Educators: Local Educators Workshop and The Gedalyah Engel Education Award
Workshop for Educators
This year's workshop will be held in the Fall of 2025
In partnership with the Greater Lafayette Holocaust Remembrance Committee, the Ackerman Center has moved the annual Holocaust Educator Workshop to the fall this year in order to help teachers start the year with a focus on promoting tolerance and critical media skills.
Tuesday, October 28, 2025, 5:30 - 7:30 PM
Elm Room, West Lafayette Public Library
2025 Workshop: "Windows to History: Picture Books in Upper Grades"
with author Chana Stiefel
Learn About the Creation of Non-Fiction Picture Books for Upper Elementary
Targeted for SS and Literacy teachers of grades 4-8, but all are welcome
What will you get out of this workshop?:
- An author’s perspective on researching and writing picture books about history and the Holocaust for middle grade students
- Strategies for using “Tower of Life” and other non-fiction picture books in your classroom
- Confidence teaching about the Holocaust in an uplifting way
- First 30 teacher registrants will receive a copy of the inspiring book, The Tower of Life
Chana Stiefel is the award-winning author of more than 30 books for children. Her nonfiction picture book, THE TOWER OF LIFE: How Yaffa Eliach Rebuilt Her Town in Stories and Photographs, published by Scholastic, won the 2023 Sydney Taylor Book Award, a Robert F. Sibert Honor, the Margaret Wise Brown Prize for Children’s Literature, and the SCBWI Russell Freedman Nonfiction Award for a Better World. Other nonfiction titles include LET LIBERTY RISE: How America’s Schoolchildren Helped Save the Statue of Liberty (a Bank Street Best Book of the Year, Scholastic), and ANIMAL ZOMBIES & OTHER REAL-LIFE MONSTERS (a Top 10 YALSA Quick Pick, NatGeoKids). Chana’s funny fictional picture books include BRAVO, AVOCADO (HarperCollins, 2023), MENDEL’S HANUKKAH MESS UP (Kalaniot, co-written with Larry Stiefel), MY NAME IS WAKAWAKALOCH (HMH, short-listed for the 2023 UNICEF Prize for Children’s Literature), and DADDY DEPOT (Feiwel & Friends). She loves to visit schools and libraries to share her passion for reading and writing with children. She earned a Master’s degree in Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting from New York University. Chana is represented by Miranda Paul at Erin Murphy Literary Agency. Follow her @chanastiefel on
Twitter, and
Instagram. To hear Chana pronounce her name, click here.
Chana Stiefel's Website
Resources for Educators - Teacher Guides and more
This workshop will support both educators who have experience teaching the Holocaust and those who are just getting started.
PGP Points
Certificates for 2 PGP points will be available to participants to submit to their districts. District policies differ. Please ask your administrator if this workshop qualifies.
Registration
Participation is free of charge., Dinner provided by Subway
Or, email Anne Murphy-Kline at the Ackerman Center for Democratic Citizenship at Purdue University, (amurphyk at purdue dot edu).
Space is limited, so register early and please forward this information to interested educators. To respect our presenters’ time and effort, please register only if you are certain you plan to attend. Workshop will be cancelled if we do not reach minimum registration.
Flyer
Sponsors
The workshop is funded by the James F. Ackerman Center for Democratic Citizenship, College of Education, Purdue University.
Subway dinner provided by Bauer, Inc.
Gedalyah Engel Education Award 2022 Recipient
The Greater Lafayette Holocaust Remembrance Committee is proud to announce the recipient(s) of the 2022 Gedalyah Engel Education Award:
Brandi Weilbaker (Benton Central Junior High, Oxford, IN):
EIghth Grade Trip to CANDLES
Mrs Weilbaker grant will fund a visit to CANDLES Holocaust Museum for seventy eight-graders this spring. This exposure will help these students to understand the importance of individual responsibility in fighting ignorance, hatred, and prejudice in today?s society. Upon their return, students will be engaging in discrimination and prejudice prevention activities within their Advisory homeroom classes.
Gedalyah Engel Education Award 2024 Application Process
Educators interested in applying for an Engel Award should contact Sarah Powley, Co-Chair of the GLHRC (spowley at tsc.k12.in.us).
Applications will be due January 31, 2024.
The Gedalyah Engel Education Award has been established by the GLHRC to support endeavors by local educators to educate and inspire their students to recognize discrimination, to stand up for minority groups and other vulnerable populations, and to speak out against manifestations of present-day hatred and prejudice.
The GLHRC will award annually a total of $2000 to educators who are actively teaching in schools in Indiana ASP District 4 (Benton, Warren, Fountain, Montgomery, Tippecanoe, White, Carroll, Cass, and Clinton counties) who submit successful proposals in one of the following categories:
- Teacher Learning (e.g., an online or on campus course in Jewish Studies or Holocaust education, a travel opportunity to learn about the Holocaust) Educators applying in this category must indicate how their learning will benefit students.
- Classroom Projects (e.g., a student-produced collection of oral histories)
- School-wide Projects (e.g., a school visit by an outside speaker or an interdisciplinary endeavor)
- Student Travel (e.g., a field trip to a Holocaust museum as part of a unit on the Holocaust or a culminating activity to a unit of study)
- Education Outreach (e.g., a service learning project)
Successful proposals will address issues related to genocide, discrimination, bullying, human rights, the Holocaust itself or “lessons to be learned from the Holocaust” with clearly outlined activities and specific student outcomes.
Education Award Flyer (PDF file) - Help spread the program
Education Award Application (PDF file)