EDUCATOR TRAINING & AWARDS

Teaching the Holocaust can be challenging. The VHEC supports teachers and educators by providing regular professional development opportunities led by experts in Holocaust education.

Have you developed a unique course or resource that teaches about the Holocaust? Consider applying for our Kron Sigal Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education. The annual award recognizes a BC teacher who has demonstrated special distinction in the field.

Professional Development

Summer Seminar

Foundations for Genocide Studies: Holocaust and Human Behaviour

The VHEC is proud to partner with Facing History and Ourselves, the British Columbia Social Studies Teachers’ Association (BCSSTA) as well as the Department of Philosophy and Department of History at Simon Fraser University (SFU) for a three-day summer seminar Foundations for Genocide Studies: Holocaust and Human Behaviour, taking place from June 24–26, 2019 at SFU Vancouver Campus (June 24–25) and the VHEC (June 26).

In this seminar, teachers will:

  • Learn current scholarship on genocide, the history of the Holocaust and new research focused on human behaviour, group dynamics and bias.
  • Increase their ability to facilitate respectful classroom discussions on difficult issues such as racism, antisemitism and other forms of exclusion.
  • Learn a new way of structuring curriculum to help students connect history to their own lives and the choices they make.
  • Engage with classroom-ready multimedia resources and interactive teaching strategies that help students develop historical thinking skills, think critically and discuss controversial issues respectfully.
  • Experience integrated content learning through artefacts from the collection of the VHEC.
  • Listen to a testimony of and engage with a VHEC Holocaust Survivor Speaker.

June 24–26, 2019

9:00 am – 4:30 pm

SFU Vancouver Campus (June 24–25)

Harbour Centre

515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver

Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (June 26)

950 West 41st Avenue, Vancouver
Lower Level

Registration Fee: $400

Shafran Teachers’ Conference

Held every two years, the Shafran Teachers’ conference attracts educators from across British Columbia and elsewhere. This day-long event offers participants an opportunity to hear from internationally renowned speakers, historians and educators at the forefront of Holocaust studies. Educators share best practices related to teaching the Holocaust in elementary, secondary and university settings.

Sponsored by the David & Lil Shafran Endowment Fund of the VHEC.

Awards

Kron Sigal Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education

Each year, the VHEC presents the Meyer and Gita Kron and Ruth Kron Sigal Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education to a British Columbia teacher in any discipline who has demonstrated excellence and commitment to teaching students about the Holocaust and its important lessons for humankind.

The award was established in memory of Meyer and Gita Kron, Lithuanian Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who re-established their lives in Vancouver. Through their lifelong involvement with education and community, they touched the lives of thousands of students. Their daughter, Ruth Kron Sigal, who survived the Holocaust in hiding, was a dedicated VHEC outreach speaker before she passed away in 2008.

2023 Kron Sigal Award Recipients

At the VHEC’s annual general meeting in June, the 2023 Kron Sigal Award was presented to Lindsay Hutchison, a gifted and remarkable educator who has been committed throughout her entire career to teaching high school students about the Holocaust. Lindsay is the head of the Social Studies department at Tamanawis Secondary School in Surrey, where she has taught for almost two decades. She includes the study of the Holocaust in each of the courses she teaches: Social Studies 10; Twentieth Century World History; and Genocide Studies 12.