On November 5-7, 2006, Seton Hill University(SHU) will host the seventh Holocaust Education Conference on �Emerging Issues in Holocaust Education.� The purpose of this conference is to unite Holocaust educators and students in order to learn from one another.
Over three days, the conference is broken down between plenary sessions for everyone, which include keynote and featured speakers, as well as breakout sessions on different topics.
By Stormy Knight,
Arts & Entertainment Editor
On November 5-7, 2006, Seton Hill University(SHU) will host the seventh Holocaust Education Conference on �Emerging Issues in Holocaust Education.� The purpose of this conference is to unite Holocaust educators and students in order to learn from one another.
Over three days, the conference is broken down between plenary sessions for everyone, which include keynote and featured speakers, as well as breakout sessions on different topics.
Carol Rittner, professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey is the keynote speaker of the conference. Featured speakers include Shulamit Imber, Daniel C. Napolitano, Rev. John T. Pawlikowski, and Thaddeus C. Radzilowski.
Plenary sessions also include two art exhibits in Harlan Gallery, featuring Ben Golden’s black and white photography, �Being There,� and Yardena Donig Youner’s installation piece, �A Letter to Debbie.� The conference is held every three years.
�It takes a lot of time to organize,� said Sr. Lois Sculco, National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education (NCCHE) administrator.
�Wilda Kaylor and her interns, as well as Sr. Gemma (Del Duca) who comes to SHU every October, send calls for proposals out in our newsletter asking for interested presenters. People always want to present, but their proposals must be accepted and it must meet the criteria of the theme,� said Sculco.
According to Sculco, themes are chosen by considering Holocaust issues that are most current, such as genocide. Objective outsiders read the proposals received by possible presenters to determine if the presentation will follow the theme or not.
�This conference is about current issues that the Holocaust prepares us for. What is racism today, what is genocide today, what are the issues today around the war in Isreal, what are the issues that we should be talking about in our schools, what are the textbooks looking like now in Catholic schools,� said Sculco.
One current theme in Holocaust education is that of simulation in the classroom. Dennis Jerz, associate professor of English at SHU will present on this topic with Helen Troy from St. Ann School in Virginia and Stephan Puff, a senior.
Their panel discussion, �Simulations as a Tool for Teaching the Holocaust� will be held on Tuesday, November 7, 2006 in room 28, Lynch Hall at 2:10 p.m.
�There are some influential references to the idea that working with simulations is not pedagogically valuable in Holocaust education. I�m not talking about drawing names from a hat and having half the class be Nazis and half the class be Jews and chase each other, that’s not the kind of simulation I�m talking about,�said Jerz, who is also the advisor for the Setonian.
�Simulations are a natural process of how we understand,� said Puff, also a Setonian senior staff writer.
�When we are worried about a test, a game, or excited about seeing an old friend, we simulate what is possible for us to do. So I�m hoping to explain that simulation is not just physical role-play in class,� Puff said.
�Holocaust educators are so conscious of the fact that they are losing the generation of Holocaust survivors and this generation of young people is the last generation that can learn from these first hand accounts,� said Jerz.
As an English professor, Jerz said he does not teach with historical documents; he teaches with creative interpretations of those historical documents. �A historical fiction can get the point across and not be factual, but still be true,� said Jerz.
�Scholars who reject simulations and video games because they have to simplify, by the same logic they would have to reject poetry or drama or photography because even the oral narratives of the Holocaust survivors are mediated,� Jerz said.
According to Puff, video games are a useful medium for simulation because they offer a wide variety of choices for the student.
�Our children are going to be living with video games as an art form. Our generation is still skeptical about it, but hopefully I can convince them that video games can be as important as art to our development as a society,� said Puff.
�If respectful educators don’tapply Holocaust material in this electronic medium that young people want, then Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites and other people who have hate in their agenda will step in and there will be no other respectable alternatives,� said Jerz.
SHU has already received over 100 registrations for the conference from people outside the school community.
�What’s unique about Seton Hill is that the faculty and the students attend this national conference. I presented in Montreal on a college campus and 100 people attended one presentation and 50 attended the second, but there were very few faculty members and students there,� said Sculco.
�It is a wonderful opportunity for Seton Hill to be seen by other groups besides our own,� she said.
The conference is free to SHU students, but registering to attend is necessary because space is limited.
�I think students will find the topics relevant to today, Sculco said.
She added,�I think sometimes people think Holocaust education means you�re getting the facts about the historical event, but that’s really not what this conference is about.�
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