Teachers' Notes

1. An enquiry into Racism
2. An enquiry into Fascism
3. Civic Responsibility
4. Human Rights
5. The Media’s Role in Society
6. Legality and Justice
7. Debates

This resource is differentiated by outcome and therefore designed to be used by students of all abilities from Year 9-11.

There are some activities, however, which require high level literacy skills and an ability to organise and anaylse abstract concepts.

It is recommended, therefore, that teachers read through carefully any activities to be used with their students in order to arrange, where appropriate learning support.  If learning support is not available, the more difficult activities can be missed out since most tasks are self-contained and do not rely on students having worked through the whole resource.

This depends on the resources available in your school.

If each student or pair of students has access to an on-line computer, they can work individually or as a pair at their own pace.

If your classroom has a digital whiteboard or digital projector, you may prefer to lead your class through activities at your chosen pace, stopping where you feel appropriate to discuss a topic further or to introduce other resources you feel to be relevant.

If you do not have access to the internet or prefer to work from paper resources, you can print out the relevant pages to use as worksheets.

There are some activities that are best suited to this since they require students to sequence, cut and paste or to complete a chart.

The resource is designed to cover the Citizenship curriculum.

The following chart outlines the main areas of the Citizenship curriculum showing how this resource addresses each.  Some statements are taken from the Key Stage 3 programmes of study and some from the Key Stage 4 programmes of study but they cover similar concepts.

 

The resource has been designed with flexibility at its core.

It is entirely up to you and your school to decide how you want to use it in your planning to teach Citizenship. 

Model 1: A curriculum for a year group 
Each section could be delivered in PSHE lessons across the academic year.  The section titles provide the topic for each half term.  Since there are 7 sections and only 6 half terms you would need to choose to leave out one section or include it within another section.  For example Section 6 includes a range of materials about asylum seekers.  These could be incorporated into activities on Section 4 around refugees and human rights.  If you were to use the resource in this way, it is expected that you would supplement some of the activities with other Citizenship work.

Model 2: A half term curriculum for year 9-11 
Each section could be delivered in PSHE lessons across a half term.  Depending on the length of the half term some activities could be missed out or expanded upon.  With this model, you would set different tasks for different students based on ability but all would be covering the same topic.  Opportunities to share and reflect on what is learned would need to be built in so that all students have access to as much of the material as possible.
 
Model 3: Supplementary curriculum material 
You may have already planned your Citizenship curriculum and will notice some of the topics covered by this resource are relevant.  You could, therefore, use selected sections to complement your existing curriculum.  Similarly, there are activities that relate directly to the teaching of Science, History, English and Religious Studies.  You may wish, therefore, to use this resource to cover areas of the Citizenship curriculum from an inter-disciplinary perspective.

The teaching of the Holocaust is a subject that many teachers may feel unqualified to tackle and may be concerned about handling with sufficient sensitivity.  There are underlying principles to our approach which should form the basis of any curriculum planning in this area.

• Activities should be meaningful. (No word searches or copying out of a textbook).  If there is a need to produce ‘evidence’, audio-tape or videotape students’ discussions.
• Avoid role-play/empathy activities.  We cannot imagine or expect our students to imagine what it was like to be in the ghettos or the camps; we can only teach about the experiences of those who were.
• Focus on individual stories to help make understanding the enormity of the experience more personal.  The purpose of this work is not for students to be able to reel off lists of statistics but to have connected with human experiences of discrimination, resistance and survival.
• Teach about Jewish life before the Holocaust.  This is particularly relevant when challenging antisemitism since for many students their knowledge of Jews may be limited and based on stereotypes.  An exploration of the lives of individual Jewish people, their families, their culture and the diversity of their experiences and beliefs are ways to teach about our common humanity.
• Choose resources carefully and with sensitivity to students, victims and survivors.  There is no need to frighten children to communicate the horror of what happened.  If disturbing images are used they must be done in a carefully prepared context and with a clear purpose, above and beyond their ‘shock’ value.  The problems of using some of the more gruesome images from this period – apart from the potential trauma they can cause some children – are complex.  Some teachers prefer this approach as a means of engaging disaffected boys who ‘like anything gory’.  It is felt that such an approach, whilst it may work in the short term, can be gratuitous and is to be avoided. 
• The history should be put into context.  Some students will have little knowledge of when these events took place in relation to where we are now and this not the sole responsibility of the History department. A simple timeline will do the job.  It is important to communicate the fact that just because the Holocaust happened does not mean it was inevitable.  What happened in the past – just like what happens today – is the result of decisions made by individuals and groups within society. 
• Do not romanticise history.  Whilst a film such as Schindler’s List is an excellent resource, teachers should guard against romanticising the stories from the Holocaust.  There are accounts of heroic rescue and there are tales of selfish survival tactics: students need to know about both.
• Be precise with language and avoid stereotypical descriptions of all those involved.  All Germans were not Nazis and in Germany, Jews were German too.
• It is very important to see Jews (and other persecuted groups) not just as victims but also as rescuers and resisters.
• Teach about perpetrators as well as victims and in so doing make them human.  To teach that the Nazis were ‘monsters’ is to misunderstand the phenomenon.  Everyone involved was human: this is the point.
• Teach about bystanders and collaborators.  Their role is as significant in understanding how and why the Holocaust happened as the role of the perpetrators.
• Teach about the non-Jewish victims.  The Nazi regime persecuted those who did not support or fit its ‘master race’ agenda.  These groups include: Romani/Sintis(Gypsies), Jehovah’s Witnesses, Trade Unionists, Communists, Black people, Gay people, Slavs, people with disabilities and anyone else they deemed ‘anti-social’.  This is key to understanding the fascistic nature of the regime.
• Consider the universal lessons to learn from the topic including issues of individual and collective responsibility; the dangers of scapegoating, stereotyping and racial prejudice; the ethics of civil disobedience of unjust laws.

What follows are not reasons for shying away from the subject, rather a checklist of points to consider in order to limit the possibility of a well-intentioned scheme of work back firing.

• Be clear what is acceptable and unacceptable in terms of students articulating opinions about the victim groups involved.  There may be negative, prejudiced and offensive comments made by students about any (or all) of the victim groups.  Know your school’s equal opportunities policy.  Get support if you need it from senior staff.
• Allow space for the majority to be empowered.  A position of ‘No Platform for Racists and Fascists’ is part of the answer but not the whole answer.  In the short term we should be able to prevent racist, homophobic, xenophobic positions being articulated.  In the long term, we want to educate students away from these positions and this requires an exploration of them if students bring them into the classroom.
• Do not over-estimate the power and influence of fascist groups such as the BNP.  On the other hand, we have a responsibility to inform students about their growing support in some areas.  This is also true when drawing links to the rise in popularity of fascist parties in Europe.
• It is important to understand and teach about the conditions in which fascism flourishes.
• Make links between asylum seekers, the war-zones they flee from and the arms sales imported from the places they flee to.
• Use newspaper articles to inform debate around current affairs but select these carefully ensuring a range of positions are expressed.
• Avoid making too direct a comparison between the events in Nazi Germany and today.  There are similarities but they are not the same.
• Israel / Palestine question: challenge antisemitism as you would any form of racism.  Be clear that the Arab/Israel conflict has its own history a strand of which is connected to the Holocaust.  You may wish to teach about this subject but it is a separate topic.  The fact that both involve Jews is not a good enough connection.  To teach about Israel/Palestine, it is legitimate to discuss the Holocaust.  When teaching about the Holocaust, the Israel/Palestine debate is a diversion.
• Do not introduce to students the notion of Holocaust Denial because to do so gives the position legitimacy.  Students, however, may introduce it and if they do we must respond.  To debate the issue would suggest there are two sides to present and we must be clear this is not the case.  Students should be referred to historical sources as evidence and asked to support their position with similar evidence.  For History students this is a particularly relevant activity.  You may also wish to ask students what past events they do believe are valid and their reasons for this belief.  Students should also be encouraged to consider the reasons certain groups may wish to revise history for their own ends and this involves an exploration of contemporary far-right groups.

As this is a resource about Citizenship promoting democratic values, it is recommended that such principles underpin your practice in the classroom when using this resource. 

An excellent starting place to raise awareness of democratic values would be the Circle Time approach.  Developed by Jenny Mosley, this approach promotes participation and respect of all class members.  For further details of how to deliver Circle Time and how it might be adapted to working with this resource see their web-site: www.circle-time.co.uk.

Before approaching the content of this resource it is important to agree a set of values and principles with the class.  These may be very similar to those set out in your school’s code of conduct.  It is recommended that all students first participate in a debate to establish the agreed principles. This should be followed by a vote then all should sign a class contract based on the majority position.  This should be referred back to when students do and do not respect these principles.  It is recommended that such language is used when addressing this, rather than talking about students ‘breaking rules’.  Moreover, when these principles are respected, students should be praised.

Ask the students to discuss in pairs: What makes a fair discussion?
To focus their talk they may wish to prioritise the following statements.

• Everyone has the right to voice their opinion without being verbally abused by others
• Everyone must respect each other’s right to an opinion
• Everyone has the right to challenge another’s opinion in a non-threatening manner.
• Everyone must listen to everyone else.
• Everyone has the responsibility to support an opinion with evidence.
• Everyone has a responsibility to challenge prejudice when they see, hear or feel it.
• Everyone has a responsibility to think about a contribution before making it.

Download this activity for use in the classroom

As well as providing teaching resources such as this one, we offer an educational outreach service whereby freelance educators and Holocaust survivors will visit your school to deliver seminars, talks, assemblies and longer term projects designed to challenge prejudice and to build tolerance.

We also run a three day course ‘Lessons From Auschwitz’, part of which is a day visit to the Nazi extermination camp in Poland.

If you are interested in finding out more about our services and would like to discuss ways in which we can support your teaching of this subject, contact us at: info@het.org.uk

The Holocaust Educational Trust will be regularly updating, reviewing and revising www.thinkequal.com  If you use this resource in your classroom, the Education Department would be interested to hear your views on its relevance and usability.  Furthermore, if you produce new activities or differentiate existing ones on the site which you think might be suitable for inclusion in updated versions of this website, please contact Head of Education, Rachel Burns on rachel.burns@het.org.uk

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