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."