Teachers Invited to Host IWitness Pilot in San Francisco Bay Area

USC Shoah Foundation is planning its first IWitness classroom pilot in the San Francisco Bay Area and is looking for teachers who can help make it happen. Teachers in the area who are interested in hosting the pilot in their classroom or learning more about it are encouraged to contact USC Shoah Foundation education staff.

Though classroom pilots of IWitness have been held around the world, including Rwanda and, most recently, Chicago, this would be the first in the San Francisco Bay Area.

USC Shoah Foundation is looking for a teacher in grade 7-12 (any subject) to volunteer to conduct an IWitness activity and allow Institute staff to observe the implementation and conduct surveys and focus group discussion with the students.  These pilots help staff better understand if IWitness is meeting its learning outcomes and provide information on how to improve the IWitness experience.

The pilot would take approximately five hours of class time, in addition to coordination in advance. The teacher may choose to pilot any of IWitness’s new Auschwitz: The Past is Present activities, which launched this fall to complement the upcoming 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 2015. The activities include Growing Up ‘Behind the Barbed Wire’ of Auschwitz, Art in the Face of Death, Auschwitz – Inner Strength, Outward Resistance and more.

Teachers interested in hosting the pilot or finding out more may contact Amy M. Carnes, Associate Director of Education – Evaluation and Scholarship at marczews@dornsife.usc.edu.