New Jersey Educators, Students Encouraged to Participate in Holocaust Research
By Erin McGuinness | Published by Feb. 11, 2019
New Jersey educators assembled at the Kean University Holocaust Resource Center Jan. 25 to learn an innovative way to bring Holocaust education to classrooms throughout the state.
History Unfolded: US Newspapers and the Holocaust is an initiative through the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which invites students, educators and history lovers to research how the Holocaust was reported on in the United States, said Eric Schmalz, Citizen History Community Manager at the museum. Participants are asked to look into their local newspaper collections to find articles regarding events during the Holocaust.
The initiative was launched in 2016 and will be open for submissions through 2021.So far, over 17,000 submissions have been collected, and there is representation from every state, Schmalz said. The research is being used in the museum’s Americans and the Holocaust exhibition.
The Jan. 25 workshop was created by the Kean University Holocaust Resource Center in tandem with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to teach New Jersey teachers how to do research for History Unfolded, how the initiative can be used to teach Holocaust history and how to encourage students to perform the research themselves.
“In the hopes that we reach (teachers), they are going to reach their students, and their students are going to be the ones that make a difference,” said Dr. Adara Goldberg, Director of Kean Holocaust Resource Center.
New Jersey is one of few states to require Holocaust and genocide education in school districts and charter schools, according to the New Jersey Department of Education.
When Goldberg and Sarah Coykendall, Managing Assistant Director of the Holocaust Resource Center, contacted Schmalz to propose this workshop at Kean, they were surprised to learn New Jersey is underrepresented in the History Unfolded submissions, Coykendall said.
“When Adara found out about the project and contacted me and said she would like to consider having me up for a workshop, I was thrilled, because we have been trying to work in a number of different ways to encourage more teachers in New Jersey, students and lifelong learners to do this project,” Schmalz said.
The workshop was a five-hour long event. In addition to a presentation explaining History Unfolded and the purpose behind the initiative by Schmalz, Franklin Stebbins, a New Jersey teacher from Clark High School, gave a presentation to explain the initiative from a teacher’s perspective. Attendees were given a demonstration on the process behind finding articles to submit to History Unfolded. Hands-on research was offered so that the educators at the workshop could utilize the research of History Unfolded under the guidance of the workshop’s presenters.
Among the educators who attended the workshop were two Kean University undergraduate students who are pursuing careers in education, as well as current educators who are enrolled in Kean University graduate programs.
“We really encourage Kean students to participate, to take advantage of the programs because it’s not common to have something like (The Holocaust Resource Center) on a university campus, and everything that we do is free, and no student will ever be turned away,” Goldberg said.
If Kean students wish to do research for History Unfolded, resources at the Holocaust Resource Center can be utilized at anytime, she said.
“One of our greatest goals is to make sure that anyone who leaves the space is armed with new ideas (and) is armed with resources, but also the knowledge that we are here to support them, not only on this day but through their entire journey as an educator,” Goldberg said.
Schmalz encourages Kean students to participate in this research because there is a need for more material on New Jersey, he said.
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