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Essays about Holocaust education
Essays about Holocaust education
Teaching about holocaust in american schools
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The Holocaust is a dark event that started during World War 2, with Germans, specifically Adolf Hitler believed that the Jews were to blame for a spectrum of issues. Many also dispute the optimal age to teach the Holocaust. Why should 8th Graders be taught the Holocaust? Are they mature enough? The audience and material are critical when teaching about the Holocaust, because the audience cannot be too young, and the material needs to be appropriate, uncontroversial, and impartial. It is important not to teach young children about the Holocaust, due to its gruesome, dark events and accounts. According to Steven Penn, an assistant principal in New Jersey, students need to focus on other things in Elementary School. However, by 7th/ 8th grade, students have gained maturity and can participate in …show more content…
It has also been brought forth that there is too much content for the time typically allowed, but narrowing down the content and diving fully in is more productive and allows for more learning exploration than just exposing the content or skimming the surface. When taught in an immersive and non-biased manner, the Holocaust can be successfully taught to students in middle school.
In conclusion, teaching the Holocaust to 8th graders should occur with a few factors kept in mind. When taught correctly the Holocaust is a learning experience for all, the teacher and the students. Attention to audience and material are critical when teaching about the Holocaust, because the audience cannot be too young, and the material needs to be appropriate, uncontroversial, and
Chris Bohjalian once said, “But history does matter. There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans. There are obviously more, but, really, how much Genocide can one sentence handle?” and Elie Wiesel says, “To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice.” There is a connection between every genocide, but how much can one sentence actually handle? This is just a repeating thing that keeps on happening and it has gotten to the point where it is not getting any better. If we stop teaching about the Holocaust, it is to kill twice because there will always be that one person who can actually make a huge difference and make good and peace in the world. However, there will always be that one person that has no care for the world and wants to discriminate one race, gender, or religion for no reason, or even because of stereotypes. We should continue teaching about the Holocaust and
The years between 1933-1945 was a horrifying time period. We learn about the Holocaust to know and learn about how bad the past was and what people had to go through. People study the Holocaust to be educate and undertsand the past. The most important reason why we study the Holocaust is so that nothing as bad as the Holocaust was, happens again. According to Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
In the end, the real main question is why. Why do we study the Holocaust? We study it for so many reasons. We study it so we remember all the tragic events, from the murdering of the Jews to the liberation of death camps. Also this defineing moment in history lets us see how rasicim effected everything. Not only in Germany with the Nuremberg Laws, but here as well with the Jim Crow Laws. WWII did help us out of The Great Depression though. But the most important reason as to why we study this is so we know the signs, so it will never happen again. No one should ever want this to repeat. It was tragic all around. Thats why kids world wide will alwats study about the Holocaust.
The Holocaust tends to be a bitter memory and an unpleasant subject to discuss. Although this event took place many years ago, repercussions are still present in the twenty first century. Especially in Germany, the Holocaust not only influences patriotism, but it also influences education and immigration policies. In contrast to other countries where nationalism is common, Germany has been forced to lessen the sense of nationalism in order to dispose false beliefs some individuals have of German racism. By allowing people from other countries to become German citizens, Germany avoids transmitting the sense of being a better and a cleaner race. A further sector influenced by the Holocaust is the education system. Approaches to teach about this event are difficult since the Holocaust is a sensitive issue and continues having vital importance in numerous families. Although the Holocaust continues conveying negative influences, the Holocaust also led to positive medical and technological improvements. In fact, numerous improvements are unknowingly implemented in societies today. Therefore, the Holocaust is one of the most horrific and influencing events in history whose repercussions are still felt in Germany today. However, in spite of the horrific occurrences, the associated medical findings and technological improvements make it intricate to look at the Holocaust as plainly evil. Thus, societies should view the Holocaust with a broader perspective.
We need to remember the Holocaust because of all the Jewish people who died and the people who tried to save them. In the book “Book Thief”, the family risked their lives to help one of their friends who was Jewish. If the Nazis found out about the Jewish person in their basement they would take the whole family to the death camp with the Jewish friend. Also in the “Boys who challenged Hitler”, a group of boys who lived in Denmark, risked their Life’s to save Jewish people by putting them on rafts to float over to Sweden. They did that because Sweden was a free country and the Nazi’s did not have control over them.
