Holocaust and Human Behavior in the Classroom

The way that we teach Holocaust and Human Behavior at our school is really, really stressing the idea of facing history and facing myself, all the way through the scope and sequence. And that's super important because it's so easy to study the history in a vacuum and never really have to look at myself. So there's so many really great readings in the resource book at the beginning around identity and just looking at who I am. So it's a really good place to start.

To bridge the idea of, people make assumptions about me all the time, to, I also make assumptions about other people all the time. And it just breaks that ability to connect. So when you can do that in a really strong way as a teacher, when you get to the actual Holocaust, the case study, and you really look at the narrowing circle, and you really look at all of those readings, the kids think about how easy it is to label or to be a bystander.

When you see what a student looks like after four years of this Facing History curriculum, and this plan, and this culture, it's just amazing. It's amazing how changed people become forever.