Glenwood Academy is a first through 12th grade school in Carroll County that serves students with learning differences like dyslexia, dyscalculia, autism and ADHD that may impact a child’s ability to succeed in a standard classroom environment.

It is not a Jewish school, and yet, this summer, Glenwood Academy is hosting a walkthrough of its comprehensive, student-led exhibit, “Through Their Eyes and Voices: Stories of Loss, Survival, and Liberation,” a Holocaust exhibit that will serve as a launching point for the school’s work to educate students on the Holocaust. The exhibit is thanks in part to a Ponczak-Greenblatt Families Holocaust Endowment Fund grant that Glenwood Academy received this year.

For Rebecca Rider, the head of school at Glenwood Academy, the World Wars unit that Glenwood high school students embarked on this year was designed to be about more than facts and figures.

“For us, it was really important for our students to understand the importance of humanity in terms of people and perspectives, and the impact of people over time. So, therefore, with our World War II Humanities Unit, we really wanted to focus on different aspects of the war that were related to not just events, but important times within World War II that were related to the eyes and voices,” she said.

A large part of that, of course, was learning about the 6 million Jews who were killed by Nazi forces in the Holocaust and the millions of others who were harmed, displaced and disenfranchised.

The program consisted of reading books like “Night” by Elie Wiesel, “Maus” by Art Spiegelman, “Number the Stars” by Lois Lowry, and others. Students studied Holocaust-era poetry, sifted through the history itself, created original artwork inspired by Holocaust-era drawings, studied Holocaust-era music, wrote tribute pieces honoring the children of the Holocaust, and went to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. All of this, as well as artifacts and more, will appear in the July exhibition.

Rider estimates that about 15% of the school’s population is Jewish. That’s less than some, but more than many others. Glenwood Academy made sure that the lessons on Jewish resilience and suffering in Nazi Germany included personal anecdotes that connected to the Glenwood Jewish community.

“It’s important to us when we teach about the Holocaust, to also invite people who have a connection to the Holocaust. We invited others [this year] to share their stories. Our treasurer’s father was involved in the Holocaust, so he came to speak to our students and then we created a tribute to his father, so it was really nice for our students,” Rider said.

Erica Hobby is a parent of a student at Glenwood Academy who has worked in Baltimore’s Jewish community for about two decades. She said that, as a Jew, it’s incredible to see the depth of learning that has gone on at Glenwood. As a parent, she thinks that this level of understanding will help her child and others be more prepared for life beyond the classroom.

“You can’t always prioritize curriculum such as this in the same way, because there just simply aren’t enough hours in the day. So to see this done to the extent that it has been, it’s critically important and moving, and it gives me hope, because everybody needs to understand and connect with history in order to truly learn [it],” she said. “Hopefully this is much more impactful for them and it’s preparing them to face the world.”

Glenwood Academy serves families with children who have learning differences from all over the area, but most students are from Carroll County and Baltimore County. The school has gained ground and enrollment in recent years thanks to strong word of mouth in lieu of expansive advertising. While not every school is catered toward those who learn differently, the way that Glenwood Academy teaches its students can be a lesson for schools big and small, public and private, Jewish and not.

“The exhibit is extraordinarily moving and impactful. It’s teaching like this that gives me hope that this generation will learn the lessons needed so that history will not repeat itself,” Hobby said. “[Glenwood Academy is] a place that changes lives, and I’m grateful that our children are able to learn, grow and thrive in this environment.”

aguckes@midatlanticmedia.com