(2011). Teaching Difficult Topics with Primary Sources. Social Education, v75 n6 p284-290 Nov-Dec. \Difficult\ or \challenging\ topics to teach include racism, violence, genocide, bullying, gangs, abuse (physical, emotional, and substance), slavery, suffering, hatred, terrorism, war, disease, loss, addiction, and more. But by confronting them with students, in the safety of a classroom through thoughtfully constructed lessons (ones that take into consideration students' ages and levels of maturity, as well as their experiences and abilities), teachers may minimize the discomfort and fear that they prompt. Such lessons can also provide students with the tools and skills they will need to address other difficulties they encounter throughout their lives. In order to construct lessons thoughtfully, teachers need to include multiple methods and materials. Primary sources, in a variety of media, can serve as useful starting points and rich components of such lessons. In this article, the author lists the benefits of primary sources…. [Direct]
(2011). Yiddish as a Vernacular Language: Teaching a Language in Obsolescence. Language Learning Journal, v39 n2 p237-246. The task of teaching non-territorial languages such as Yiddish at the university level is a complex undertaking. The teaching of Yiddish has its own particular difficulties due to an ever-diminishing population of native speakers available to students, a lack of contemporary cultural materials, and an abundance of outdated teaching materials. A critique of the two major textbooks used to teach Yiddish underscores the necessity for a new approach. In creating a web-based Yiddish curriculum, contemporary problems that are particular to the Yiddish classroom can be overcome. The defragmentizing nature of multimedia interactive technologies help students develop communicative competence in Yiddish, a language that was once the vernacular of the majority of Jews in the world but, in the aftermath of genocide, has come to be taught as a written–and not spoken–language. (Contains 2 figures and 1 note.)… [Direct]
(2011). Inspiring Leaders: Unique Museum Programs Reinforce Professional Responsibility. Journal of Museum Education, v36 n1 p45-56 Spr. Since 1998, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has developed educational programs targeting adult audiences. Engaging public service professionals–those charged with serving and protecting our nation's democratic principles–has become a core outreach strategy to achieve the Museum's mission. This article describes the Museum's process for creating and facilitating successful programs–identifying partners, conducting audience research, incorporating adult learning approaches, and building authentic educational models that encourage participants to grapple with complex and difficult issues of professional responsibility. The programs aim to make the Museum a place of relevance, helping participants to identify with the history and reinforcing their commitment to safeguarding our democracy. Through this outreach, the Museum has built a community of new stakeholders who are helping it to achieve its institutional vision: inspiring citizens and leaders worldwide to confront… [Direct]
(2012). Textbooks and the Holocaust in Independent Ukraine: An Uneasy Past. European Education, v44 n3 p67-94 Fall. The article examines how Ukrainian history textbooks dealt with the Holocaust between independence and 2006. The analysis reveals two major, conflicting narratives about the Holocaust, though both externalize and relativize the Holocaust. As a template for understanding genocide, the Holocaust was applied to the Soviet-imposed 1932-33 famine in Ukraine, the Holodomor. The emphasis placed on the famine in both narratives partially obscures the Holocaust and in propagating the Judeo-Bolshevik myth, turns Jews into leading perpetrators of the Holodomor. In the Ukrainian case, the complex relationship among history, historical culture, and contemporary politics is compounded by the familiar tension between national history and the international reality of the Holocaust. The historical Sovietization of Holocaust victims was attacked by historians in the Ukrainian diaspora who resented the accusations that Ukrainians were collaborators and fascists. They sought to replace the Soviet… [Direct]
(2009). Iran's Denial of Education to Baha'is. Online Submission, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Michigan Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters (Detroit, MI, Mar 20, 2009). This paper briefly describes the background of the persecution of the Baha'is in Iran, especially the denial of education, and explores what could be done to alleviate this injustice, including enlisting the support of nations, organizations, media and people around the world. Baha'is are the largest religious minority in Iran and have been subjected to systematic genocide by the religious and governmental authorities for over 150 years. With the coming of the Islamic revolution in 1979, religious leaders took the reins of government, the influence of outsiders was limited, and the oppression of the Baha'is increased as a matter of government policy. Though oppression has been and continues to be a part of all societies, it is a mark of a civilized society to proactively limit its pernicious influence and to afford as much as is possible equal rights and opportunities to all its citizens. The persecution of the Baha'is will be compared other instances of genocide, such as the… [PDF]
