There are 350,000 survivors of the Holocaust alive today...
There are 350,000 experts who just want to be useful with the remainder of their lives. Please listen to the words and the echoes and the ghosts. And please teach this in your schools.
--Steven Spielberg (Academy Award acceptance speech)
I was very lucky to be able to visit the United States Holocaust Museum during a trip I took to Washington D.C. during high school. The visit made a huge impact on me, since it put real faces and voices with the events I had read about in books like The Diary of Anne Frank. These weren’t long-dead historical figures, and some of them are still alive today to tell their story. History standards often emphasize the importance of allowing students to draw learning from primary sources, which are readily available for the subject of the Holocaust. You might not be able to take your students to Washington D.C. and you might not be able to bring a Holocaust survivor into your school for a presentation, but there are plenty of recordings, pictures, interviews, and other interactive resources you can use in your class to create a virtual field trip or presentation. According to the Florida Center for Instructional Technology’s Holocaust teacher’s guide, “Personal accounts by survivors of the Holocaust are powerful. They connect us, person to person, with an era in history that is difficult, yet necessary, to comprehend. Survivor testimony translates the countless unimaginable victims into a single person's feelings and thoughts.”
Why should you include the study of the horrible events of the Holocaust in your classroom? Besides the fact that it is an important chapter of history, the study of these events will teach your students real-life lessons about humanity. It will also contribute to one of the main goals of education, which is to create responsible citizens. These are real events that happened to real people, some of who are alive today. Students may be able to relate to these people and their stories and empathize with their situation. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, studying the Holocaust piques student interest because it raises questions of the issues that adolescents are facing every day in their lives. These issues include “fairness, justice, individual identity, peer pressure, conformity, indifference, and obedience.”
To learn more about how to best tackle the subject of the Holocaust, please visit the education section of the museum’s site. http://www.thegateway.org/browse/33097 They have guidelines for teaching, important subjects to cover, and a comprehensive online museum about the Holocaust. The site also has resources and lesson plans. Their Holocaust Encyclopedia includes first-hand information about many of the victims.
The Florida Center for Instructional Technology has also put together an excellent collection of resources for teaching about the Holocaust in different grade levels. These resources have been catalogued on the Gateway so you can easily find them. The following link will take you to their main page: http://www.thegateway.org/browse/26064. As you browse through the site you will find many sections of teaching material. There are sections dedicated to the people involved in the Holocaust, the arts during the time, and a collection of web-based resources for teachers.
If you search for Holocaust on The Gateway, you will find plenty more resources to complement the collections of tools, primary sources, and other resources I highlighted above. Also, be sure to look at the resources Joann featured in her column. There were some wonderful ideas that you can use. I do suggest reading the guidelines for teaching on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum first. It won’t take a lot of time, and it will help you understand how to best reach your students when tackling this difficult subject. The survivors of the Holocaust are aging. Each generation of students studying the subject has fewer resources than the last, so it is up to educators to keep the stories and lessons learned alive.
~Peggy's Corner - 4/15/2011~
Showing posts with label Holocaust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holocaust. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Never to Forget
For the past several years, a survivor of the Holocaust has made an annual trip to our intermediate and middle schools to speak about his experience at Auschwitz. It’s an intensely powerful and moving experience for our sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, and it’s meant to be. The presenter – now 90 years old – has told his story so often that he’s able to describe life under the Nazi regime and at Auschwitz quietly and without much emotion. The students, however, sometimes gasp, sob, or seek the comforting hand of a classmate beside them. Though the details of events at the death camp are often difficult for the students to hear, they are ultimately grateful for the experience, and many cite it as one of the most profound events they’ve ever attended.
Information about the Holocaust – the systematic slaughter of millions of Jews, gypsies, Poles, Soviets, gays, people with disabilities, and those resistant to supporting Nazi Germany’s policies – is often first received by students as something akin to the plot of a bad horror novel. Their initial reaction to first learning of the Final Solution is often disbelief. The sheer magnitude of the atrocities, and the barbarism with which they were committed, is unthinkable. Yet the unthinkable did occur, and one of the many legacies left by the Holocaust is that we are bound by our humanity to fight hatred and stop atrocities. All humans deserve the right to live their lives in dignity and peace, and the Holocaust has illustrated only too well what can happen when that fundamental right is challenged. The lessons posed by the Holocaust offer a broad range of learning opportunities across the curriculum, from world history, literature, religion, and science, to psychology, character education, social responsibility, and other areas. The possibilities are limitless.
This year, Holocaust Remembrance Day will be observed on May 1. It’s a time to remember the victims, honor the courage of those who resisted the madness, and reflect on ways to end bigotry and intolerance. The lessons learned from the Holocaust must never be forgotten, especially as current genocides, such as that in Darfur, continue to plague the world. This week, I’m highlighting three Holocaust resources from The Gateway that are age appropriate and that can be used across the curriculum. As always, we’ll be featuring many additional lessons, activities, and other Holocaust-related resources throughout the week on our Facebook and Twitter pages. Please be sure to check those pages regularly, as we feature new resources 2-3 times each day.
