Information for Educators
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Call for Papers for Panel on Holocaust Education, Lessons and Legacies XII
A panel is being organized on Holocaust Education for Lessons and Legacies XII, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, November 1-4, 2012. The focus of the panel is teaching the prewar and postwar phases of the Holocaust. We welcome papers describing curriculum, resources and perspectives for teaching in these areas in schools, in higher education or in some other educational setting. Papers will be circulated among panel members several weeks in advance of the conference so that panel members can prepare to react to and comment on each other's work during the panel meeting. The deadline for submissions is October 15, 2011.
Proposals and requests for additional information should be sent to:
Stephen J. Gaies, Director
Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education
University of Northern Iowa
Baker Hall 30
Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0518
Phone: (319)273-3870
Fax: (319)273-2721
Email: stephen.gaies@uni.edu
Global Youth Connect began operating in August 1999 as a fully incorporated 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Over the past decade, GYC has “developed and implemented programs that are supporting and inspiring the passions and lives of youth and helping to create change on a wide variety of human rights and social justice issues around the world.”
Over the past decade, GYC has organized 26 human rights training programs serving more than 625 young people around the world, including youth leaders from 15 different countries. In December 2010, GYC began a bi-monthly newsletter, Human Rights Learning & Action News.
The Anti-Defamation League’s A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE® Institute has numerous lists of recommended multicultural and anti-bias books for children. Under the category Prejudice and Discrimination are lists of age-appropriate books dealing with the Holocaust, human rights, bullying and name-calling, racism, anti-Semitism and religious discrimination, as well as many other topics.
Twice a month, International Justice Tribune, the only free online magazine covering international criminal justice, publishes investigative articles and interviews about world-wide efforts to try war criminals, from the International Criminal Court to domestic courts. To subscribe, click here.
Many states mandate education about the Holocaust and other genocides. Beginning in this issue, every other issue of news exCHanGE will profile a state which requires teaching about the Holocaust and other genocides. We begin withNew Jersey.
In 1994 the New Jersey legislature passed an act mandating Holocaust/genocide education for all New Jersey schools. The legislation expanded the role of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education, which had been created by earlier legislation, to recommend curricular materials to local districts. In 1996, the Commission endorsed other curricula which could be used in the study of genocide, including the Great Irish Famine, the Armenian Experience, the Cambodian and Native American Genocide, along with the Ukrainian atrocity by the Russians.
A variety of curriculum guides and materials for teaching such subjects as the Holocaust, the Nanking Massacre, slavery and genocide, and the genocide in Darfur are available from the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education:http://www.nj.gov/education/holocaust/curriculum/
The CHGE invites Iowa schools to apply to host, at no cost, a traveling exhibit, “Who Am I? Young Minds Forced to Choose,” created by the Arnold-Liebster Foundation (Davenport, IA) on the lives and experiences of young Jehovah’s Witnesses who suffered due to their refusal to accept Nazi ideology. The exhibit will be available for display for one or two weeks per school in October-November 2011 and in February-March 2012 at each of four middle or high schools in four different school districts. Click here for more information.
Social studies educators and students may be interested in a recent application of satellite imagery in the study of current events. The Satellite Sentinel Project--conceived by George Clooney--combines satellite imagery analysis and field reports with Google's Map Maker technology to deter the resumption of war between North and South Sudan. The Satellite Sentinel Project marks the first sustained, public effort to systematically monitor and report on potential hotspots and threats to security along a border, in near real-time (within 24-36 hours), with the aim of heading off humanitarian disaster and human rights crimes before they occur.
What are the challenges and responsibilities of portraying prominent figures in the Holocaust? Sir Ben Kingsley, who has played a range of Holocaust-related roles, including Simon Wiesenthal in Murderers Among Us, Itzhak Stern inSchindler's List, and Otto Frank in Anne Frank: The Whole Story, recently joined NPR's Scott Simon for a discussion in front of an audience at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Listen to an excerpt.
A curriculum package developed by students and educators from Chicago's Northside College Prep High School to assist educators in teaching about the Cambodian genocide is available on the website of the Cambodian Association of Illinois. Go to Student/Teacher Resources to download the Cambodian Genocide Curriculum.
Educators interested in teaching about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II can find lesson plans and other ideas in two sources that emphasize learning through primary documents: a set of documents from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, and an interactive lesson plan, aimed at Grades 7-8, from the Wisconsin Historical Society.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has online resources for educators who want to teach about the Holocaust. These include a rationale (“Why teach about the Holocaust?”), guidelines, a list of essential topics, common student questions, as well as lessons, activities and teacher guides.
Google has entered a partnership with Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem, to make Yad Vashem’s collection of photographs and documents (more than 130,000 images in full resolution) available (and searchable) on the web.