Holocaust Education Institute Reaches Educators from Throughout Southern California

  • February 9, 2016

More than 70 people participated in one or more sessions of ADL’s 2015-16 Los Angeles Holocaust Education Institute.

The 2015-16 program kicked off on October 23, 2015 with a full-day session at the Museum of Tolerance, followed two weeks later with a full-day at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust.  More than 60 educators experienced these museums over the course of the two sessions.

At the Museum of Tolerance, participants toured the Museum’s Holocaust exhibit, the Anne Frank exhibit, and heard from scholars and survivors.  During the session at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMOTH), participants chose between a tour of with an experienced docent or exploring the museum on their own with an audio guide.  The group also took part in an interactive “object share” activity, where they were able to share their own stories and histories with one another.

At Session Three, which took place on Friday, February 5, 2016 at the University of Southern California, ADL trained educators to use ADL’s Echoes and Reflections – Leaders in Holocaust Education. Participants studied techniques to more effectively and sensitively teach the Holocaust.  They also spent some time exploring two of the lessons from Echoes and Reflections focused on Kristallnacht and Anti-Semitism. In the afternoon, staff from the USC Shoah Foundation led a session on IWitness, a resource they developed with more than 1,500 video testimonies and tools for educators and students to develop multimedia projects. Teachers came away from the training with a complete teacher’s guide on the Holocaust as well as tips on how to incorporate visual history testimony into a wide variety of classroom instruction and student projects.

For over five years now, the Holocaust Education Institute has continued to bring together the finest resources to teach about the Holocaust from ADL, the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, the Museum of Tolerance, the USC Shoah Foundation, and Yad Vashem.

For information on the Holocaust Education Institute, please contact mfriedman@adl.org or call 310-446-4231.