Workshop:11th Southern California Teacher Forum on Holocaust Education: Teaching about the Holocaust (March 11-13, 2012)

11th Southern California Teacher Forum on Holocaust Education: Teaching about the Holocaust
March 11-13, 2012 [Blog long overdue]

Went to a three-day conference about teaching the Holocaust located at the American Jewish University. It was hosted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

 

 

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Some lectures/workshops that I participated in and/or listened in on:

An Overview of Holocaust History
Dr. Eric Steinhart, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
"The Museum believes that a solid foundation in Holocaust history is important for teachers to bring this subject into their classrooms. Focusing on events in Europe between 1933 and 1945, this lecture contextualizes the immediate antecedents to and evolution of Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews and other targeted groups within the history of the Second World War. The lecture captures the geographic diversity of the Holocaust, giving equal attention to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union as well as to Central and Western Europe."

Guidelines for Teaching about the Holocaust
Christina Chavarria, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
"The study of the Holocaust demands that teachers take special care in developing a solid rationale and instructional goals and strategies for the classroom. These concurrent sessions will help teachers think about their approach to teaching about the Holocaust. Why does teaching the Holocaust demand special attention? What are some guidelines for teachers to follow?"

Teaching about the Holocaust in the 21st Century
Dr. John K. Roth, Claremont McKenna College
"How was the Holocaust education changed in the last 40 years? What effects do current events, popular culture, and media have on how we approach this subject? What is the relevance of the Holocaust on our students, especially as we move further away from the event itself? Dr. John Roth, for over 40 years a leader in Holocaust studies, leads teachers in a session that attempts to answer these and other questions."

IWitness (Main Site)
Sheila Hansen, USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education
"Designed for secondary school educators and students, the IWitness site will be a vital channel for millions to access and interact with the Institute's Visual History Archive."

Teaching the Holocaust through Art
Ilaria Benzoni-Clark, Education Director, Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust
"Teachers will participate in an activity that focuses on the use of visual arts in teaching the Holocaust. Teachers will explore works of art from the Museum's Lichtblau-Leskly collection. They will also learn about artistic expression as a form of resistance during the Holocaust."

Jewish Partisans--Breaking the Myth of Jewish Passivity
Mitch Braff, Founder and Executive Director, Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation
"The number one question students ask about the Holocaust is 'Why Jews did not resist?' The answer is quite complicated, but part of the response includes discussing the approximatley 30,000 Jews who fought back against the Germans and their collaborators as armed resistance fighters - partisans. This session will introduce you to the Jewish partisans and the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's free multi-media resources, includes its E-Learning courses on 10 documentary films, posters for their classrooms, and printed guides."

The Roots of Nazi Antisemitism
Dr. Michael Berenbaum, American Jewish University
"Antisemitism did not begin with the Nazi Party. What is the relationship between the ancient history of what has been called 'the oldest hatred' and the Holocaust? Dr. Berenbaum's session will lead teachers through the evolution of antisemitism that led to Nazi antisemitism."

Nazi Racial Ideology
Dr. Eric Steinhart, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
"In this session Dr. Steinhart will explain how a racial ideology drove the decisions that resulted in what the Nazis called 'the final solution.' This lecture explores the historical development and consequences of the Nazi racial worldview. It positions Nazi racism within broader European history, focusing specifically on political and intellectual developments during the nineteenth century. The lecture contextualizes Nazi anti-Semitism within a broader constellation of Nazi racial thinking that also targeted Slaves, Roma and Sinti, individuals of color, and the mentally and physically disabled. The presentation concludes by offering an overview of how Nazi racism influenced the course of Germany's repressive policies prior to and during the Second World War."

State of Deception Lesson Propaganda
Marilyn Lubarsky, Regional Education Corps, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
"How did the Nazis spread their message of racial purity and antisemitism? These concurrent sessions lead teachers through a lesson on propaganda with resources taken from the Museum's online exhibition, State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda." 

The Holocaust and Contemporary Genocide
Greta Stults, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
"The presentation will build on the information teachers have learned about the Holocaust and help them connect the dots between the Holocaust and contemporary genocide. We will introduce the creation of the term, 'genocide' and the UN Genocide Convention as a result of the legacy of the Holocaust, and illustrate some recognizable patterns across genocides. Teachers will learn about the history of contemporary genocide and gain contextual understanding of the genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur. The presentation will introduce the museum's Committee on Conscience and share additional resources available to teach about contemporary genocide. Finally, teachers will learn about approaches to genocide prevention."

