Arizona educators learn how to teach young students about the Holocaust
Teachers from around Arizona recently attended a conference in Phoenix that trained them on how to teach students about the Holocaust.
PHOENIX – Educators from around the state of Arizona attended the annual Murray & Sabina Zemel z”l Holocaust education conference put on by the Phoenix Holocaust Association and Arizona State University on Tuesday.
The event provided resources and lessons about how to impart the history of the Holocaust and other genocides to young students, a topic that is required to be taught to 7th-12th graders twice by state law.
Free books and resources were available to teachers, as well as lectures on the foundation of the Holocaust, women in the Holocaust, comparative genocides, and Holocaust survivor testimonies.
Leslie Feldman, the executive director of the Phoenix Holocaust Association, said the courses include basic information as well.
“It includes information about the lead up of the rise of the Nazis and not in Germany, breakout of the war, the experiences of Jews and other victims and liberation,” she said.
Sandy Flayton, a teacher at Cocopah Middle School, participated in the program, emphasizing how the presenters changed the way she thought about that period of history, and how she could address it with her students.
“I believe the most important thing that is being covered is not only learning about the Holocaust and the history of the Holocaust, but primarily about the people and how they lived and the celebrations of who they were. So, we keep in our minds that these were people,” she said.
Challenges of teaching the Holocaust
Flayton added when she begins to talk about the Holocaust with her students, she begins with light topics, like the difference between each student. She then dives deeper, talking about why people are judged for being different.
Feldman said that is the goal of the conference. She hopes teachers are learning how to help students recognize past failings, and work to prevent them in the future.
“I believe that the Holocaust provides a context for exploring the dangers of staying silent, apathetic, and indifferent in the face of others oppression… Studying it helps students to build an awareness of tolerance, an appreciation of diversity and a pluralistic society. It also helps students examine the use and abuse of power,” she said.
Flayton explained what she’d like her students to learn when she teaches them about the Holocaust:
“Empathy. Empathy for other people. Empathy from putting themselves in somebody else’s shoes. Understanding that there are going to be moments that the world isn’t going to be kind, no matter who you are. And to ask questions. Always, always ask questions,” she said.
Funding for this journalism is made possible by the Arizona Local News Foundation.
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Comments
5 Comments
Are teachers still allowed to teach about evil white bigots in Germany that murdered millions of ethnic minorities? I thought MAGA outlawed teaching such things because it shames majority white people into feeling bad about themselves.
I was thinking the same thing I hear more and more school taking DEI out of schools. When they first started talking about removing DEI it was in regards to college admissions and business having to hire or advance less qualified people, I was fine taking race off of college and employment applications but removing teaching about diversity in a country made up of so many different cultures is insane. It’s just asking children to be alone in the world or become racist. Some of my children’s and my favorite times in school were learning about different cultures. My kids loved learning about the clothes, traditions and at the end the uniits traveling around to other grades with passports trying the food and playing the games from each culture. There were cultures taught that were and weren’t represented in the school but you could sure see the pride in the community when parents participated. One of my granddaughter’s favorite was learning about Sweden
“I believe that the Holocaust provides a context for exploring the dangers of staying silent, apathetic, and indifferent in the face of others oppression… Studying it helps students to build an awareness of tolerance, an appreciation of diversity and a pluralistic society. It also helps students examine the use and abuse of power,” she said.”
If you walk into most classrooms around the country you would see the need for this type of education in every classroom in the country. Too many kids are afraid to speak up for those being bullied or abused because they see what’s happening in schools today and as much as I dislike the MAGA group’s beliefs children shouldn’t be attacked at school because of what they’ve been taught at home.