One thing that the teachers should consider is that “Students in grades 7 and above demonstrate an ability to empathize with individual eyewitness accounts and to attempt to understand the complexities of this history, including the scope and scale of the events.” This means that eighth grade students are in this category, being able to technically handle the teachings of the Holocaust. There may be some things the teachers shouldn’t do, like compare pain to this time. Also, the teachers could have biased opinions. In the article This Day in 1985, a teacher named Jim Keegstra was fined for teaching his students that the Holocaust did not happen, and that “a Jewish conspiracy controls world affairs.” While opinions are a key part of people, the teachers should put their opinions aside when teaching the Holocaust. Another thing the teachers should consider is that they shouldn’t say something that isn’t true, or over glorify it, to make sure the students are staying interested. This could give false information to the students, and then teaching the Holocaust would be useless. This is important because if the teachers teach the Holocaust incorrectly, then they could make the event sound better or worse than it actually was. Relevant information would be crucial to success. While the
When I signed up for this course, I had limited knowledge of the holocaust and was not very interested in its history. This course ended up being one of my favorites and the most informational courses that I have taken. Other Political leaders such as Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin had committed mass murders that caused a much higher victim rate than Hitler, so my thoughts were that the holocaust was just another tragedy in human history. This class has given me a different perspective in the way I view the holocaust. It has personalized this horrific event in that it begs a person ask themselves how could this tragedy take place? How come the Jews and the world did not do more to prevent it from happening? The course has spiked my interested in the the holocaust in that I have found that if I come across a holocaust program while watching the television, I will stop to watch that show or read a holocaust article that I would not have read in the past. The four books assigned for reading by Browning, Sierakowiak, Lengyel, and Rajchman expounded on the personalization of the holocaust by giving insight into the experiences of
The Holocaust was an extremely horrific period of history. Millions were killed and lost everything, including money, family, and dignity. However, it has taught many lessons. We can study it today to make sure nothing like it ever happens again.
Millions upon millions of people were killed in the holocaust, that is just one of many genocides. There are many similarities between different genocides. Throughout history, many aggressors have started and attempted genocides and violence on the basis of someone being the "other".
teach about the Holocaust to children, it will be in vain if we do not
What is genocide? “Genocide is a deliberate, systematic destruction of racial cultural or political groups.”(Feldman 29) What is the Holocaust? “Holocaust, the period between 1933-1945 when Nazi Germany systematically persecuted and murdered millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and many other people.”(Feldman 29) These two things tie into each other.The Holocaust was a genocide. Many innocent people were torn apart from their families, for many never to see them again. This murder of the “Jewish people of Europe began in spring 1941.”( Feldman 213) The Holocaust was one of the most harshest things done to mankind.
One cold, snowy night in the Ghetto I was woke by a screeching cry. I got up and looked out the window and saw Nazis taking a Jewish family out from their home and onto a transport. I felt an overwhelming amount of fear for my family that we will most likely be taken next. I could not go back to bed because of a horrid feeling that I could not sleep with.
During the rule of Adolf Hitler, many children who were Jewish lived a very frightening and difficult life. They never were given the love and compassion that every child needs and deserves growing up. The Holocaust is a story that will continue to be shared till the end of time.
The Holocaust was one of the most tragic and trying times for the Jewish people. Hundreds of thousands of Jews and other minorities that the Nazis considered undesirable were detained in concentration camps, death camps, or labor camps. There, they were forced to work and live in the harshest of conditions, starved, and brutally murdered. Horrific things went on in Auschwitz and Majdenek during the Holocaust that wiped out approximately 1,378,000 people combined. “There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.” –Fidel Castro
In school, I learned about the Holocaust starting in grade 5. As I got older, I was taught in more detail about the horrendous acts of the Nazis. However, I never learned about how the Jews actually felt and how their friends felt during that time. I think that Number the Stars by Lois Lowry is a great book to help younger students get a better understanding of what was really happening during the Holocaust but not in a way that would scar them for life but in a way that would peak their interest.