Fenwick students were given the unique opportunity to converse with Holocaust survivors through a new virtual reality curriculum provided by the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center (IHMEC). “Voices of Survival” was co-written by Social Studies teacher Julie Klein, who has more than 30 years of experience in Holocaust education.
Museum team members visited the classroom to film students’ interactions with survivor testimony, later using the footage at the IHMEC Humanitarian Awards Dinner in Chicago. Mrs. Klein said the powerful video not only “demonstrates the power of living testimony,” but also helps IHMEC “improve accessibility for students nationwide.”
Friars enrolled AP Psychology were the first members of the public to engage with this cutting-edge immersive technology. “I selected AP Psychology classes for filming because of the natural links between Holocaust studies and the psychology curriculum, and also because I trust our students’ maturity and curiosity,” said Mrs. Klein, who serves on the museum’s Education Advisory Committee.
“By prioritizing Holocaust education, our students are engaging in the very best of what a Fenwick education provides – the application of scientific understanding to the promotion of human dignity and social justice,” said Mrs. Klein, whose background includes time in the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous teacher education program. She was also the first secondary school teacher in the nation to participate in the Holocaust Education Foundation’s fellowship program at Northwestern University.
She praised her students at Fenwick for their “inspiring willingness to engage so deeply with challenging material” and for their “contributions to the Museum’s mission of sharing these stories with the world.”
Read more about Mrs. Klein’s trailblazing work in the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park & River Forest.
AP Psychology students attended the IHMEC Humanitarian Awards Dinner in Chicago on March 10. They were joined by Mrs. Klein, Director of Catholic and Dominican Mission Fr. Peddicord, O.P. and principal Dr. John Finan ‘87. Special guests at the dinner included Julie Smolyansky, Rahm Emanuel, Liev Schreiber and Governor JB Pritzker.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, Mrs. Klein spoke with CBS Chicago about her participation in the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous national teacher education program, and how Fenwick students are studying this period of history.