The session was attended by history and education professors from around the world, and Harbaugh was the only speaker on the panel who works as a classroom teacher rather than a scholar or college professor. Many in attendance remarked that it was a refreshing change to hear how education happens and should happen from a voice actually teaching in the classroom.
Israeli scholar Zehavit Gross remarked that the duty of Holocaust education is to help students help to "light a candle in the world" rather than "to curse the darkness", a theme which Harbaugh reiterated by sharing his strategies for Holocaust education with teachers in Gobles, Michigan. Harbaugh shared that in his classroom, the ultimate goal of Holocaust education is to prepare his senior students to become better citizens of our country, and the world after they graduate from Gobles High School.
Harbaugh wrote a chapter about his research into Holocaust education for the book As the Witness Fall Silent: 21st Century Holocaust Education in Curriculum, Policy, and Practice, which will be published by Springer Books on April 15.