HOLOCAUST EDUCATION


How do you tackle the big questions that teaching the


Holocaust in RE can throw up? After attending the Holocaust Educational Trust’s annual teacher training course at Yad Vashem in Israel, teacher Amy Jordan offers some insights into what she has learnt


just not getting our pupils to understand its significance. As a religious education teacher, I have often felt this way, however I always felt a responsibility to teach this crucial episode of history to my pupils. It is widely thought that the Holocaust was


T


historically unique because of the industrialisation of the murder that took place and that therefore there are unique lessons which must be taught to pupils to ensure it does not happen again. But where do you start? What are you looking to


achieve and which is the correct year group to begin teaching it to? Year 7 pupils can be as young as 11. Are they ready? Should one teach the Holocaust as a


Union address: NAHT Let schools be schools


Russell Hobby suggests that kneejerk additions


to the curriculum and populist measures on discipline are not the answer to society’s ills


MUCH HAPPENED over the summer to change the focus of the education debate. Indeed the usual clichés over rising/falling standards in GCSEs and A Levels were overshadowed by the national post- mortem on the riots. Politicians barely hesitated in playing to the gallery: you’d be forgiven for thinking that martial law was to be declared in schools. It seems clear that whenever a government has no


idea how to solve a social problem, it tries to change something in schools. Riots? Military discipline and more male role models! Unemployment and economic stagnation? More skills and lessons in entrepreneurship! Teenage pregnancy? Better sex education! Nor is it limited to calls for new subjects to be


included in the curriculum, something government, pressure groups and lobbies are also fond of doing. It means essentially “we don’t know how to solve, or are unwilling to tackle, the root causes of this issue but maybe if we bring the next generation up better they will solve it”. This seems to miss the other side of the bargain by failing to create a society where the acquisition of skills and the discipline of citizenship are rewarded. Once again, we pass our debts to the next generation. We should be flattered by the expectations placed


on schools. And it is true that education can solve almost every problem that society faces, but not through kneejerk additions to the curriculum or populist measures on discipline. Schools contribute best to citizenship, responsibility and prosperity when they can focus on giving everyone a great education – providing young people with tools to solve problems for themselves and by widening their horizons, not a new module on “why looting is wrong”.


Nor can schools tackle the challenges alone.


Education is a partnership between school, family and community and it fails when any party shirks its responsibilities. Relying on schools to fill in the gaps where other parts of society let children down is dangerous. Skills must be matched with jobs; boundaries at


school reinforced by boundaries at home. Schools cannot easily instil lasting discipline if a child’s home life is chaotic. Schools can create skills, but those skills are wasted if there are no skilled jobs to go to. We cannot police the streets. And it is hard to teach moral responsibility when young people see greed and corruption in our highest institutions. Of course, this means that schools must keep their


side of the bargain. It is our job to see that every child can read, write, communicate, add up and understand the science and technology that shape their lives, give them a sense of the country and world they live in, and help them understand both rights and responsibilities. This term, the NAHT calls on all policy-makers


to let schools be schools and to endeavour to solve problems through families and communities as well as schools. There is the opportunity of another exciting


year with a good outcome on the reform of primary assessment, the first crop of teaching schools and (maybe) a sensible reform of the curriculum. Yet there may also be trouble looming: Ofsted


must ensure that its inspectors are well trained and consistent with the new framework, and the replacement of the Education Maintenance Allowance with a new bursary is essentially a straightforward cut that will force many students out of further education for good. Also, the pensions debate is about to reach crunch point. Our research suggests that opinions within the


profession are becoming more, not less, extreme as the true extent of the cuts emerges and appears particularly stark when set against government musings on whether to cut the top rate of tax and suspend banking reforms to give the financial sector more time to recover. This October, teachers will unite in a mass rally


at Parliament to call for fair play. I hope that the government will hear them. If schools are keeping their side of the bargain and doing more every year; it is wrong to cut pay and resources while they are doing it.


• Russell Hobby is general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. Visit www.naht.org.uk


HE HOLOCAUST is one of those topics which, as a teacher, you are likely to worry about. This is not because we aren’t capable of teaching the topic, but we are worried about not doing it justice, not being able to answer the difficult questions posed, or


Reflections: Teachers


pictured on the annual training course at the


Yad Vashem memorial museum in Israel


Answering the big questions


historical episode, looking at the facts and events in chronological order? This approach may well have value, but in an RE context the questions are somewhat more abstract, dealing with issues such as faith, moral dilemmas, and spiritual and physical resistance. That is of course extremely difficult to fit into perhaps two or three hours of teaching time.


For many RE teachers, especially young teachers


who may only be recently qualified, a fear of the most difficult questions is common. One of my own greatest fears was having to answer questions such as “How could a God have allowed this to happen?”, “How can we be sure that it will not happen again?”, “Why did the Jewish people not stand up and fight?” and “Why did the Allies not do anything to stop the Holocaust earlier?” These, among many others, are tough questions


for even the most experienced teacher to handle and yet it would be troubling if they prevented teachers from addressing this topic. These questions may be challenging but they are important and necessary. Another common challenge in teaching the


Holocaust is how to keep the subject relevant. For many pupils, this was a conflict that happened in black and white; and moreover it was one which affected other countries and other religions. Like many teachers I have used the classic images associated with the Holocaust, of piles of bodies or people starving. But do these images give pupils a detailed and deeper understanding of the Holocaust, its causes and effects? On reflection I don’t think it does. This summer I was given a unique opportunity to


rethink the way that I teach the Holocaust, and to reflect on what the most valuable lessons of the Holocaust are. I was fortunate to join more than 20 other teachers on the Holocaust Educational Trust’s 10-day teacher training course in Jerusalem. Based at the Yad Vashem International School for Holocaust Studies, our aim was not only to learn more about the events of the Holocaust but also develop our pedagogical skills.


The Holocaust Educational Trust


The HET was established in 1988 to educate young people from every ethnic background about the Holocaust and the important lessons to be learned for today. The Trust works in schools, universities and in the community to raise awareness and understanding of the Holocaust, providing teacher training, an Outreach Programme for schools, teaching aids and resource materials. Now in its sixth year, the HET’s annual teacher training course is delivered in partnership with Yad Vashem, the Jewish people’s Holocaust memorial and museum based in Israel. It is an intensive course, offering


participants the opportunity to attend lectures by some of the world’s leading Holocaust academics and to take part in specially tailored workshops to help improve their delivery of Holocaust education in the classroom. It is part of an extensive programme of professional development, which also includes courses and seminars in the UK, Poland, Germany, and France. For more information, or to apply for a place on the programmes, visit www.het.org.uk


The course consists of three parts: an introductory


seminar in London, 10 days in Israel, and a follow-up seminar to be held this autumn in the UK. There were four valuable lessons in particular that


I hope to take back both to my classroom and to my colleagues at Highcrest Academy in High Wycombe. First, we learnt about the importance of


rehumanising the victims of the Holocaust. It is very easy to talk about the victims simply in terms of numbers. Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis; 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz – but what do those numbers truly mean to our pupils? Even for adults, such numbers are often meaningless and difficult to conceptualise. However to give a victim a name, a face and a


personal story, makes their life that more accessible to the pupils. It turns a victim into a person they can relate to. The Nazis worked to dehumanise the Jews and their


other victims in order to create an atmosphere where persecution came easily. Giving the victims back their identity is also a way to honour their memory. Second, we were strongly advised against using


“shock tactics”. One of the most profound messages that I will be taking away from this course was delivered to us on the first day by one of the educators who said: “It is our job to ensure that we guide our pupils safely into learning about the Holocaust but also to bring them safely out of it.” It took me a while to truly understand what was


meant by this, but I eventually realised that we are not aiming to make our pupils feel guilty about what happened, they cannot change the events of the past. However, we can teach them where hatred and prejudice can lead so that they are motivated to stand up against it throughout their lives. We must also be careful to place the Holocaust in


its proper historical context. One of the major issues identified on this course was a lack of time to teach this subject, especially in RE. This can often lead to pupil been given a snapshot of the Holocaust as an isolated event. If at all possible, teachers should try to ensure that we teach the Holocaust in the context, for example, of the economic conditions of the Weimar Republic and the way that Germany dealt with the defeat of the First World War. Finally, participants in the course talked a lot about


the right time to teach the Holocaust. We learned that in Israel some pupils begin learning about it from a very early age, not necessarily in schools but because it is very much a part of Israeli culture. For many it is the story of their friends and families, and they will often hear it discussed at home. However, the UK is very different. By the end, we concluded that the question is not


so much when you should teach it, as often this will be dictated by schemes of work. The question is: how do we make it accessible? This is a question which takes a huge amount of time to answer and requires many years of experience. I do not expect the skills needed to teach the Holocaust to develop overnight but I do feel that I have gained a crucial grounding in the best way to approach this topic. This year I will be walking back into the classroom with a renewed sense of confidence and enthusiasm.


SecEd


• Amy Jordan teaches religious education at Highcrest Academy in High Wycombe.


12 SecEd • September 15 2011


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