Resources used in workshops for Yonkers middle and high educators to learn how to teach lessons about Holodomor, a tragic act of genocide in Ukraine, are now available. The Communist regime under Joseph Stalin deliberately starved millions of Ukrainians to death during 1932-33, after Ukrainian peasants refused to join collective farms in the Soviet Union.
Stalin then ordered the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to Siberia and then increased Ukrainian farming production to levels that could not be met. Starvation became rampant, with up to 25,000 Ukrainians dying every day.
The Yonkers School District held workshops earlier this year on the Holomodor for middle and high school teachers. Presenters included United Federation of Teachers member Oksana Kulynych, chair of the U.S. Holodomor Education Committee and a teacher at PS/MS 194 in New York City; and Lesia Kaszczak, a Yonkers Federation of Teachers member who teaches science at Yonkers Middle High School.
The workshops included a PowerPoint presentation about the Holodomor, and other educational materials that are aligned with the Common Core Standards. For more information about these Holomodor classroom resources, contact Kulynych at okul17@aol.com.