Pipestone Area Schools High School English teacher Lauren Olson (fourth from right in back row) was among teachers from around the country who attended a professional development conference at the end of July about how to effectively teach students about the history of the Holocaust. The three-day Belfer Conference for Educators was provided by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Contributed photo
When the 2019-20 school year begins, Pipestone Area Schools (PAS) High School English teacher Lauren Olson will bring to her classroom new ideas to help students understand the history of the Holocaust.
Olson was one of 260 teachers from around the country who attended the Belfer National Conference for Educators at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. at the end of July. The conference is part of the Museum’s ongoing effort to equip history, English, social studies, language arts, library science, journalism and other teachers with the knowledge and skills to effectively bring Holocaust education into their classrooms.
Participants in the conference worked with Museum educators and scholars to share rationales, strategies and approaches for teaching about the Holocaust. They also explored the Museum’s latest exhibition, Americans and the Holocaust, which examines American society in the 1930s and ’40s and the factors that shaped Americans’ responses to Nazism, and heard from Esther Starobin and Louise Lawrence-Israëls, two Holocaust survivors who volunteer at the Museum.
Olson said the Museum’s website provides a wealth of free online teaching resources that are available to anyone at www.ushmm.org. She said her students will also be able to use the website as a resource during a research project she has them do as part of her senior English class. She said she also teaches her students about the history of the Holocaust by reading books including “Night” by Elie Wiesel and others.
Olson said it’s important to teach students about the Holocaust in an appropriate manner.
“A major event like the Holocaust can become romanticized and you want to teach it with respect,” she said.
Gretchen Skidmore, director of education initiatives for the Holocaust Museum’s William Levine Family Institute for Holocaust Education, said in a statement about the conference that educating students about the Holocaust provides an opportunity for them to think critically about the past as well as their roles in society today.
“As the global leader in Holocaust education, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum works to ensure teachers have the training and resources they need to introduce their students to this important and complex history — and show them how its lessons remain relevant to all citizens today,” Skidmore said.
Olson said she applied for and received a scholarship to attend the conference.
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