The Leading Edge of Learning

Corey L. HarbaughGobles HS

charbaugh@gobles.org

The Foundations of Holocaust & Social Justice Education

TCWP, 2014

Write down 2 or 3 questions or curiosities you have about the Holocaust.

Do we have an obligation to teach our students the lessons of historical and/or contemporary examples of social justice and injustice?

Here is my question:

Do we have an obligation to teach our students the lessons of historical and/or contemporary examples of social justice and injustice?

If so, why?If not, why not?

QW: What are your thoughts on this? (Please write for three (3) minutes)

Share & Discuss

Here is what Holocaust Education survey data

tells us:

254 teachers, all of whom were vetted by and have received training from at least one national organization in Holocaust content & pedagogy:

1. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

2. The USC Shoah Foundation

3. The Memorial Library (NYC)

85.54% say we do, at

least somewhat

But what about the 14.46% who believe we should not teach towards an established social value?

What do they think?

The factor that most influences a teacher’s choices about how to teach the Holocaust and what content to cover (51% of teachers)

is that teacher’s

Personal Objectives and Commitment to the Subject.

Consider these images:

•First, just notice the details;

•Then, see if you make sense of it– what is it showing;

•Then pay attention to your response to it– what response does the image evoke?

10 seconds each

End

End

What did you notice?

What did you notice about your own responses to the images?

Did any of the images evoke a stronger response than any of the others?

Scratch down your thoughts, and be prepared to share…

Share

So, what’s the issue?•I am guilty of Tourist Education: non-contextualized, quick, superficial interactions;

•I am guilty of universalizing complex histories;

•I am guilty of showing images that evoke specific strong sentiments to transmit and reinforce select, basic societal values; these images can therefore be used as “ruling symbols of culture” (Paul Salmons) to strengthen any political, moral, or social position I care to argue.

What Good Are A Few Cheap Tears?

Here is what Holocaust Education survey data

tells us:

Q: In which subject

area(s) do you

principally teach about

the Holocaust? 

1) English 55.82% 2) History 36.55%

Here is what Holocaust Education survey data

tells us:

Q: specify the content area of

History in which you teach about the Holocaust.

1) American History 27.66% 2) World History 21.99%

Here is what Holocaust Education survey data

tells us:

The chief pedagogical approach for Holocaust instruction according to teachers in this survey is“Literary or Text Based”:

31.6%

On Wiesel's NightI cannot teach this book. Instead,I drop copies on their deskslike bombs on sleeping towns, and let them read. So do I, again.The stench rises from the pageand chokes my throat.The ghosts of burning babieshaunt my eyes.And that pointing baton,that pointer of Death,stabs me in the heartas it sends his motherto the blackening sky.Nothing is destroyedthe laws of science say,only changed.The millions transformed intoprecious smoke ride the windto fill our lungs and heartswith their cries.No, I cannot teach this book.I simply want the wordsto burn their comfortable soulsand leave them scarred for life.

--Thomas E. Thorton

English Journal (NCTE) February, 1990

Three Minute Break

How do we feel about the objective in Thorton’s poem of leaving students “scarred for life”?

Is that our job?

•What went on in Hitler’s head? Why did he begin the Holocaust? (13)•Why? (8)•Why Jewish people? (9)•What were the initial reactions of German people to Hitler’s ideas? (3)•Why did people start becoming Nazis?•How did Hitler control and change the people of Germany to commit genocide? (6)•What was day to day life like for Jews during the Holocaust?•What happened to the twins during the experiments? (2)

Student questions from my classroom:

April, 1933 Nazi government-sponsored German boycott of Jewish stores.

Photo study

Share & Discuss

In this photo, citizens of a small town watch Gestapo officers lead Jewish men and women to trucks for deportation from Germany. Children peek from behind the line of deportees while adults witness the event from a balcony above.

These Jews of Lörrach were transported to German-occupied France. In 1942, German officials, with French collaboration, later deported most of them to Auschwitz. Few survived.

LÖRRACH, GERMANY, OCTOBER 22, 1940

Consider only the Jewish individuals in the photo. Closely study them, and notice the details that stand out to you, or that you now notice upon closer inspection.

Explain the choices and behaviors of these individuals: What are these people doing? How are they doing it? Why are they doing what they’re doing in that way? What do you imagine is going on in their minds?

Write for three (3) minutes.

Principles of Holocaust Education:

#1: All of our teaching will be experienced by our students through both a specific individual and specific local/community context or filter; their contexts and filters will be different than our own.

Individual/group student questions should lead the teaching and learning!

Principles of Holocaust Education:

#2: We must build capacity for our students to activate personal context in a positive, formative manner through the process of inquiry;

Writing can/should be a key strategy in that process!

The Role of Words to Make Meaning

Ajaratu (n) -- New Vocabulary Word

Comes from the Wolof language;

Wolof is one of the West African languages blended into the language of the Gullah people in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

Ajaratu

means “a female pilgrim”

Q: What kinds of things would you expect to be true about somebody called "a female pilgrim"?

Ajaratu

In Senegal and The Gambia, where Wolof is the living language, the word Ajaratu is used as a title of respect for a woman has been to Mecca.

Some New Information

Q: How does this new information change what you know to be true or expect to be true about somebody called "a female pilgrim"? Explain.

Now What Do You Think?

Schemata (plural) are embedded one within another at different levels of abstraction. Relationships among them are conceived to be like webs (rather than hierarchical); thus each one is interconnected with many others.

Schemata

"We think because we have words, not the other way around. The more words we have, the better able we are to think conceptually."

From Madeleine L’Engle

Of all the available human capacities, Putting-it-into-words is the most powerful. Thinking-it, Feeling-it, or Seeing-it by themselves, are nothing. It is only when people put what they think or sense or see into words that whatever is there to be thought, felt, or seen comes into play as a force in social life.

Social Theory: Multiculturalism and Classic ReadingsBy Charles Lemert

Principles of Holocaust Education:

#3: We must develop for ourselves an outcomes-based rationale for engaging our students in a study of social justice and historical and/or contemporary human trauma.

Why should students learn this historical content and have to wrestle with the

issues it raises for them, and the issues it raises for us?

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Guidelines

for Holocaust Education:Teaching Holocaust history demands a high level of sensitivity and keen awareness of the complexity of the subject matter. The following guidelines, while reflecting approaches appropriate for effective teaching in general, are particularly relevant to Holocaust education.

1. Define the term “Holocaust.”2. Do not teach or imply that the Holocaust was inevitable.3. Avoid simple answers to complex questions.4. Strive for precision of language.5. Strive for balance in establishing whose perspective informs your stu

dy of the Holocaust.

6. Avoid comparisons of pain.7. Do not romanticize history.8. Contextualize the history.9. Translate statistics into people.10.Make responsible methodological choices.

So, what are your new questions about the

Holocaust?

What are your new questions about the Holocaust?

The Holocaust Educator Network of Michigan

www.holocausteducatorsnwpm.wikispaces.com

Please be in touch: