Since graduating from USC Shoah Foundation’s Master Teacher Workshop in 2010, Hank Koransky has made IWitness an integral part of his teaching at Brentwood School in Los Angeles.

Koransky is a history teacher, chair of the history department and dean of faculty at Brentwood School, and has taught courses on everything from Ancient and Medieval History to AP Comparative Government.

He found out about USC Shoah Foundation’s Master Teacher Workshop, which trains educators to use the Visual History Archive and IWitness in their classrooms, from Facing History and Ourselves. Koransky has used Facing History materials for most of his teaching career and incorporates the Holocaust into every history course he teaches.

“No event in history frames justice issues more starkly than The Holocaust and its aftermath,” Koransky said.

In the Master Teacher Workshop, Koransky developed a lesson that he still teaches every year in his Global Justice elective course. Each student creates a 3-5 minute video in IWitness answering one of three prompts about the Holocaust, and then they comment on two of their classmates’ videos. Koransky said he “couldn’t be prouder” of his students’ work.

“Watching my students' reaction to viewing testimony is profound,” he said. “Many tell me that it is the most worthwhile project they have done in high school.”

Survivor testimony is an integral part of any study of the Holocaust, Koransky said, so it has been an honor to be trained to use IWitness by USC Shoah Foundation staff.  He said IWitness is easy to use because of its built-in features, the fact that the testimonies are all available in one place, and because the video editor allows students to use technology in a creative way. In addition, it is “intelligent and respectful” in dealing with sensitive topics like the Holocaust, genocide and tolerance.