Ever thought of organizing a student excursion to a former concentration camp, but don’t know how to approach it? Many teachers feel underqualified to address sensitive and heavy topics like the Holocaust, and without the right resources, may choose to avoid the topic altogether. What questions do you ask your students before the visit? What kind of reflection do you prompt on arrival? What are the main thoughts students should take away from such an experience?

Thankfully, Holocaust Education Trust Ireland (HETI) have compiled a useful set of guidelines for educational visits to former concentration camps, with materials that include:

  • terms and key concepts
  • reflection questions
  • research inquiry questions
  • preparation and post-visit discussion points

Learning from the Holocaust: Visiting Krakow and Auschwitz-Birkenau

Learning from the Holocaust: Leaving Krakow and Auschwitz-Birkenau

  • Feeling the Museum: putting oneself in the shoes of students with special needs to understand how to provide the best didactic experience possible
  • Students as Mediators of Conflicts
  • Find out what New Students Bring to the Classroom

    As a response to an increase in new students in the Swedish educational system, the Swedish Board of Education tasked a group of schools and universities to find a way to assess what newly arrived students know in order to provide the best possible education for each student, as well as focusing on their strengths rather than their weaknesses. This resulted in the formation of materials for conducting discourse around history for the purpose of assessing the historical competencies of newly arrived students. This is done in the form of a 70-minute conversation between a teacher and a student. The assessment is meant to provide valuable insight into what the students are already familiar with, so that teachers can take this into account when creating lesson plans.