Section 5 Teacher's Notes
This opening activity and subsequent question requires some understanding of the connection between fascism and economics. If you have not covered the sections sequentially, you may wish to refer to the part about Fascism Today in Section 2. There is a hyperlink to this if you are working on line. A basic explanation and discussion of the importance of money in people’s lives, how it is created and distributed would be useful.
An interactive way of transmitting this factual information is to photocopy this page onto card four times and cut the 7 statements up. Give each statement to a student. Ask the students to walk around the room telling at least 3 other students their piece of information. After 5 minutes ask a selection of students to volunteer one fact they have learned other than the one on their card. Collate these on a board or OHP so all the facts are displayed.
This is to introduce the notion of the power of the media. It is not expected students will know large amounts but it allows them to voice whatever knowledge they do have as a starting place upon which to build. Use a board, OHP or poster paper to collate their contributions so these can be referred back to as you work through the activities in this section. Such an approach will also support students who are bilingual learners and those with literacy difficulties.
The discussion of the poster for Mein Kampf is a basic task that should be accessible to all students. The font in the poster is gothic which is traditionally Germanic, thus reinforcing the message of Hitler representing traditional German values. You could also bring to students’ attention the stern look on Hitler’s face in this image and the effect this may have on passers by.
This task should be accessible to all students. If you are not working on line, you may wish to have available the activities from Section 2 An Enquiry into Fascism/ Obedience to support this discussion. Another significant factor in the image are the three large flags displaying the swastika at the back of the rally.
Activity 6 – Rallies – Eye Witness Accounts
This task requires level 5 reading skills or above. If students reading levels are lower than this they will need support. If students are working in groups of four, you might like to give source 1 to half the group, source 2 to the other. They can then report back on what they have read and discussed to the other pair.
There are four sources to be read here. As with Activity 6 this task requires level 5 or above reading skills. If necessary, arrange learning support or read the extracts to students. The discussion may start to include how students are influenced by others although this will be explored more fully later in this section.
The purpose of this task is for students to begin understanding how people were influenced. Although the statements were made truthfully by the eye-witnesses, some students may struggle with understanding how they were so influenced by an ideology that is so obviously racist and discriminatory.
The prioritising of statements should be done in pairs or groups. The reading of the source is suitable for level 6 readers. It would be appropriate for the teacher to read this aloud to the class before students work on the statement task.
Activity 10 – Peer Pressure: Then and Now
This activity is designed to start students thinking and discussing their own lives and how the media, other institutions or individuals affect them. The poster task at the end could be suitably set as a homework.
Activity 11: Peer Pressure - Conformity and Participation
This discussion requires some abstract thought and might best be introduced as a whole class discussion. The questions about participation may be suitable for students to discuss first in small groups or pairs before sharing in a larger forum.
Activity 12 – Propaganda
Before beginning this section, you may wish students to brainstorm their own definitions of the term ‘propaganda’. Most of the activities within the section on propaganda are image based and are therefore accessible to most students. The image of Hitler with the blonde child was withdrawn from circulation when it emerged the child was Jewish because it undermined the stereotype that Jews were all dark haired and dark skinned whilst Aryans were fair.
You may wish to differentiate these activities by offering the text from the ‘Poisonous Mushroom’ to students with higher level literacy skills whilst those with difficulties reading work from the images.
Activity 13 – The Importance of a Free Press
This is a classic English/Media studies task. It requires a reasonable level of literacy. You will need to have a selection of recent tabloid and broadsheet newspapers available or access to the internet in order to work on this activity.
The D notice committee is a government committee to which journalists are expected to submit drafts of articles or books that may contain information which could be construed as a threat to national security. Stella Rimington’s memoirs, for example, were submitted to the D notice committee before publication. Not all journalists comply with this requirement and therefore challenge the government to censor their publication. This is rarely done.
The questions in this task are by necessity very general. Depending on the news events chosen, students with learning difficulties will need supporting with this work in terms of ideas and structure. It is not expected, however, that their accounts necessarily be written down. Moreover, if you have access to audio or video equipment, a useful approach would be to record their accounts.
