HERC hosted the first Micro-Credential Program in Holocaust Education and Pedagogy session for North Florida educators on October 13. Over fifty educators attended this day-long event on TCC’s campus.
Micro-credential instruction was provided by nationally recognized Holocaust educators. Dr. Christine Beresniova, Holocaust education scholar, and Kristen Thomson, veteran teacher and Holocaust educator, began the program with an overview of the back to the basics historical approach in Holocaust education, designed to equip teachers with the skills and confidence to educate their students about the Holocaust.
Building on their experiences developing educational materials for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), the facilitators modelled the safely in-safely out approach to Holocaust education. Session topics included the history of American Holocaust education, a historical overview of the Holocaust, and the power of perspective and primary sources in teaching about the Holocaust.
During the course of the event, Barbara Goldstein, director of HERC and daughter of Holocaust survivors, welcomed the educators and celebrated their integral role in educating the next generation of students about the Holocaust. Introducing Florida’s 1994 Holocaust education mandate, Jacob Oliva, chancellor of the Florida Department of Education, emphasized the importance of Florida’s teachers in Holocaust education. As a means to facilitate the implementation of the mandate, the Comissioner’s Taskforce on Holocaust Education and HERC are providing free class sets Holocaust literature for all local 5th, 8th, and 10th grade students including Elly: My True Story of the Holocaust by Elly Gross (elementary school), Refugee by Alan Gratz (middle school), and Night by Elie Weisel (high school), and Janeen Hall, media specialist from Chaires Elementary School and Flagler College Tallahassee Children’s Literature professor, presented lesson plans she developed to teach the books to students.
The day concluded with a hands-on opportunity for participants to make connections with history using the USHMM Timeline Activity Cards. Interested educators can request a free set of cards from the museum https://engage.ushmm.org/request-timeline-cards.html.
Upon completion of the program, participating educators will not only learn to teach about the Holocaust in their own classrooms, but also have the resources to share information with others in their educational communities. In addition to accessing a rich curriculum, participating educators received two books, Holocaust: An American Understanding, by Deborah Lipstadt and War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust by Doris L. Bergen, to equip them to better teach about the Holocaust. Participants will attend online sessions over the next six months to complete the Micro-Credential Program in Holocaust Education and Pedagogy. The first fifty teachers to complete the micro-credential program will receive a $300 stipend thanks to the generous funding of the Florida legislature and local Holocaust education advocate, Allison Tant Richard.
by Dr. Staci Walton Duggar, Flagler College Tallahassee