In conjunction with the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center (HAMEC), the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and Deanne Comer – former Abington School District teacher and developer of an internationally recognized Holocaust Curriculum and awareness/educational programs – Abington School District presented a comprehensive professional development program on Holocaust Education that included the subjects of genocide and human rights violations. Participating in this program were Abington School District librarians and the English, Reading and Social Studies teachers from the junior high and the senior high schools.
The program agenda included:
Welcome: Ms. Julianne Petersen, Supervisor of Social Studies
Act 70 Guidelines: Ms. Sally Flaherty, PA Department of Education
Overview of Abington’s Elementary Holocaust Curriculum: Ms. Deanne Comer
Historical Perspective:
Mr. Geoffrey Quinn, HAMEC Education Director and Ms. Deanne Comer
- Why Teach the Holocaust?
- Key Holocaust Vocabulary
- Factors that Contributed to a Climate that Permitted a Holocaust
- Guidelines for Teaching the Holocaust
Lost Childhoods:
- Introduction: Ms. Deanne Comer
- Return to My Roots: Child Survivor – Ms. Ruth Kapp Hartz
- Using Survivor Testimony in the Classroom: Mr. Geoffrey Quinn
Ms. Sally Flaherty, from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, reviewed guiding principles developed by an Advisory Council comprised of an impressive list of experts and organizations. She reviewed Act 70 and provided guidelines and resources useful in developing the content of a local curriculum.
Ms. Deanne Comer reviewed how Abington became a leader in Holocaust education beginning in 1985/1986 with the creation of the Abington School District Holocaust Curriculum Committee. She stated that Abington was a “trailblazer” in Holocaust education and she presented a range of methodological considerations in teaching the Holocaust.
Mr. Geoffrey Quinn presented an historical perspective, including mention of the many areas of the world in past and recent history where genocide and human rights violations have occurred.
Ms. Ruth Hartz recounted her experiences as a “hidden child” survivor in Nazi-occupied France. A graduate of the Sorbonne and later a French teacher in the U.S., she and her family had to travel from location to location to hide from being taken to detention camps. She has been the subject of a book on her experiences and she related marvelous stories about survival and the people who helped hide children and families.
Mr. Quinn wrapped up the program by providing information about utilizing survivor testimony and stories in the classroom.
Staff members received information packets that included the factors and setting that contributed to the climate that permitted a Holocaust; methodological teaching considerations for the classroom; facts about the Holocaust that are often asked by students; and forms to request classroom programs from the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center. This program is part of ongoing activities in Abington School District to enhance existing instruction related to the Holocaust, genocide, and human rights violations.
The mission of the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center is to educate Delaware Valley students and adults, personalizing the Holocaust so that they learn the consequences of racism, ethnic cleansing, and intolerance.
