A Student’s Journey
recipients: Angela Frank, Springbrook Middle School, Adrian, Michigan
date: 2019

Thanks to a mini-grant from TOLI, Angela Frank was able to take 89 students and 10 chaperones on a trip to the Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus as a culminating event to end the study of her Holocaust History class. Frank has been teaching this semester long elective class for 6th graders for three years and was able to take her previous classes, as well. One of the most moving parts for the students was meeting a survivor named Jack Gun, and listening to him share his story. “The students were so engrossed with his story you could have heard a pin drop in that room,” Frank says. “No matter how much we expose our students to these life experiences they still are in awe of what others have gone through.” Both museum staff and members of the school’s Board of Education were impressed with the students’ knowledge as well as their behavior. Through the help of TOLI’s grant and Frank’s educational experience with her TOLI Michigan seminar cohort, the Holocaust History class is had a very positive and powerful impact on the students and their worldviews. “They are learning compassion, empathy, and to stand up for others in ways that they didn’t before.”