hate Exercise to racism and the United States Civil Rights Movement, this lesson utilizes testimonies of African American liberators during the Holocaust who later worked in the Civil Rights Movement to aid students’ understanding of the ways in which events in one country can have an impact in another.
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Joseph Kenney
Duarte High School, Duarte, CA
Project Title: Winning Hearts and Minds
Description: The second part of a three-lesson unit on propaganda, this lesson aims is to compare and contrast Nazi propaganda with testimony of Holocaust survivors who were at Terezin.
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Renée Klein
Animo Venice Charter High School, Venice, CA
Project Title: Art Gives Voice, Reflects History, Mediates Healing
Description: This project uses survivor testimonies containing personal preserved artwork as a way to demonstrate the existence of art during the Holocaust as well as how art fosters hope, beauty, courage, communication and healing despite being surrounded by death.
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Hank Koransky
Brentwood School, Los Angeles, CA
Project Title: CHOICES: Deciding to Leave Nazi Germany
Description: Through survivor testimonies, this lesson explores the individual and complex reasons why some Jews left and others stayed in Germany as Hitler and the Nazi party came to power.
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Judy LaPietra
St. Mark Catholic, Huntersville, NC
Project Title: Bystander Choices
Description: The focus of this project is to examine the role of the bystander through the use of survivor video testimonies to provide students with an understanding of the significance of bystanders throughout the Holocaust, their complicated ethical choices, and the consequences of inaction.
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Janice Lee
Del Dios Middle School, Escondido, CA
Project Title: Bystanders
Description: The concept for this lesson is for students to understand and analyze bystander behavior in terms of history, global situations, and their own behavior, both by viewing Holocaust survivor testimony and being presented with some moral dilemma scenarios.
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Dana Leon
Valencia High School, Placentia, CA
Project Title: Resistance and People with Disabilities in the Holocaust
Brief Description: Utilizing video testimony, this project addresses how people with disabilities were targeted during the Holocaust, and focuses on the theme of non-violent resistance, advocacy, and the struggle to survive.
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Jill Quigley
San Diego Jewish Academy, San Diego, CA
Project Title: Polish Response to Jewish Persecution
Description: This lesson presents a wide range of Polish responses to the persecution of Jews during World War II utilizing video testimony of Holocaust survivors. In addition to supplementing selected readings from Donald Niewyk’s The Holocaust, the use of testimony allows students to connect to personal stories of the Holocaust and fosters discussion about the destructive nature of stereotypes.
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Sandy Rubenstein
Horace Mann School, Bronx, NY
Project Title: Rescue: Ordinary Individuals Making Extraordinary Decisions
Description: Combined with a teacher-guided reading of Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, this lesson geared towards 4th through 6th grades features the testimony of Holocaust survivor, Mette Shayne, and brings to life the theme of ordinary people who stand up, show courage, bravery and kindness, and take risks under extraordinary circumstances of danger.
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Elizabeth Vitanza
Marlborough School, Los Angeles, CA
Project Title: Testimony: French Resistance and French Identity
Description: This lesson addresses three concepts: survivor video testimony as a genre and the role that it can play in the study of culture, literature or film; the concept of identity in the context of French resistance; and the ideals of the French Republic during World War II.
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Kelly Watson
Fishers Junior High, Fishers, IN
Project Title: Only a Girl: The Story of Irene Gut-Opdyke
Description: Centered around the theme of heroes and courage in the face of adversity, this lesson utilizes Holocaust survivor Irene Gut-Opdyke’s testimony from the Institute’s archive to contextualize and personalize her story, as well as parts of her memoir, In My Hands.
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Myeshia Whigham
High Tech High School, Chula Vista, CA
Project Title: TBD
Description: Based on a literature textbook excerpt from Primo Levi’s memoir, Survival in Auschwitz, this lesson utilizes video testimony of Holocaust survivors to illustrate, compare, and contrast several of Levi’s experiences in Auschwitz-Birkeneau as well as to serve as the basis for discussion surrounding the themes that surface in the excerpt.
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Jonathan Young
Esperanza Academy Charter High School, Philadelphia, PA
Project Title: “No Human Can Understand”: The Sonderkommando and Revolt in Auschwitz
Description: This project uses video testimony to educate students about the roles, situations, and emotions of the Sonderkommando and the men and women who contributed to the revolt in Auschwitz-Birkeneau, as well as its impact.
