The Haverford School and Main Line Reform Temple – Beth Elohim will host workshops for teachers and students to learn about IWitness, USC Shoah Foundation’s educational website that uses testimony to teach via engaging multimedia-learning activities.
Czech educators are gathering at the Academy of Sciences in Prague today to attend a conference dedicated to the "Ours or Foreign? Jews in the Czech 20th Century" project from the Jewish Museum of Prague.
On the heels of USC Shoah Foundation’s new partnership with the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall to collect and preserve testimony of Nanjing Massacre survivors, the educational platform Facing History and Ourselves signed an agreement to integrate three of those testimonies into its own educational materials.
USC Shoah Foundation has published two Polish-language lessons about the Holocaust, complete with clips from the Visual History Archive, on the USC Shoah Foundation website. They are available for free to educators around the world.
Three professors from across the University of Southern California took part in a thought-provoking conversation about technology’s place in teaching the humanities Tuesday, moderated by USC Shoah Foundation director of education Kori Street.
On the day the Visual History Archive access site in Prague - the Malach Center for Visual History - was inaugurated I decided that my school, Archbishop High School in Prague, could not ignore it. However, I was not able to think of a way how to organically incorporate it in teaching English, which is my job. My chance came only recently.
Two years into USC Shoah Foundation and Kigali Genocide Memorial’s IWitness in Rwanda project, hundreds of students and teachers across Rwanda have been exposed to IWitness and talks are underway to incorporate it into the national curriculum.
Students may still be enjoying their summer vacation, but the new school year is just around the corner. USC Shoah Foundation has prepared a convenient one-stop-shop of all its educational resources to help educators plan to teach with testimony this year.
For years now I have noticed that my students are especially interested in the information from non- traditional educational channels; visual and auditory information are often more welcome than academic texts from their books. The reason, we have experienced a shift in the methods that young people process information these days.
This September a new school year will begin in Ukraine and the first lesson students be taught is “Ukraine is united" and the lesson will be devoted to state integrity of Ukraine. A tough issue for the country engrossed into an ongoing military conflict and terrorist attacks.
As I start a new school year in a new school teaching a new grade level, I find it slightly ironic that the first theme that my textbook series addresses is courage. As I start another school year, I have thought deeply about courage and mix of emotions that come into play that very first day of school. Many may not readily admit it, but the first day of the school year for both teachers and students is filled nervousness and unease. A first impression is extremely important, and a good first day can set the tone for a very productive school year.
The question “How do you teach this stuff?” is what brought me to USC Shoah Foundation in 2010 to begin my training and work as a Master Teacher. I was beginning to understand that survivor testimony is the formative center of Holocaust education, that once a student begins to see Holocaust education content through the lens of testimony, the education and the student begin to change in ways that are profound.
As Hannah, in the novel The Devil's Arithmetic, needed to have a first-hand experience to fully understand the Holocaust; my students must be equipped with first-hand information, too. While they cannot "time travel" as Hannah does, they can hear from survivors to have a greater understanding of the Holocaust.
I teach at an Islamic school, and I am in awe of how testimony has opened the eyes and hearts of my students and inspired them to fight injustice. This is particularly amazing considering the Shoah is not even part of the curriculum in many Arab countries.
When I asked my class why testimony has affected them so deeply, their response was:
“Testimony teaches us that the world isn’t about us vs. them. It is about how WE can make the world a better place by not being bystanders.”
Paris. The way we think of that beautiful city has changed. That's what they want. They want us to think about things differently, to use Paris as a symbol of bloodshed and fear, not the one we know and love of liberty and culture. That is the nature of extremism: It tries to change who we are, how we see the world, to change our habits and our patterns of thought, to enjoy our freedoms less, to exert control.
Poland faces a horrible wave of extremism after the election of a new right-wing government. As an educator and Polish citizen, I am not only scared by this type of radical hatred, but it also reminds me of the past because the same organization that marches on the streets of Polish cities today, organized boycotts of Jewish institutions and forbade Jewish students from studying at Polish universities before WWII.
I found as a teacher that the most challenging task when teaching about the Holocaust and genocide, is how to do it not using material that shocks the students to the point that they do not want to look at the content, study the history or listen to present day issues due to the emotional shut down that can occur.
As 2015 comes to an end our education team takes a look at the 10 IWitness activities most assigned by educators.
As educators, when we go into teaching, we go in with what some might call ideological visions: This concept that we can and will make a difference; this idea that the children we teach will take the lessons we’ve taught and use them to become productive people long after they leave the four walls of our classroom. As we sit here now, reflecting on our most recent efforts to teach the Holocaust in a profound manner that gives justice and honor to the victims of this atrocity, we feel fortunate that such ideologies are being lived in our classroom.
The Anti-Defamation League, the Shoah Foundation, and Yad Vashem today announced a partnership that will promote Holocaust studies as well as bring innovative anti-bias education to American classrooms.
The Jackson-Hinds Library System and Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation present the Testimony to Tolerance Initiative, a program designed to equip the community of Jackson, Mississippi, with the tools it needs to nurture responsible and committed citizens dedicated to a society free of prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry.
Never forget. Never again. These are common phrases used in Holocaust and genocide education. These are important statements especially when they evoke the real reason to study, learn, and teach about genocide. We must bring this content to students to empower them and encourage them to see beyond themselves. If done right, students become aware of the steps that lead to such atrocities. Teaching about genocide is the only way to have a lasting impact on our students, to affect their worldview, to help them understand that they can make a difference.
A few weeks ago, a student I was interviewing for a profile I was writing on him for USC Shoah Foundation’s website said something interesting: “Growing up Jewish, the Holocaust is pretty much always there.”
I could identify. As someone who went to Hebrew school twice a week, every week, from the age of 5 to 13, the Holocaust was something I was always aware of. I was taught about it frequently, both in religious and regular school.