Middle School Teacher Recipient Of Holocaust Educator Award

WEST HARTFORD — The University of Hartford’s Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies presented Holocaust Educators Awards to five Connecticut teachers Monday, April 30, at a special ceremony in Wilde Auditorium at the University of Hartford, West Hartford.

Patrice Gans, Newtown Middle School’s Gifted and Talented teacher, received the Ruth Korzenik Memorial Holocaust Award for her 12-week unit titled “Sowing the Seeds of Compassion” for 23 eighth-grade Gifted and Talented students. Janet Calabro, supervisor of special education for Newtown Public Schools, wrote of Ms Gans’ work, “She has taught this unit every year since she’s been teaching in Newtown. Her passion for this unit is clearly evident and she has devoted great time and energy for its development and implementation. She is also extremely knowledgeable about the Holocaust and has successfully accessed numerous resources and speakers.”

Other award winners were Mark Napoli, a seventh-grade teacher at Longfellow School, Bridgeport; Kate English of Johnston Middle School, Colchester; and Stephanie Magyar and Ronda Hanecak, who teach at WAMOGO Regional and Middle School in Litchfield, respectively. After receiving their award, each of the winners spoke about his or her program.

The Ruth Korzenik Memorial Holocaust Educator Award and Joseph Zola Holocaust Educator Awards are named for two prominent Hartford individuals who have had a lifetime interest in the study and teaching of the Holocaust. The Rubin and Zola family and the Chase Family Foundation have established funds at the university to help support an annual workshop on the teaching of the Holocaust and the awarding of teaching prizes to outstanding teachers. The awards carry cash prizes of $1,000 each and are one of the most prestigious awards for the teaching of the Holocaust in middle and high schools nationwide and now around the world.

The work of these award winners, who were chosen from 15 semifinalists and more than 50 applicants, is of an extremely high quality, in part, because of the Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies’ annual Holocaust Teachers Workshop held every fall. At the most recent daylong workshop, area teachers were able to study both content and form of how to teach about the Holocaust in middle and high school curricula in social studies, language arts, art, history, and other disciplines.

This year’s Holocaust Educators Workshop, 0.5 CEUs for Connecticut educators, will take place Wednesday, October 31, at Central Connecticut State University. For more information on the Holocaust Educator Awards, development grants, or the workshop, contact Richard Freund, director of the Greenberg Center, at 860-768-4964 or freund@hartford.edu.