First Offering of Armenian Genocide Institute in California

California - Facing History and Ourselves offered California educators a chance to take a close look at one of the recent additions to its collection of resource books, Crimes Against Humanity and Civilization: The Genocide of the Armenians. Twenty-five educators from the Bay Area and Los Angeles attended the June institute, which was the first of its kind offered in California.

Dr. Richard Hovanissian from UCLA, a world-recognized scholar on this history and a member of Facing History's Board of Scholars, shared the latest scholarship on the genocide. A generous donor helped send 15 Bay Area teachers representing 13 schools and educational organizations to the training. During the 2006-2007 school year, these participants will teach an in-depth Armenian Genocide unit and participate in a state-wide Armenian Genocide focus group to develop new lessons and share best practices.

"[The institute] deepened participants' knowledge of the historical narrative of the Armenian genocide and equipped educators with the ability to bring this history to the classroome effectively," wrote Paul Narguizian, an Assistant Professor in the Division of Curriculum and Instruction at Cal State Los Angeles and a participant in the institute. He added,

"To me, as both a teacher-educator and an Armenian-American, Facing History and Ourselves is doing something very, very right and has a philosophy and mission that is continually striving to provide the very best possible in-depth professional development services, curricular resources, and ongoing support to educators and students in the areas of history, social studies and language arts."