Educators provided novel tools, resources to help communicate lessons of history, intolerance with focus on Nazi Germany.
Educators from throughout Vermont are meeting this time of rising antisemitism and intolerance with new insights and shared lessons gained from the Fifth Annual Holocaust Educators Workshop. The professional development workshop, “It Starts With Words: Teaching the Holocaust to Combat Hate,” organized by Vermont Holocaust Memorial (VTHM) with the support of Echoes and Reflections, a national organization for teachers, was the most successful in VTHM’s seven-year history, according to president and cofounder, Debora Steinerman.
“The teachers’ strong response and enthusiastic participation demonstrated that Vermont educators are not standing still in this rapidly changing atmosphere of hate and racism threatening our nation and its democracy,” noted Steinerman. “Through innovative resources and new approaches to teaching a difficult, painful time in the world’s history, we can expect that hundreds, if not more, Vermont students of all ages will be well served by these teachers’ experiences here today.”
Lindsay Levesque, history teacher from Brattleboro Union High School, noted: “I always learn something new—and I enjoy the community of teachers and to keep connections with the small group of other Holocaust educators.”
One participant observed that the professional development workshop afforded “ideas for how to reach my 7th and 8th grade students, meet them where they are at emotionally while teaching the gravity of the Holocaust and making it relevant to their world today.”
An assistant principal in attendance, pointed out that “Given our political and social standing today I feel it is a crucial time to teach Holocaust and genocide… we need to show students how the propaganda at that time is similar to what they are now experiencing.”
One teacher at the workshop noted a student denied the existence of the Holocaust and they were there to learn ways to deal with such issues.
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“Vermonters of good conscience, and the Jewish community in particular, are taken aback by the extraordinary surge in hatred and antisemitism,” said Steinerman. “Vermont is not immune to this kind of intolerance—motivated educators can be Vermont’s first line of defense, given the proper tools and support.”
Through the upcoming Vermont Holocaust Education Week (April 1-5, 2024), their speaker’s bureau, mobile exhibits, Leaf Project, and educator workshops, VTHM, the only Holocaust education memorial in the state, is committed to teaching the lessons of the Holocaust by honoring lives lost and sharing stories of survival. “We encourage standing up to hatred wherever it appears. It is our hope that the Vermont legislature will pass the “Vermont Holocaust Studies Act” (S.87 and H.294) this session, to ensure these timely lessons will be shared in our schools for our students’ futures,” says Steinerman.
The Vermont Holocaust Memorial is grateful to Burlington’s Ohavi Zedek Synagogue and the Lost Mural Project (www.lostmural.org) for partnering in this year’s workshop.