Corey L Harbaugh CoDirector Holocaust Educator Network of Michigan USHMM Fellow REC Member Midwest charbaugh2002yahoocom Holocaust education is at a crossroads USHMM Guideline 10 Make Responsible Methodological Choices ID: 558698
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Informed Pedagogy of the Holocaust
Corey L. HarbaughCo-Director, Holocaust Educator Network of Michigan USHMM Fellow / REC Member (Midwest)charbaugh2002@yahoo.comSlide2
Holocaust education is at a crossroads
USHMM Guideline 10:Make Responsible Methodological Choices Slide3
The educational challenge of Holocaust education across the globe
“...the challenge (of Holocaust education) seems to lie in managing an abundance of learning and teaching materials and relies heavily on how traditional teaching methods are being adapted to new generations of children, with very diverse religious, ethnic, or national backgrounds, who will never meet a witness of these times.”Karel FracapaneUNESCO Senior OfficerSlide4
Who and Where I Am
Slide5
My Question Since 2008:roads
How Do I Teach This Stuff?Slide6
My background: where roads convergeSlide7
The CrossroadsContext vs. Relevancy
*Representation vs. Historical Accuracy*Static vs. Dynamic Narrative*Inquiry/Process vs. Didactic Instruction (open-ended) (close-ended)Slide8
Context: Information provided to students to help them make sense of content being covered in class. Information that provides a framework for the goals of a lesson/unit.
Relevancy: Ways in which the content becomes personally engaging and/or meaningful to students.Slide9
Slide10
On Wiesel's
Night
I cannot teach this book. Instead,I drop copies on their desks
like bombs on sleeping towns,
and let them read. So do I, again.
The stench rises from the page
and chokes my throat.
The ghosts of burning babies
haunt my eyes.
And that pointing baton,
that pointer of Death,
stabs me in the heart
as it sends his mother
to the blackening sky.
Nothing is destroyed
the laws of science say,
only changed.
The millions transformed into
precious smoke ride the wind
to fill our lungs and hearts
with their cries.
No, I cannot teach this book.
I simply want the words
to burn their comfortable souls
and leave them scarred for life.
--Thomas E. Thorton
English Journal (NCTE)
February, 1990Slide11
What are your thoughts about the poem and the objective of scarring kids for life? Should that be our job?Thoughts?Slide12
A Survey of Teachers Who Have Received Training/Professional Development in Holocaust Education from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, The USC Shoah Foundation, The Memorial Library, and other organizations.
My USHMM Fellowship Project“How do I teach this stuff when...”Slide13
Specifically, my study was concerned with two basic questions:
What conditions influence the pedagogical choices teachers make when teaching the Holocaust?Given those conditions, what pedagogical choices do those teachers then make?Slide14
July, 2014: Initial Report to USHMM: 53 Pages of Data, Research, & Findings
April, 2015: report published as a chapter in As the Witnesses Fall Silent: 21st Century Holocaust Education in Curriculum, Policy, and Practice (Springer).An Introduction to FindingsSlide15
In what content area(s) do you principally teach about the Holocaust:
56% E/LA36% History13% Elective8% Interdisciplinary7% General SSThe Specific Content Area Within History:28% American/US History22% World History11% History of Genocide
9% 20th Century History8% European HistorySlide16
Grade Level in Which You Principally Teach the Holocaust:24% 8th Grade
24% 10th Grade24% 12th GradeGrade Level at Which Holocaust Education is Introduced to Students in your School District:21% by end of 5th Grade68% by end of 7th Grade84% by end of MSSlide17
Personal Objectives/Commitment 17%Content Area 13%Grade Level 11%Student Needs 11%
Teaching Philosophy 10%Factors that Most Influence PedagogySlide18
48% Amount of Time for Teaching14% Collaboration with Others10% State or Local Objectives
Factors Influencing Pedagogy Teachers Would Most Like to ChangeSlide19
Text or Literary 31/22 = 53%Inquiry Project 16/15 = 31%
Historical Events 14/12 = 26%Thematic 15/10 = 25%Chief Pedagogical ApproachSlide20
Average of 3.63 Assessments per Teacher48% Personal Paper or Essay
38% Museum or Survivor Visit36% Class Discussion10% Service or Action Project7% IWitness ProjectAssessment Strategies UsedSlide21
Representation vs. Historical AccuracySlide22
Representation:
Making a meaning or interpretation of the Holocaust (often a symbol) that has been removed from the historical and geographical context in which the event took place.Historical Accuracy: Teaching the facts and events of the Holocaust with an emphasis on the historical/geographical context of the Holocaust as a specific, singular event.Slide23
Do we have an obligation to teach our students the lessons of historical and/or contemporary examples of social justice and injustice?
Question:Slide24
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 four
(
4
) minutes)Slide25
Share & DiscussSlide26
39% YES46% SOMEWHAT15% NO
“Do you teach about the Holocaust with the goal of having students arrive at an established Belief, Moral, or Lesson?”Data from 2014 Survey:Slide27
Choosing an Image
an experimentSlide28
ASlide29
BSlide30
CSlide31
C
A
BSlide32
Representation without History
Tourist Education: non-contextualized, quick, superficial interactions;Unive
rsalizing complex histories
by turning them into symbols
;
Th
ese
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?Slide33
What are the dangers of teaching the Holocaust as a symbol?“The Holocaust is a very distressing, unsettling topic, and will certainly not bring to pupils the sought-after answers regarding daily experience. On the contrary, it raises mostly difficult questions...To put it simply, a study of the Holocaust...should start with the Holocaust, without predetermined answers.”
Karel FracapaneSlide34
Static vs. Dynamic NarrativeSlide35
Slide36
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, 1940Slide37
Static: Examining the content of the Holocaust from one point of view (often the academic) without adjusting to consider that the events/choices were experienced subjectively.
Dynamic: Examining the content of the Holocaust from multiple narrative points of view.Slide38
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How does changing the narrative from one POV to another complicate the photo, and thereby complicate the history?Slide40
Principles of Holocaust Education:
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.
Think of your own classroom, your students, the community where you teach. Think of
your
own
personal and professional filters
.Slide41
Inquiry/Process vs. Didactic InstructionSlide42
Inquiry/Process: Learner-based or otherwise open-ended instruction which allows student questions and articulations to focus teaching and learning.
Didactic Instruction: Traditional information delivery or knowledge and skill activity which focuses teaching and learning in a limiting or close-ended system.Slide43
The Memorial Library Summer Seminar on Holocaust Education is the program (in my experience) that is most directly addressing classroom practice, especially as it relates to literacy best practice, using the NWP Teachers teaching Teachers model.Slide44
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 influence 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:Slide45
Share & DiscussSlide46
Principles of Holocaust Education:
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!Slide47
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.
Charles LemertThe Value of Writing:Slide48
Why should students learn
this content, this historical content and have to wrestle with the issues it raises for them, and the issues it raises for us?What factors do/will/should influence your instruction?
What are your next questions?
(write for five minutes)Slide49
Join the conversation
:
Share your voice, your experience, your models of success (and/or opportunity) from your classroom.