The Diary of Anne Frank: Teacher’s Guide
http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2011-04-04.2123000836
Subjects: English, World history
Grade: 7-12
This guide encourages students to regard Anne Frank's diary as both an historical document and a literary work. It is intended to provide middle school and high school teachers with strategies and materials that support classroom viewing and discussion of The Diary of Anne Frank, based on new information about Anne’s family, life, and death. Discussion questions, activities, reproducible worksheets, and assignment ideas are supplemented by an extensive listing of resources for further exploration. This resource was written in support of the 2010 PBS Masterpiece film adaptation of Frank's diary, addressing historical context, revised diary passages, and exploring the diary form. This resource was created by WGBH, the Boston PBS affiliate. WGBH is PBS’s single largest producer of educational TV programs and Internet content, and offers scores of lesson plans and other materials for classroom and home use.
Investigating the Holocaust: A Collaborative Inquiry Project http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2009-11-12.1060171012
Subjects: English Language Arts, World history, Research skills
Grade: 6-8
As students progress though this inquiry project, they explore a variety of resource texts, images, sounds, photos, and other artifacts as they learn about the Holocaust. Working collaboratively, they investigate the materials, prepare response to share orally with the class, and produce a topic-based newspaper to complete their research. This lesson was produced by ReadWriteThink, which offers free peer-reviewed lesson plans aligned to NCTE/IRA content standards.
A Holocaust Monument
http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2011-04-06.7930828927
Subjects: Math/Geometry, World history, Architecture
Grade: 3-12
In this activity students use geometric shapes or forms to create a Holocaust monument. The lesson is appropriate after students have studied the Holocaust enough that they are ready to express some personal response to what they have learned. The activity is provided at three levels of increasing complexity. Level one uses simple shapes and is appropriate for elementary grades, level two utilizes three dimensional forms, and level three assumes that the students have some understanding of architecture. This activity is the product of the Florida Center of Technology (FCIT) at the University of South Florida’s College of Education. FCIT works with educators to integrate technology into the curriculum, and provides training opportunities as well as lesson plans and educational activities.
~Joann's Picks - 4/15/2011~
Information about the Holocaust – the systematic slaughter of millions of Jews, gypsies, Poles, Soviets, gays, people with disabilities, and those resistant to supporting Nazi Germany’s policies – is often first received by students as something akin to the plot of a bad horror novel. Their initial reaction to first learning of the Final Solution is often disbelief. The sheer magnitude of the atrocities, and the barbarism with which they were committed, is unthinkable. Yet the unthinkable did occur, and one of the many legacies left by the Holocaust is that we are bound by our humanity to fight hatred and stop atrocities. All humans deserve the right to live their lives in dignity and peace, and the Holocaust has illustrated only too well what can happen when that fundamental right is challenged. The lessons posed by the Holocaust offer a broad range of learning opportunities across the curriculum, from world history, literature, religion, and science, to psychology, character education, social responsibility, and other areas. The possibilities are limitless.
This year, Holocaust Remembrance Day will be observed on May 1. It’s a time to remember the victims, honor the courage of those who resisted the madness, and reflect on ways to end bigotry and intolerance. The lessons learned from the Holocaust must never be forgotten, especially as current genocides, such as that in Darfur, continue to plague the world. This week, I’m highlighting three Holocaust resources from The Gateway that are age appropriate and that can be used across the curriculum. As always, we’ll be featuring many additional lessons, activities, and other Holocaust-related resources throughout the week on our Facebook and Twitter pages. Please be sure to check those pages regularly, as we feature new resources 2-3 times each day.
The Diary of Anne Frank: Teacher’s Guide
http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2011-04-04.2123000836
Subjects: English, World history
Grade: 7-12
This guide encourages students to regard Anne Frank's diary as both an historical document and a literary work. It is intended to provide middle school and high school teachers with strategies and materials that support classroom viewing and discussion of The Diary of Anne Frank, based on new information about Anne’s family, life, and death. Discussion questions, activities, reproducible worksheets, and assignment ideas are supplemented by an extensive listing of resources for further exploration. This resource was written in support of the 2010 PBS Masterpiece film adaptation of Frank's diary, addressing historical context, revised diary passages, and exploring the diary form. This resource was created by WGBH, the Boston PBS affiliate. WGBH is PBS’s single largest producer of educational TV programs and Internet content, and offers scores of lesson plans and other materials for classroom and home use.
Investigating the Holocaust: A Collaborative Inquiry Project http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2009-11-12.1060171012
Subjects: English Language Arts, World history, Research skills
Grade: 6-8
As students progress though this inquiry project, they explore a variety of resource texts, images, sounds, photos, and other artifacts as they learn about the Holocaust. Working collaboratively, they investigate the materials, prepare response to share orally with the class, and produce a topic-based newspaper to complete their research. This lesson was produced by ReadWriteThink, which offers free peer-reviewed lesson plans aligned to NCTE/IRA content standards.
A Holocaust Monument
http://www.thegateway.org/browse/dcrecord.2011-04-06.7930828927
Subjects: Math/Geometry, World history, Architecture
Grade: 3-12
In this activity students use geometric shapes or forms to create a Holocaust monument. The lesson is appropriate after students have studied the Holocaust enough that they are ready to express some personal response to what they have learned. The activity is provided at three levels of increasing complexity. Level one uses simple shapes and is appropriate for elementary grades, level two utilizes three dimensional forms, and level three assumes that the students have some understanding of architecture. This activity is the product of the Florida Center of Technology (FCIT) at the University of South Florida’s College of Education. FCIT works with educators to integrate technology into the curriculum, and provides training opportunities as well as lesson plans and educational activities.
~Joann's Picks - 4/15/2011~
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