Holocaust Education Summit Teaches How to Cultivate Upstanders By Carolyn Conte
THE ANNUAL SUMMER TEACHERS SUMMIT concluded last week after an intense three-day dive into how to teach students to stand up to injustice. The Baltimore Jewish Council, Jewish Museum of Maryland, Maryland State Department of Education and the Macks Center for Jewish Education co-hosted and presented this professional development opportunity for teachers in the area of Holocaust education. The conference lasted from Aug. 3 - 5 and was streamed live on Zoom. This year, each session provided educators with resources to teach and encourage their students to be upstanders,
or the opposite of a bystander. Presenters broke the summit into informational sessions that lasted about an hour each. Many of these were followed by breakout sessions, where teachers could discuss a topic and share ideas in a private Zoom room. Watchers joined from all over the world, including the Philippines, Australia and Portugal, as well as from across the country such as Arizona, Virginia and, of course, Baltimore. Because there are so many topics associated with the Holocaust, each year the summit has a different theme. In the past, it has covered rescue
and resistance and propaganda, with last year’s theme being Women and the Holocaust. Ilene Dackman-Alon, JMM’s director of education, kicked off the summit the morning of Aug. 3. She explained that this year’s summit aimed to deepen participants’ understanding of human behavior during the Holocaust and help students realize they have choices. “[We want to] compel our students to speak up when they think and feel wronged,” Dackman-Alon said to the almost 60 people who joined that morning. After opening remarks, Holocaust educator and child
survivor Miriam Klein Kassenoff took the spotlight. “Instead of turning on each other, why don’t we turn toward each other? That’s what being an upstander is,” Klein Kassenoff said, as she spoke on her own experiences and the power of upstanders. Following Klein Kassenoff, participants watched a short documentary called “Weapons of the Spirit,” about survivors hiding in the French village of Le Chambon during the Holocaust. Paul Kutner, historian and DC International School teacher, then spoke and offered tools for teaching the documentary. Kutner showed
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