- Summary
- This study centered on an in-depth narrative analysis of lesson development by Master Teachers who trained at the USC Shoah Foundation Institute summer workshop held at the University of Southern California. The teachers constructed lessons for their students using Holocaust survivors' testimonies drawn exclusively from the Foundation's Visual History Archive. Interviews were conducted with the Master Teachers and their key trainers. In addition, the actual Master Teachers' lesson plans, relevant web content, videotaped seminars, classroom visits, Shoah Foundation publications and this researcher's notes were all examined to identify the values represented in the Master Teachers' lessons. The data indicated that the participating educators successfully met all expectations of their training, as well as the educational agenda established. The workshop resonated with the Master Teachers on a deeply personal level, which was demonstrated in their subsequent teaching. The predominant approach in sharing content by the Master Teachers crystallized in their endeavor to humanize experiences of the Holocaust by presenting it within the context of individuals' stories. The data further indicated that the Master Teachers developed both "real" and "virtual" relationships with survivors who provided testimony, and that their experience of engaging with visual history testimony drawn from the archive produced an entirely different emotional and intellectual experience from those that involved Holocaust content drawn solely from written sources. The leaders associated with the Shoah Foundation selected like-minded educators who might eventually become ambassadors for the Institute, while the workshop training gave them a level of expertise in working with testimony drawn from the Visual History Archive. The Master Teachers shared with the members of the Institute, a passionate sense of urgency to carry forward the message and, in some cases, a feeling of spiritual calling. The Master Teachers expressed feelings of responsibility, relevance and respect for the work that would bring testimony into their classrooms and clearly shared founder Steven Spielberg's belief that, "Examples of intolerance and racial hatred have to be taught, so the young people, the next generation, will never allow this to happen again" (Spielberg as cited in Shoah Foundation, 2011, Story).
- Format
- Book
- Author/Creator
- Cook, Peter D.
- Published
- [Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], 2014
- Notes
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Dissertations and Theses
