2024 HREC Educator Award Recipient Teaches 50 Educators about the Holodomor at Calgary Teachers’ Convention

Pamela Clark, the 2024 recipient of the HREC Educator Award for Holodomor Lesson Plan Development, was a presenter at this year’s Calgary City Teachers’ Convention at the Hyatt Regency Calgary, a part of the Alberta Teachers’ Association (February 15-16, 2024). 50 educators attended Clark’s presentation, including several who teach at the university level in their Faculties of Education. Clark’s presentation was entitled, “Teaching Complex Historical Events and Issues through Literature.”

In her presentation, Clark discussed “circles of understanding” in relation to the Holodomor and community building, a strategy which she also uses in her award-winning lesson plan, to share teaching strategies regarding the “Power of Words,” “Power of Community (Communitree),” “Power of Self,” “Reflection” and “Power of Hope.”

The participating educators responded very well to the overview of the lessons and were actively engaged in sharing their classroom experiences as they related to the information presented. Many of the educators were familiar with the Holodomor and were eager to learn how to teach it in their classrooms. Clark provided an extensive list of links to resources to teach the Holodomor including the HREC Education website and “Top Picks” list and the teachers were “very grateful” to receive it. Clark stated she left feeling both uplifted and enthusiastic from their responses.