Carlynton teacher's Poland trip focuses on history
Carlynton High School teacher Tim Patsko had been to Europe previous times, but his first trip to Poland was in June. Traveling with the organization Classrooms Without Borders, Patsko had a life-changing experience he feels will impact his students as well.
“There were so many things I learned on this trip that it would take way more than a semester, or even a year to go into detail to explain,” Patsko said. “I know it sounds strange that in nine days I would cover so much, but the topic and sites were really that extensive. Covering details and opening emotions that were amazing.”
The trip focused on Poland's history, as well as the Holocaust. For the past two years, Patsko has intensely studied the Holocaust in preparation to write the curriculum with Edward Mantich for a Holocaust and genocide studies course at Carlynton, where Patsko has taught for 25 years.
Carlynton Superintendent Gary Peiffer went on a similar trip to Poland in 2016, also with Classrooms Without Borders. The basis of the trips is to promote Holocaust education through interaction with local historians and survivors who have firsthand accounts of the events.
“It's so important to learn about this,” Peiffer said. “Sometimes it's put in the back pages or a sidebar of a textbook. Especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall, there are more documents available now that people didn't necessarily have before. There are many facets of the Holocaust that are important to explore and study. Survivors are aging and we will get a point in the near future where we won't have any Holocaust survivors. It's important to pay it forward and pass the knowledge on.”
Patsko previously traveled to Belgium, Netherlands and Germany, as well as other parts of the world during his service in the Army. This trip took him and 40 other teachers to the Polish towns of Warsaw, Kazimierz Dolny, Lublin, Wierzbnik and Kielce. There were also stops at Treblinka extermination camp and Auschwitz.
“After each site I was stunned, then maybe a day of two later something sunk in, and I realized another element of the Holocaust that hadn't occurred to me immediately, or prior to visiting a site,” Patsko said. “For my course, I will use this trip and its memories and reflections, and I'm sure my pictures will spur more unopened information and points of interest for my students.”
Patsko's 17-year-old son, Robert, accompanied him because “passing this down a generation is important to me,” he said.
Peiffer added, “I'm confident that there will be a lot of interest (in this course). It is necessary to go so in-depth to provide a unique perspective on it. There will be great opportunities for our students to learn and conduct their own research on the Holocaust.”
Matthew Peaslee is a Tribune-Review contributing writer.