(2011). The Routing and Re-Routing of Difficult Knowledge: Social Studies Teachers Encounter \When the Levees Broke\. Theory and Research in Social Education, v39 n3 p320-347 Sum. The author explores the articulations of six social studies student/teachers after a viewing of \When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts\. The film, a documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on the people in and around New Orleans, constitutes an encounter with what Deborah Britzman (1998) calls \difficult knowledge\–representations of social/historical trauma in pedagogical situations. Drawing on ideas from psychoanalytic theory, the author elaborates on the ways that this difficult knowledge (i.e., the viewing of injustice, suffering, and death) gets \routed\ and \re-routed\ through the participants' discussions about the film. The author's overall objective, then, is to explore the rich complexity of the ways that social and historical traumas are felt, experienced, understood and then made pedagogical. Because a great deal of social studies curriculum is, in fact, constituted by difficult knowledge (e.g., studying wars, famines, genocides, injustices,… [Direct]
(2011). A Typology for the Development of Holocaust Education Scholarship: Coping with a National Trauma. Curriculum and Teaching, v26 n1 p73-86. This article proposes a typology that conceptualizes a chronological approach to Holocaust Education and suggests that we focus on identifying the stages and shifts in the development of the curriculum and the scholarship. I attempt to organize existing knowledge on the subject by conducting a meta-analysis of the foundations and basic premises of Holocaust education in Israel based on a survey of the textbooks and the major literature in the field. My basic assumption is that this typology and these stages of development of Holocaust education are structurally the same all over the world, as they reflect the way a nation copes with a national trauma. In today's world, where Holocaust education has become a globalized phenomenon, this typology can serve as a basis for comparative analyses worldwide. As the Holocaust has become a metaphor for atrocity and genocide, Holocaust education is relevant all over the world and has become integral part of global human-rights and antiracist… [Direct]
(2009). Using "Telogology" to Understand and Respond to the Holocaust. College Student Journal, v43 n3 p897-909 Sep. This essay uses primary source publications from Nazi Germany to explore how anti-Semitism developed and intensified into a genocidal logic. Understanding how this intensification could occur long before the networks of concentration camps or World War II arose could reveal how language paves a path to genocide. Using the concepts of telos and logology garnered from Kenneth Burke enables the rhetorical logic of anti-Semitism to unfold and become subject to disruption…. [Direct]
(2009). Darfur Refugees in Cairo: Mental Health and Interpersonal Conflict in the Aftermath of Genocide. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, v24 n11 p1835-1848. Hundreds of thousands of Darfur people affected by the Sudanese genocide have fled to Cairo, Egypt, in search of assistance. Collaborating with Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA), the authors conducted a mental health care needs assessment among Darfur refugees in Cairo. Information was collected using individual and focus group interviews to identify gaps in mental health care and develop understandings of emotional and relationship problems. The refugee mental health care system has a piecemeal structure with gaps in outpatient services. There is moderate to severe emotional distress among many Darfur refugees, including symptoms of depression and trauma, and interpersonal conflict, both domestic violence and broader community conflict, elevated relative to pregenocide levels. Given the established relationships between symptoms of depression/traumatic stress and interpersonal violence, improving mental health is important for both preventing mental health… [Direct]
(2007). Totally Unofficial: Raphael Lemkin and the Genocide Convention. The Making History Series. Facing History and Ourselves This case study highlighting the story of Raphael Lemkin challenges everyone to think deeply about what it will take for individuals, groups, and nations to take up Lemkin's challenge. To make this material accessible for classrooms, this resource includes several components: an introduction by Genocide scholar Omer Bartov; a historical case study on Lemkin and his legacy; questions for student reflection; suggested resources; a series of lesson plans using the case study; and a selection of primary source documents. Born in 1900, Raphael Lemkin, devoted most of his life to a single goal: making the world understand and recognize a crime so horrific that there was not even a word for it. Lemkin took a step toward his goal in 1944 when he coined the word \genocide\ which means the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group. He said he had created the word by combining the ancient Greek word \genos\ (race, tribe) and the Latin \cide\ (killing). In 1948, three years after the… [Direct]
