During October 31 – November 03, the International Conference “Limmud Ukraine” was held in Odesa. One of the speakers was Dr. Igor Shchupak, who held several lectures-conversations on history for participants – guests from Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and the USA.
During the lecture on “The Price of Jewish Life during the Holocaust”, the lecturer relied not only on the eyewitnesses memories of the Jews rescue, but also on archival documents: the materials of the Extraordinary State Commission for Ascertaining and Investigating Crimes Perpetrated by the German-Fascist Invaders and their Accomplices; Ukrainian students school works collection about life under occupation, in particular, from the State Archives of Odesa Region. Special attention was paid to the materials of the Nazi courts that persecuted Ukrainians “for harboring Jews”. There were many questions, impressions, reflections; listeners shared their memories and thoughts about what they wanted to pay attention to.
The lesson “GAMES, ANECDOTES, MULTIMEDIA IN NEW GENERATION TEXTBOOKS …” was very interesting. There were many funny stories about educational affairs. This was a good discussion of important problems of school history education and education in general (its real goals and results, student motivation and “specialization”), and communication with the meeting participants (from Ukraine, as well as from Belarus, Moldova, the USA and even Russia). Among them were both teachers and students. How to work with new generation textbooks (paying attention to the relevance of history for the present and the “interactive” nature of the materials presentation, informative illustrations and multimedia via QR codes, anecdotes and other interesting ones, etc.) we will talk in more detail with teachers at seminars in different cities of Ukraine.