Friday, June 22, 2007

 
Tolerance and Compassion: A Caring Approach to Teaching Students Good Character

1 - 3 p.m.
IPJ Theatre

Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice

Eva Olsson is a Holocaust survivor, author and public speaker. During World War II, Eva's family was imprisoned in a ghetto and then shipped by boxcar to Auschwitz in May 1944. Of her entire extended family of 89 people, only she and her youngest sister, Fradel, survived the death camps. Her book Unlocking the Doors: a Woman's Struggle against Intolerance is a bestseller in Canada where she emigrated in 1951.  

Eva ended a 50-year period of silence of what she had endured during the Holocaust by speaking to her granddaughter's elementary school class. This first speaking engagement occurred in 1996 and in the eleven years following Eva has made at least 1500 presentations to 150,000 students, educators and community leaders and spoken to more than 300,000 people. She will present on the historical connection between the Nazi bullies and today's disenfranchised youth, challenging each of us to teach children and youth to be tolerant and compassionate and to take responsibility for their own behavior.

Olsson's talk is part of the Ninth Annual Character Development Conference hosted by the Character Development Center at the School of Leadership and Education Sciences at the University of San Diego. The conference highlighted character development in schools and featured guest speakers and working sessions. For more information about the conference, click here.

For more information about the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice, click here; or call (619) 260-7509. The USD Campus is reached via Linda Vista Road.

This event was free and open to the public.