A Westlake High School English teacher will begin a months-long educational opportunity this year after being accepted to the Auschwitz Legacy Fellowship.

Lisa Landrum-May, who in addition to English teaches Advanced Placement (AP) African American Studies, will start meeting virtually with other program participants once a month beginning in late January. The program includes a summer trip to Poland to visit Warsaw and Kraków, and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.

“I hope to deepen my understanding of the Holocaust in a way that allows me to bring back richer, more meaningful lessons to my students,” Landrum-May said. She intends to directly connect what she gleans from the fellowship to the Civil Rights movement and the ongoing struggle for racial justice in America.

The lessons relate to the titles studied in Landrum-May’s classes and can strengthen the understanding of themes in texts. She pointed to what she learned visiting Detroit where she studied the history of discriminatory financial practices known as redlining, and how it impacts her instruction. “When I teach ‘Raisin in the Sun,’ for instance, I draw on what I learned about housing discrimination to give students a deeper, more authentic understanding of the world [author Lorraine] Hansberry was writing about,” Landrum-May said.

Through making connections and encouraging students to delve further into subjects, Landrum-May hopes they will dig deeper and carry the knowledge with them long after graduation. “I want my students to understand their responsibility to recognize injustice and speak out — whether they are studying Europe in the 1940s or America today,” she said.

Previously, Landrum-May was selected as a Fulbright Specialist by the Fulbright Specialist Program, and was selected to participate in two National Endowment of Humanities summer institutes. “I’m a firm believer in lifelong learning,” she said. “I actively seek out professional development that deepens my understanding of history and social justice.”

She has an interest in social justice, and is an implicit bias facilitator for CCPS. Landrum-May has spent decades studying through fellowships and humanities programs. “I have seen how understanding painful history empowers students to question, analyze and refuse injustice in their own lives,” Landrum-May said.

History of the fellowship
The Auschwitz Legacy Fellowship was launched in 2022 by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation (ABMF) to give high school teachers around the U.S. with tools, knowledge and empathy to teach the history and lessons of Auschwitz.

“Seventy-seven years and three generations have now passed since Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated, and there are young people who know nothing about it,” Ronald S. Lauder, ABMF chairman, said in 2022. “When people don't know anything about the Nazis and the gas chambers and the horror, that's when crimes like this can be repeated.”

The 2022 fellowship cohort included 32 educators, with more than 149 educators having received training in the past three years, according to ABMF. By 2030, the foundation aims to have 500 high school teachers from around the country receive the training. “The lessons of Auschwitz you will bring to your students can and will change your students’ perception of the world they live in,” Piotr M.A. Cywinski, Ph.D., director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, said to the 2022 cohort.

About CCPS

Charles County Public Schools provides 27,904 students in grades prekindergarten through 12 with an academically challenging education. Located in Southern Maryland, Charles County Public Schools has 38 schools that offer a technologically advanced, progressive and high quality education that builds character, equips for leadership and prepares students for life, careers and higher education.

The Charles County public school system does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age or disability in its programs, activities or employment practices. For inquiries, please contact Dr. Mike Blanchard, Title IX/ADA/Section 504 Coordinator (students) or Nikial M. Majors, Title IX/ADA/Section 504 Coordinator (employees/ adults), at Charles County Public Schools, Jesse L. Starkey Administration Building, P.O. Box 2770, La Plata, MD 20646; 301-932-6610/301-870-3814. For special accommodations call 301-934-7230 or TDD 1-800-735-2258 two weeks prior to the event. 

CCPS provides nondiscriminatory equal access to school facilities in accordance with its Use of Facilities rules to designated youth groups (including, but not limited to, the Boy Scouts).