Institute, Anti-Defamation League train Southern California teachers: Workshop on Echoes and Reflections, IWitness

USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education and the Anti-Defamation League held a workshop in November where nearly 50 Southern California teachers learned to use Echoes and Reflections, a multimedia curriculum on the Holocaust.

The workshop took place at the University of Southern California. Part the Anti-Defamation League’s Los Angeles Holocaust Education Institute, it was the second-annual workshop for local teachers offered jointly by the two organizations, which developed Echoes and Reflections in partnership with Yad Vashem. Since its release in 2005, more than 17,000 teachers in North America have been trained and equipped to use the curriculum to teach their students about the Holocaust.

The daylong workshop introduced the content and pedagogy of Echoes and Reflections. Matthew Friedman, the Anti-Defamation League’s Associate Director for the Pacific Southwest Region, modeled one of the curriculum’s 10 lessons, all of which incorporate testimony from the Institute’s Visual History Archive. Dan Leshem, the Institute’s Associate Director of Research, gave a presentation on finding meaning in survivor testimony; Sheila Hansen, the Institute’s Senior Content and Training Specialist, presented the IWitness website, which features nearly 1,300 testimonies and learning activities that can be used in conjunction with Echoes and Reflections. Hansen and Sherry Bard, the Institute’s Project Director for Educational Programs, also led a hands-on session in the computer lab where teachers were able to explore IWitness for themselves.