Context is Everything: An Interactive Timeline Lesson
Peter Fredlake, History/Social Studies
"How can teachers bring the study of the Holocaust into their classrooms in an engaging way that puts the learning in the students' hands? This highly-adaptable lesson, developed by members of the Regional Education Corps, will help teachers present the chronology of the Holocaust in all its complexity.

Media Resources for Teaching about the Holocaust
Peter Fredlake, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
"The Museum has developed several media resources for teaching about the Holocaust. This session will focus on a new resource about the relevance of fighting antisemitism today, and teachers will receive a list of recommended websites."

A Survivor Remembers
Peter Feigl, Holocaust survivor and diarist featured in Salvaged Pages
"Survivors of the Holocaust bring a unique and human dimension to the study of this history. Peter Feigl recounts his own remarkable story. "

With Peter Feigl, Holocaust survivor and diarist featured in Salvaged Pages.

 Certificate of completion. :)

Application Process 2012: Here we go!

Recently applied to:

* Irvine Unified for the position of Social Science - 7-8th - History
* Irvine Unified for the position of Social Science - 9-12th grade

Book: How to Get the Teaching Job You Want

How to Get the Teaching Job You Want (2nd edition)
by Robert Feirsen and Seth Weitzman

Since it was printed in 2004, it's a few years behind. So many things have changed in education since then, especially in California.

What I did like were the sample interview questions the book offered. I believe they are very helpful. They are listed below.  

Top 100 Interview Questions  

General
1. Tell us about yourself.
2. What is your educational preparation?
3. Describe your experiences working with children.
4. Why did you decide to become a teacher?
5. Why do you want to leave your present position?
6. Why should we hire you?
7. What special skills or talents can you bring to this school?
8. What is your philosophy of education?
9. Name a book, concept, experience, teacher, or person who has influenced your professional development. How?
10. If you were the successful candidate, how would you prepare for your new job?
11. What do you like best about teaching? What do you like least?
12. What three adjectives would your (students/cooperating teacher/colleagues/supervisors) use to describe you?
13. What three adjectives would you use to describe yourself?
14. What have you learned from (student) teaching?
15. What are your career goals five years from now? Ten years from now?
16. What professional development goals do you have for your own improvement?
17. How have you improved your professional skills recently?
18. What professional journals do you subscribe to?
19. What professional associations do you belong to?
20. What are your strengths as a teacher?
21. What extracurricular activities would you like to be involved in?
22. Teaching requires time management and organization skills. How do you address these challenges?
23. How do you cope with stress?
24. What hobbies, recreational activities, and/or interests do you enjoy?
25. What book greatly influenced your personal development?
26. What is the last book you read about teaching? Discuss the book.
27. How will you develop a productive relationship with your supervisor?
28. What questions have I not asked you that you wish I had raised?
29. What questions do you have for us? (This is the most common final question).  

Student-Centered
30.What academic, affective, and social goals would you have for students at this age level?
31. How is a fourth-grade student different from a fifth-grade student? (Pick any two adjacent grades). Alternately: How is a middle school student different from a high school or elementary school student?
32. Describe your goals for the first few days of school and how you would achieve them.
33. How would you maintain student discipline?
34. How would you involve students in the development of classroom rules?
35. How would you address affective education goals in your classroom?
36. What measures would you take if a child failed a test?
37. How would you accommodate the learning and emotional needs of students with disabilities? LEP (Limited English Proficiency) learners? Gifted and talented students?
38. A student tells you confidentially that she is using drugs. What would you do with the information? (You can substitute any other situation in which you are told something in confidence--e.g. divorce, pregnancy, child abuse, or neglect).
39. How do you develop rapport with students?
40. How would you handle a student who is a consistent behavior problem in your class?
41. What have you found to be the toughest aspect of discipline?
42. A child has been talking incessantly in your class. What would you do? How would you follow up if your first measure proved ineffective?
43. You tell a student to do something and she refuses. She seems determined not to follow your instructions. What would you do?
44. A child repeatedly fails to complete homework assignments. How would you respond?
45. Describe your background working with computers and other forms of instructional technology.
46. What opportunities would you take to provide students with extra help?
47. What is the role of a teacher in the classroom? Outside the classroom?
48. What characteristics make a master teacher?

Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
49. Describe the physical appearance of your classroom.
50. If I walked into your classroom on a typical day, what would I see taking place?
51. How would you describe your teaching style?
52. Describe your approach to teaching this subject (or grade level).
53. Why is your field important for a student to study?
54. What are the most important concepts and/or skills that students should master in this subject?
55. What are some of the best practices for teaching (in this field, at this grade level)?
56. What are standards? How do you align your curriculum and units of study with our state standards?
57. What are the key standards for this subject area?
58. How do you communicate to students your expectations for an assignment?
59. How do you teach study and organizational skills to your students?
60. Describe how you would modify a lesson to meet the needs of a student with disabilities, an LEP student, or gifted and talented student.
61. What techniques do you use to check for understanding during a lesson? What techniques to you use with students who don't "get it" the first time?
62. Describe the format you would use to develop a lesson.
63. Describe a successful lesson you have taught. What were the objectives and the format of the lesson, and how did you assess whether the objectives were achieved?
64. How would you use differentiated instruction to meet the needs of all students?
65. What principles do you use to motivate students to learn?
66. Describe curriculum trends in your field of study. Which is most interesting or exciting to you?
67. How would you plan differently for a homogenous or heterogeneous classroom?
68. Think of a lesson that was less than successful. Describe what you learned from it.
69. How would address the needs of students in your classroom who come from diverse cultural backgrounds?
70. How would you take into account the local economy (i.e. a fishing village or a large local employer) in the lessons you plan?
71. What is your grading philosophy? How do you decide what grade to assign to a student?
72. How would you assess student work?
73. How do you design a unit of instruction?
74. How would you use alternative assessments (or portfolios or rubrics)?
75. How do you use standardized test results?
76. Describe independent projects that you might assign.
77. Choose a topic and tell us how you would teach it and assess student learning.
78. What is your philosophy regarding homework? Describe some types of homework assignments that you would require from your students.
79. What is constructivism? How would you use this approach in your classroom?
80.  How would you use cooperative learning techniques in your classroom?
81. In a cooperative learning lesson, how would you ensure that every group member actively participates?
82. Describe how you would develop interdisciplinary connections in the lessons you present to students.
83. How would you use computers as a tool for teaching and learning?
84. How would you use the Internet in your classroom?
85. How would you incorporate (career education, character education, problem-based learning, service learning) into the curriculum?
86. How would you teach reading or writing across the curriculum (an elementary school question)? How would you teach reading or writing in your content area (a secondary school question)?
87. What units would you include in teaching ______________ (name of course)?
88. How would you deal with controversial subjects in the classroom?
89. What curriculum materials have you developed?
90. When you try something new in the classroom, how do you know if it works?
91. Would you group students in the classroom? If so, on what basis?
92. Explain how you would stimulate higher-level thinking among your students.
93. How would you incorporate Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences?
94. What criteria would you use to evaluate textbooks for possible adoption?
95. How would you use the resources of the school library?

Parents and Community
96. How would you involve parents in the learning process?
97. How do you communicate pupil progress to parents?
98. A parent calls to question a student's grade, performance in class, or homework assignment. How would you address the parent's concerns?
99. Role-play a call to a parent to seek a solution to a classroom problem.
100. Describe how you would prepare for a parent-teacher conference.
101. How would you involve parents in homework assignments? How would you try to ensure that they are not overly involved in their child's homework assignments?
102. How will you learn about our community?
103. How would you use community resources to facilitate learning?

[Important Note: There are 103 interview questions when there were supposed to 100 questions due to an editing error where the numbering went wrong.]

