Secondary Schools
Overview
Holocaust awareness generates activities that can be undertaken by secondary school students that include: essays, poetry, art, performances, history and special topic projects. These activities can be linked to study relating to the Holocaust, some of which already appears on the curriculum.
The Holocaust Educational Trust of Ireland arranges for Holocaust survivors to visit schools and provides guidelines for the organisers. Hearing survivors speak about their personal experiences is the most impressive way to prompt discussions and activities about the Holocaust and to consider anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, intolerance and genocide.
Students' encounters with Holocaust survivors lead to a greater awareness about the dangers of discrimination and facilitate learning lessons that are relevant to their own generation. After hearing Holocaust survivors speak, the Trust encourages schools to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day.
Study visits to centres of Holocaust education for school teachers and their students
Students
The Holocaust Educational Trust of Ireland encourages Transition Year teachers to take their students on a one-day visit to either of two centres of Holocaust education In England: The Imperial War Museum, London or the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre in Nottingham. Both have excellent exhibitions and educational programmes amongst the facilities they can arrange for school groups.
Programmes for Teachers
The Trust runs two programmes specifically for teachers: (1) Learning from the Holocaust and (2) Teaching the Holocaust.
(1) Learning from the Holocaust is a five-day programme that includes a 3-day study visit to Krakow and Auschwitz-Birkenau supported by two separate seminar days before and after the visit. The
programme is designed to give teachers an understanding of the Holocaust and the history of the Jews of Europe up to the Second World War. It provides participants with the skills to address Holocaust awareness with their students. For further information please contact the Trust office.
(2) Teaching the Holocaust is an intensive Summer course for teachers that provides in-depth information about the Holocaust and how to teach the complex subject in the classroom. It addresses cross-curricular approaches and considers where Holocaust Studies have relevance for our students today. Lectures, seminars, workshops, materials and resources are presented by experienced Holocaust educators. It is a summer course which takes place in August ever year.
