SU student expanding story of Holocaust with high school students 

Shippensburg University graduate student Michael Fauser admits he isn’t a teacher, but he is spending this semester teaching about the Holocaust to various Pennsylvania high school students.       

  Fauser, a graduate student in Shippensburg’s applied history, spent the recent semester break as part of the prestigious Lipper Internship Program Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in Lower Manhattan. He was one of 16 interns who learned how to teach 20th Century Jewish history and the Holocaust to young people.     

During his time in New York, he studied the museum’s exhibitions, heard testimony from Holocaust survivors and attended seminars led by the museum’s scholars. Having completed the initial program, he will visit high school classrooms to discuss the museum’s offerings and pave the way for the young learners to visit the museum in New York. Since the program started in 1998, interns have worked with more than 50,000 students from around the Northeast, according to museum information. 

Fauser said that the outreach effort facilitated by the museum is designed to spur discussion among students who may not have an adequate basis in their knowledge of the Holocaust.  “The museum opens its doors and pays the expenses for public school students to learn about the Holocaust and genocide. The theme is Meeting Hate with Humanity,” he said.  

 “I go to classes and engage them in discussions about the Holocaust and about genocide and put those in context so the students recognize that while the Holocaust happened some time ago, genocide is still occurring.” Fauser will visit the classrooms twice, once before the visit to the museum and once after. 

Fauser, a Millersville University graduate, said he first became aware of the Museum of Jewish Heritage from a professor there during Millersville’s annual Holocaust Conference. “I have always had an interest in this. This opportunity allows me to share my personal interest with students.” 

Fauser said classroom teaching is not his career objective, but sees the internship and the chance to inform the Pennsylvania students about the Holocaust as an opportunity to put the events of the past into context.  “Genocide still happens and the Museum of Jewish Heritage gives kids perspective that these things happen. It’s not a horror show. It shows life. It’s about people.”     

Fauser will travel to public high schools in the greater Philadelphia area this semester but would like to also include central Pennsylvania high schools. 

According to Fauser, he feels strongly about educating all people about the Holocaust. "We must start with the children and begin to dismantle this framework of prejudice before these ideas become second nature." 

1/24/12