(2009). Linguistic Markets in Rwanda: Language Use in Advertisements and on Signs. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, v30 n1 p19-39 Feb. Rwanda has experienced major changes during the last decade due to the genocide in 1994. After the civil war, in addition to establishing political and economical stability, peace and reconciliation, the government was faced with the return of refugees from neighbouring, mostly English-speaking, countries. The new socio-demographic conditions resulted in a change in the official language policy from Rwanda-French bilingualism to Rwanda-French-English trilingualism. During the post-genocide period, therefore, English has been introduced into official domains and has contributed towards a new linguistic situation in Rwanda. This paper investigates how these recent changes are reflected in newspaper advertisements (10 issues of state-owned "Imvaho Nshya"), 914 shop signs and 221 billboards in Kigali and Butare. The basic assumption of the analysis is that the languages in Rwanda are currently in a competitive position on the linguistic market, affecting not only the use of the… [Direct]
(2014). The Implementation of the New Lower Secondary Science Curriculum in Three Schools in Rwanda. African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, v18 n1 p75-86. In 2006, Rwanda began implementing an Outcomes Based Education (OBE) lower secondary science curriculum that emphasises a student-centred approach. The new curriculum was designed to transform Rwandan society from an agricultural to a knowledge-based economy, with special attention to science and technology education. Up until this point in time the implementation of the intended curriculum has been barely researched and is poorly understood. Thus our primary research question is, "To what extent is the intended national curriculum actually implemented in Rwandan schools?" To explore this question, we examine the implementation of the new science curriculum in three socially and environmentally diverse schools. Using the Rogan-Grayson curriculum implementation model as a theoretical framework, we explore the link between the level of curriculum implementation and the schools' capacity to innovate. We do this through the observation of lessons and school environment and by… [Direct]
(2012). "It Reminded Me of What Really Matters": Teacher Responses to the Lessons from Auschwitz Project. Educational Review, v64 n2 p131-143. Since 2007, the Lessons from Auschwitz Project organised by the Holocaust Education Trust, has taken groups of Scottish senior school students (between 16 and 18 years) and where possible an accompanying teacher from their school, to Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum as part of a process of increasing young people's knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust and racism. The Project comprises four components: an orientation session, the visit to the Museum, a follow-up session and a Next Steps initiative. The final component involves students designing and implementing projects in their school and community aimed at disseminating what they have learned. Previous published research has focused on the impact of the Lessons from Auschwitz Project on student participants. This research (funded by the Pears Foundation and the Holocaust Education Trust) investigates the impact the Lessons from Auschwitz Project has on teacher participants. The methodology was an online questionnaire,… [Direct]
(2016). Much Ado about a "Fine Dessert": The Cultural Politics of Representing Slavery in Children's Literature. Journal of Children's Literature, v42 n2 p6-17 Fall. When selecting and evaluating historical children's literature, there are many questions that must be considered. For example, who will be reading the book? Is the imagined young reader of these historical stories a White, middle class cisgender heterosexual, able-bodied student who was born in the United States, or are child readers from all backgrounds being kept in mind. What kind of story is being told in the book? What makes the story difficult? Who is it difficult for? Does the nature of that difficulty differ depending on the demographic makeup of a classroom, school or community? None of these questions are new. Because problematic depictions of children continue to be published, reading and English language arts teachers in classrooms all over the United States, as well as the literacy educators who prepare them, must critically consider these questions as they select books for their students. As children read historical fiction, they are also learning about our nation's… [Direct]
(2010). Developing Civic Leaders through an Experiential Learning Programme for Holocaust Education. Prospects: Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, v40 n2 p289-306 Jun. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact that involvement in an experiential learning programme for Holocaust education had on college and university participants' worldviews and civic leadership development. Results indicate that involvement in specific elements of the programme did have an impact. The student-focused, experiential learning programme addressed in this study was established in 2000. In 2001, the inaugural group of nearly 270 participants from 22 nations traveled to Poland to familiarize themselves with the Holocaust. Students were exposed to programming on the Holocaust as a means to raise their awareness and understanding of the events and to encourage their involvement in related programmes. The ultimate aim was to develop future civic leaders who would become involved in educating their peers and communities about the tragedy of genocide…. [Direct]