Introducing the Unit (UK)

The purpose of this first lesson is to help the class develop an environment that is conducive to learning and sharing: a reflective classroom community.

Throughout this unit, students will be talking about sensitive topics, such as prejudice and discrimination, and how those concepts have impacted historical events and students’ own lives. When students feel empowered to contribute honestly and wrestle with multiple perspectives besides their own, such discussions can be positive and even life-changing.

Prior to exploring the historical case study of this unit, the collapse of democracy in Germany and the steps leading up to the Holocaust, it is important that students and teachers spend some time establishing and nurturing classroom rules and expectations of respect and open-mindedness. These ‘habits of behaviour’ will equip students with the skills to engage with each other in important and sometimes uncomfortable conversations.

In this lesson, you will review the classroom rules you may have already established, as well as create new norms and expectations generated by the students themselves. While we urge you to consider the language and expectations that are most appropriate for your classroom context, the lesson and PowerPoint provide examples of the kinds of classroom norms Facing History & Ourselves teachers have used to support a reflective classroom community.

Before you teach this lesson, please review the following guidance to tailor this lesson to your students’ contexts and needs.

Activity 1 Introduce the Unit

• Start by explaining to students that they are about to begin a unit called Holocaust and Human Behaviour. Write this title on the board. Ask students what they may already know about the Holocaust. You can also challenge students to answer why they think it is important to study the Holocaust.
• Pass out a Journal to each student. This is an appropriate time to establish the expectation that journal responses do not have to be shared publicly. Give students this definition of the Holocaust and ask them to write it in their journals:

The catastrophic period in the twentieth century when Nazi Germany murdered 6 million Jews and millions of other civilians (including Roma and Sinti, disabled people, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Poles, and prisoners of war), in the midst of the Second World War.

• Pass out the reading Letter to Students. You might choose to adapt this letter to become your own version instead of using the one we have provided. Either way, read aloud the letter as a group, as students highlight any words or phrases that stand out to them.
• Ask students to react to the Letter to Students (or your own letter) in their journals. Specific questions you can use to prompt students’ writing and prepare them for the contracting activity include:

  • What does it mean to have to use both your head and your heart while learning?
  • What does it mean for a classroom to be a ‘community of learners’? In what ways does your classroom feel like a community of learners?
  • What might help it feel more like a community of learners?

• Debrief the journal prompts. To help students understand the idea of using both head and heart while learning, draw a blank head and blank heart on the board. Ask students to brainstorm what words might fill the diagram for ‘head learning’ and the one for ‘heart learning’. For example, students might suggest words like events, facts, or vocabulary for head learning and relationships, morals, or connections for heart learning.
• Transition to the class contract by explaining that in this class, you will ask students to think about history both from an intellectual (‘head’) angle and from a more emotional or ethical (‘heart’) angle.

Activity 2 Create a Class Contract

• Remind students that they will be learning about different stories in the classroom and engaging in challenging discussions that might spark debate and disagreement in the group. In preparation, they will need to establish norms and expectations for behaviour that will allow everyone to feel as if they can voice their ideas, pose questions without fear of ridicule, and be heard by others. 
• Explain that in order to create and maintain this kind of safe and brave space, they will be working together to develop a classroom contract. 
• Ask students to define contract, to share ideas about the purpose of contracts and the types of things they can protect, and to define a norm. 
• Review the definition of contract. Make sure students understand that a contract implies that all parties have a responsibility to uphold an agreement. You might have students give examples of situations where people create and sign contracts. 
• Then define and discuss norm: ‘a principle of right action binding upon the members of a group and serving to guide, control, or regulate proper and acceptable behaviour.’ ³ Have students make connections between the two terms. 
• Next, to prepare students to develop a class contract, ask them to reflect on their experiences as students in a classroom community. Pass out the handout Classroom Experience Checklist, and ask students to complete it individually.
• Then ask table groups of students to work together to write rules or expectations for the classroom community. 
• Project the following sample Facing History Classroom Expectations on the board to help them get started:

  • Listen with respect. Try to understand what someone is saying before rushing to judgement.
  • Make comments using ‘I’ statements.
  • This class needs to be a place where we can take risks in the questions we ask, perspectives we share, and connections we make. If you do not feel safe making a comment or asking a question, write the thought in your journal. You can share the idea with your teacher first and together come up with a safe way to share the idea with the class.
  • If someone says something that hurts or offends you, do not attack the person. Acknowledge that the comment – not the person – hurt your feelings and explain why.
  • Share the talking time – provide room for others to speak.
  • We all have a role in creating a space where people can share ideas, their questions, and their confusion honestly.

• Invite students to discuss each of the sample items on the board and decide whether they should adopt it in their class contract, modify it, or omit it. Have each group select three items from the list (or create their own) to share with the class.
• We suggest keeping the final list brief (e.g. three to five items) so that the norms can be easily published in a visible place in the classroom and remembered. As groups present, organise their ideas by theme. If there are any tensions or contradictions in the expectations that have been suggested, discuss them as a class. While the process is inclusive of students’ ideas, ultimately it is the teacher’s responsibility to ensure that the ideas that make it into the final contract are those that will best nurture a safe learning environment.
• Finally, discuss with students what they think should happen when someone violates one of the norms in the contract. It may be useful to help students distinguish between school and classroom rules and the community norms outlined in the class contract. When rules are broken, adults will often need to respond. But the students themselves should outline potential responses for rebuilding the community after an individual breaks with the norms in the class contract.
• After the class has completed its contract, reaching consensus about rules, norms, and expectations, it is important for each student to signal his or her agreement. Students can do so by copying the contract into their journals and signing the page. If there is no time, the teacher can create printed contracts or a poster to be signed in the next class period.
• Finally, ask students to write one question that they would like to explore and find the answer to during their study of this unit on a sticky note and post to the wall.

Suggested Homework Speaking with Parents and Guardians

This unit is different from many others that students will experience in school, so some Facing History teachers like to provide an overview of the unit to parents and guardians. One way to do this is to send a letter home. The reading Letter to Parents and Guardians provides a sample that you can use or adapt to inform parents about what students will experience in the weeks to come. Or you could ask your students, as homework, to tell an adult about what they discussed in class today, what they thought of it, and why it is important for what they will be studying. The adult can then sign the student’s journal.

• 3 ‘Norm’ (dictionary entry), Merriam-Webster.com, accessed 23 June 2018.