Preparing her students to hear a survivor

Thousands of students will hear survivors this year through our speakers bureau. How do you prepare students for this experience? Here is one example of a teacher doing an outstanding job.

What do you do in your classroom to prepare your students? We want to know! Email us!

Anna Roberts, Olympic View Middle School, Mukilteo, WA

Will the students be reading any Holocaust-related books? Which ones?:
All students will have finished up reading Elie Wiesel's Night.

What will you be doing to prepare your students:
We prepare our students by sending a letter home, explaining to their parents the rare and special opportunity of having a Holocaust guest speaker come to visit and tell their life stories. In addition, we have them read up on our guest speaker, prior to that day, so they can anticipate what will be spoken about that day. Most importantly, we prepare our kids by going over behavior expectations during our time with the speaker and we have them prepare appropriate questions to ask our speaker, if given an opportunity for questions. All our students have learned the background of the Holocaust and have read Elie Wiesel's Night.

Group goals and goals for the speaker presentation: Our goal is to have our students make a personal connection through having the opportunity to hear from someone who witnessed first hand the atrocities of the Holocaust. having a speaker that was there and has their personal story to tell makes this part of history they have learned about much more real and in the process, deepens their understanding about this time. In addition, our goal is for kids to build empathy for those victims of the Holocaust.

Special Needs:
If possible, we would like a question and answer session that opens it up for kids to ask the guest speaker questions.

Additional Info:
We have had a guest speaker come to OV for the past 5 years when we began teaching Night commonly in our Language Arts blocks. Ann Freemon, now a teacher at Mariner HS, had seen Henry Friedman speak at another school and had encouraged us to book him as a guest speaker. Since then, we have invited a speaker every year. We value your efforts and time given to teach our kids life long lessons about the Holocaust.