TORONTO — In the mid-1970s, Myra Novogrodsky, then a novice secondary school teacher, was shaken up by an unanticipated reaction to the Holocaust lessons that were part of her Grade 12 European history class.
Myra Novogrodsky, left, and Leora Schaefer [Frances Kraft photo]
Instead of the empathy with Holocaust victims and commitment to “Never again” that Novogrodsky was hoping for, a couple of her students became fascinated by Nazism and wanted to experiment with it.
Her realization that “as a young teacher, I didn’t know what I was doing” led her within a few years to a workshop run by the Toronto Jewish Congress (a precursor of UJAFederation of Greater Toronto) Holocaust Education Committee, which didn’t exist when she began her career.
Speakers at the workshop had come to Toronto from a then-fledgling educational and professional development organization called Facing History and Ourselves, based in Brookline, Mass.
After hearing the organization’s co-founders Margot Stern Strom, Facing History’s executive director, and William Parsons, now chief of staff of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Novogrodsky realized she had made mistakes “in terms of not identifying the issues adolescents were dealing with… obedience, authority, identity, fairness and justice.”
In the early 1980s, she obtained a grant to travel with seven colleagues to Brookline for a one-week course in preparation for teaching an interdisciplinary course on the Holocaust.
Within a few years, Novogrodsky was working for the then Toronto Board of Education, teaching other teachers about teaching the Holocaust using Facing History’s model. In 1999 she was seconded by York University’s faculty of education, where she taught until her recent retirement.
Recently, the organization set up its first Canadian office. It received its charitable registration number last July, and opened a downtown office in October.
Novogrodsky is chair of the organization’s advisory committee, and Winnipeg-born Leora Schaefer, an educator and graduate of Brandeis University’s Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership program, staffs the downtown office as program director.
Schaefer, who taught at the Toronto Heschel School in the late 1990s and has worked for Facing History for seven years, moved back to Toronto almost four years ago. Initially, she telecommuted from a home office.
Schaefer works with Jewish day schools across North America in conjunction with Facing History’s Jewish education program, which includes study of prewar Jewish life. The majority of the organization’s work, however, has been within the public school system. It began working in Jewish schools in 1998.
Facing History recently partnered with the Toronto District School Board to develop a new course on 20th-century genocide and crimes against humanity that has been approved by the Ontario Ministry of Education and is already being used.
It also offers programs for adults. On May 12, at 7:30 p.m., a free public session on the role of the press in upholding human rights will take place at the Miles Nadal JCC.
Titled “Can Media Make a Difference?,” the event, in honour of the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, will feature Olivia Ward, Toronto Star journalist, and Amanda Grzyb, University of Western Ontario media scholar. The discussion will be moderated by Michael Enright of CBC Radio.
Facing History has had a presence in Toronto, and to a lesser extent in British Columbia, for years. Every summer it offers a five-day seminar for teachers in the Toronto area.
One thing that makes the organization unique, said Schaefer, is its pedagogical approach. “It has to be intellectually rigorous, emotionally engaging and have that ethical reflection piece… It’s critical that students are ultimately empowered.”
A privately funded endeavour, Facing History needs supporters, said Schaefer. “This is an incredibly challenging time to be raising money as a new organization, but there really isn’t a more critical time to support teachers.”