Definitions:
- Affective education: learning tasks and strategies that address the emotional component of human growth and development.
- LEP (Limited English Proficiency): description of students who come from non-English language background and are not yet fluent or literate in English.
- Gifted and talented: students who demonstrate abilities or show the potential to perform far above the average.
- Instructional technology: term that encompasses all the technological aids utilized in teaching and learning (used in distance learning).
- Standards: statement of what students "should know and be able to do."
- Differentiated instruction: design of assignments that reflect an understanding of the varied learning styles and achievement levels of students in a given classroom.
- Homogenous classroom: form of ability grouping in which students are placed in classes for extended periods of time according to their achievement levels (i.e. tracking).
- Heterogeneous classroom: approach to organizing classes in which students of varying achievement levels and talents are deliberately mixed together.
- Alternative assessments: a movement in education to evaluate student performance using nontraditional methods.
- Portfolios: a collection of student work that documents progress over time.
- Rubrics: a scoring guide.
- Standardized tests: published test, constructed by experts, that is administered in a highly regulated fashion.
- Constructivism: pedagogical approach that is founded on the belief that students learn by constructing knowledge gained through learning experiences rather than by simply receiving information from others (exploration, reasoning, and reflection are emphasized more than listening to lectures and memorizing material).
- Cooperative learning: approach to teaching that requires that students work in groups to achieve common learning goals (socialization skills are emphasized).
- Interdisciplinary:
- Career education: teaching students about the nature of different jobs and the skills that are required to reach career goals.
- Character education: instruction that is specifically targeted to teach students about values that are believed to be shared by members in the community (focus on beliefs in the importance of honesty, responsibility, respect for others, respect for property, helping others, and citizenship).
- Problem-based learning: curriculum approach provides students with real-life problems for studying and organizing class work around developing solutions for these problems.
- Service learning: practice in which service activities help others so students can develop better understandings of citizenship, etc.
- Multiple intelligences: based on the theories of Howard Gardner, who argued there are spheres of multiple intelligences (linguistic, mathematical-logical, musical, spatial, body-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, naturalist).

Citation:
Feirsen, Robert, and Seth Weitzman. How to Get the Teaching Job You Want: The Complete Guide for College Graduates, Teachers Changing Schools, Returning Teachers, and Career Changers. Sterling, VA: Stylus Pub., 2004. Print.

Book: Setting Limits in the Classroom

Setting Limits in the Classroom: How to Move Beyond the Classroom Dance of Discipine (1996 edition)
by Robert J. Mackenzie

Very informative and helpful book on classroom management.

So what is the "classroom dance of discipline"?
The classroom dance of discipline is the back-and-forth power struggle between teachers and students (the "testers") who do not comply to the teacher's classroom rules. The classroom dance of discipline represents all ineffective classroom management attempts.

Some main ideas of the book:
- "Effective is one of the easiest, least expensive, and least time-consuming forms of classroom management, but many teachers overlook the importance of this structure in the beginning of the year."
-There are 3 approaches to teaching rules: permissive approach (respectful but not firm), the punitive approach (firm but not respectful), and the democratic approach (both firm and respectful. The permissive approach has the teacher giving in too much and verbally repeating warnings and not enough action-based discipline. The punitive approach is too strict and disrespectful though it does get the action done, it can lead to negative emotions on the student's part. The democractic approach is the correct approach that balances being firm/strict and being respectful.
- There were 2 procedures that I thought would be quite useful in stopping power struggles before they begin: 1.) Check-in procedure (Ex. "What did I ask you to do?" "Did you understand what I said?" etc) and 2.) Cut-off technique (Ex. "We're done talking about it." "Discussion time is over." etc).
- The main tactic for approaching the classroom dance of discipline is to offer the student only two choices to choose from and ending it there without further discussion.
- Encouraging messages are always beneficial compared to discouraging messages which tend to achieve the opposite of their intended effect.
- Use of consequences is extremely useful. Consequences can stop misbehavior, teach your rules, and promote responsibility by holding students accountable for poor choices and behavior (Mackenzie).
- Important guidelines for using logical consequences: use your normal voice, think in simple terms, before rules are violated - set up logical consequences with limited choices, after rules are violated - apply consequences immediately - do not wait or give multiple warnings, use timers for procrastinators, always start the student with a clean slate after the consequence is over.
- Homework is a system that involves students, teachers, and parents. With the cooperation of all three, homework completion is the most successful. There are two main reasons for assigning homework. The first reason is to practice the skills learned in class that day or to review. The second reason is more long-term and significant--homework completion teaches students about responsibility, independence, time management, and accountability.

Citation:
Mac, Kenzie Robert J. Setting Limits in the Classroom: How to Move beyond the Classroom Dance of Discipline. Rocklin, CA: Prima Pub., 1996. Print.