Pennsylvania Holocaust Education Council
The mission of the Pennsylvania Holocaust Education Council (PHEC) is to provide instructional guidance, support and resources to educators who teach the history of the Holocaust and its relevance to contemporary issues across the state of Pennsylvania.
PHEC believes:
- educators should be well-prepared in the political, social, cultural and religious aspects of the Holocaust
- educators should use developmentally-appropriate resources
- educators should be sensitive to diversity
- educators should provide opportunities to make connections to contemporary issues.
The programs of the Pennsylvania Holocaust Education Council include the following.
Connect the Dots is an interactive workshop for teachers on how to connect the stories of the Holocaust to issues of genocide in the world today. Using archival photos, primary source documents, oral history, maps and artifacts participating teachers create practical lessons for immediate classroom use. Teachers leave with classroom materials and a connection to other PHEC teachers for continued support in designing and teaching lessons on the history of the Holocaust.
In memory of Mary Costanza, noted artist and educator, PHEC has established the Mary S. Costanza Memorial Program which subsidizes various Holocaust education activities of classroom teachers in Pennsylvania. These have included survivor visits to classrooms, class visits to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, professional development for teachers and classroom materials.
The Clara H. Isaacman Memorial Trunk Project was created in 2004 to memorialize Clara Heller Isaacman who, speaking from her personal experiences as a hidden child during the Holocaust, provided students with an invaluable account of life during World War II. PHEC has developed two trunks of Holocaust education materials: one appropriate for middle schools and the other for high schools. Each trunk contains reference materials, classroom sets of books, videos, DVDs, fiction books and nonfiction memoirs and diaries. Teacher guides are included when available.