What started as a professional development session for Marion County Middle School English Language Arts teacher Carrie Thompson eventually turned into an immersive student experience featuring museum artifacts, local pieces of history, and student projects.
Last year, Thompson attended a training for social studies and ELA teachers on how to teach students about the Holocaust led by a University of Kentucky professor.
At the training, Thompson learned about the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center’s teaching trunk program where teachers can request to receive a trunk filled with artifacts, audio recordings, and class sets of books. Schools keep the trunk for up to six weeks before it’s sent back to the museum, all at no cost.
Thompson, who this year returned to teaching eighth grade, decided to request a trunk to go along with a unit on the Holocaust, but she didn’t stop there.
“I’ve always wanted to put together a museum,” Thompson said. “In my own classroom I’ve had a mini-museum set up with newspapers and artifacts, and since then I thought it would be cool to set up a big museum, and then I learned about the trunks [...] Now we have things students wouldn’t normally have access to being in a rural community.”
Thompson and her students recently transformed the school’s library into a Holocaust museum thanks in part to the trunk of materials she received. But the multi-class project also included artifacts on loan from local families as well as student projects.
Each of Thompson’s classes read a different novel that focused on the Holocaust. Students also read informational texts along with their novel study.
The novels -- The Devil’s Arithmetic, Don’t Tell the Nazis, Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and
Milkweed -- weren’t new to Thompson, but she did have to refamiliarize herself.
“I read those years ago, but I had to go back and re-read them to start lesson planning,” she explained.
To conclude their novel study, students chose a project from a menu of options such as compiling a slideshow, building a diorama, or creating a one-pager where students create a document highlighting important aspects of the novel.
Those student projects were then put on display along with the historical artifacts spread throughout the school’s library as students made their way through the setup just as if they were exploring a museum. In fact, the students also helped design how the artifacts and projects would be arranged to create the feel of a professional museum.
“I would love to do this every year because I believe I could get it to grow,” Thompson said, adding: “I didn’t know I was going to get the artifacts that we have here.”
Among the items on loan from local families were newspapers with headlines regarding the war, a soldier’s first-aid kit, and army medals. Thompson also reached out to a friend, whose family is from Germany, who provided a piece of the Berlin wall, German currency, and German soldier pins.
The trunk on loan from the Illinois Holocaust Museum included maps, posters, audio recordings of survivors, and reproductions of artifacts such as passports or immigration papers. Those items were spread out on a table at the center of the library where students could peruse them casually.
At her training, Thompson also learned about another educational tool she intends to use: an artificial intelligence program that allows the user to experience a real-time discussion with a Holocaust survivor.
She used the program during her training (“It was amazing,” she said) and plans to introduce it to her students.
Although she’s discovered a wealth of resources, Thompson admitted that teaching students about the Holocaust inevitably creates difficult situations as students learn about one of the most horrific events in recorded history. However, she added that having students that are willing to engage with the subject is one of the more rewarding parts of the unit.
“My favorite part is the kids having questions and, even though they are difficult questions to ask, they feel comfortable asking them, and the maturity that they have when they hear the answer they might not like,” she said. “This is such a heavy, heavy topic.”
Eighth-grader Colby Beard applauded the way Thompson taught the unit.
“She’s a great teacher,” he said. “She explained everything well, she approached everything carefully.”
A self-proclaimed “big history person,” Beard said he was surprised at how well the school museum turned out.
“My first thought was, ‘Wow!’ I was shocked because this wasn’t what I was expecting. It’s actually set up a lot better than I thought it would be,” he said.
He wasn’t the only student who had good things to say about the unit.
Aubrey Moore admitted that before this unit of study, she didn’t know a tremendous amount about the Holocaust and typically doesn’t prefer studying history. But she said she enjoyed this unit.
“It was worth it,” she said, adding that she thinks Thompson should repeat the class project next year.
Ali Mattingly chose to create a diorama based on a scene from the novel she read, Don’t Tell the Nazis.
“I just picked one of the chapters that really made a big impression on me,” Mattingly said. She also admitted that as she read the book there were times she felt she needed to take a break because parts of the book were upsetting to read.
But was reading the novel worthwhile? “It really was,” she said emphatically.
“Mrs Thompson has to be one of the most creative and best teachers. Not every student is going to get to experience this, especially around here,” Mattingly said. “It’s nothing like any other projects I’ve done.”
For Michael Tacey, the most interesting part of the museum was being able to inspect the historical artifacts.
“It was really cool. Seeing all the stuff is just crazy how old it is and that we have it here,” he said. “It’s cool that we get to experience it and we don’t have to go somewhere else or out of state to see it. We’re some of the only people in Kentucky to see it right now.”
Thompson said she knew that students were excited about putting their projects on display as a part of the museum because during NTI days students and parents would send her pictures of the projects as students worked on them. In fact, some were happy to have more time to work on them due to cancelled school days.
She also had plenty of help from her co-workers in setting up the museum, and her advice to other teachers thinking of taking on a similar large project is to lean on those around you.
“Don’t be afraid to ask for help, because it’s okay to pull a team together,” Thompson said. “I’ve had everyone come help me. It’s okay to get others involved because people do like to collaborate.”
MCMS Principal Amanda Farmer sees the museum project as a reflection of Thompson’s priorities as a teacher.
“I think that museum shows the personality that she has to always go above and beyond. She always goes above and beyond for the students -- the students are what’s most important,” Farmer said. “She’s done activities like this before when she taught seventh grade. As a teacher, she’s one of those experiential-type teachers. She creates things kids are going to remember.
“I think [the students] are proud to see their own work displayed. But I also think these kids can recognize the effort Mrs. Thompson has put into that.”
