Principals Trip to Learn from History
HERC’s mission is to equip students and educators with accurate information and empower them to reject hatred and inspire hope. On June 4, 2024 eleven Leon County Schools principals traveled to Washington, DC for the inaugural HERC and LCS Washington DC Museum Trip in order to help fulfill this mission. HERC was privileged to be accompanied by Principals Staci Mortham, Amy Alvis, Terri Martin, Jane Floyd, Billy Millard, Michele Keltner, Zelena O’Banner, Stephen Mills, Kim McFarland, Sylvia Myers, and Assistant Superintendent Shane Syfrett to tour the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). The museum’s core exhibition spans three floors and covers the history of the Holocaust from its origins through liberation. It includes artifacts, photographs, documents, and personal testimonies that provide a vivid and emotional understanding of the events.
In addition to touring the museum, HERC and the LCS principals met principals from Palm Beach County to discuss Holocaust education and its implementation at the state, district, and school levels. The day of touring the museum and meeting with principals from Palm Beach County culminated with the witness testimony from Rosette Adler Goldstein, a Holocaust survivor who now lives in Boca Raton, Florida. Rosette was born in 1938 and survived the Holocaust in France by hiding in the countryside with a non-Jewish family. Tragically, her father was deported to Auschwitz on convoy # 64 from France and did not survive. Rosette was later a part of a $60 million dollar Holocaust settlement from France to compensate Holocaust victims and their descendants for their deportation by means of French railways to Nazi concentration camps in WWII. Rosette and her story of survival and resilience connected made the personal connection with every individual in the room. Her message of empathy and compassion as the antidote to hatred and violence communicated the urgency of empowering everyone with accurate and objective history in order to better combat the temptation to forget the past and become vulnerable to inaccurate history and misinformation in the modern age.
This spirit of leading with empathy and historical compassion propelled the group on its tour of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). This museum was in many ways the perfect complement to the USHMM because it tells a story of human survival and resilience in a different place and time. The NMAAHC tells a particularly important story for Leon County Schools because its history includes local history for Leon County citizens. Students are better able to reconcile the history of the past with the realities of present when they are empowered with accurate and objective historical record. Observing the indelible impression the objects, photographs, and documents made on the students emphasized the importance of these artifacts as teaching tools to connect the events of history with the real people who lived and experienced it.
The last day of the trip, June 6, was the 80th anniversary of D-Day. The significance of this date was noted by Principal Billy Millard of Cobb Middle School as “[I] saw the sights including a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day at the WWII monument, and had poignant and open discussions about our roles as educators.” Seeing the veterans at the WWII Memorial brought the events of history to life and reminded everyone that history is the story of real individuals whose words and actions mattered. Principal Staci Mortham commented, “I am leaving DC with so many questions, about how such horrific things could happen, but also so many ideas about how to do my part to make sure it never happens again!!” Remembering the events of the past, no matter how painful, was emphasized by survivor Rosette Adler Goldstein concluded her presentation with a reminder to never forget the service of others and to always say “thank you” for that service. Empathy and gratitude were the overall lessons to take back to the classrooms in Leon County from all of the sites in DC, and will hopefully encourage students and educators to investigate the past, local and global, in order to affect changes in the present age.