Video

Holocaust and Human Behavior in the Classroom

Teachers at Animo Jackie Robinson Charter High School use our Holocaust and Human Behavior resource and journey of discovery about oneself and others ("Scope and Sequence") to help students think critically about history and make informed choices.

Last Updated: January 12, 2015

Video

Language

English — US

Subject

History

Culture & Identity
The Holocaust

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.

Facing History & Ourselves, “Holocaust and Human Behavior in the Classroom,” video, last updated January 12, 2015.

Collection

Explore resources that meet the California History–Social Science Framework standards.

Four students sit in a circle in conversation. The student in the center speaks with their hands raised.

Collection

Explore resources that meet the Massachusetts History and Social Science Framework.

Students working in groups in a classroom

Lesson

Students learn the importance of teaching the history of the Holocaust’s impacts on North African communities with a focus on ways in which they resisted oppression.

A group of boys gather in the Los Arenas camp. One boy stands in the middle holding a rock over his head while others look at him.

Assessment

Students will apply the lessons they have learned about the intersecting histories of wartime North Africa and the Holocaust as they create an artifact that explains the context of the found poems they wrote in Lesson 3.

An educator leans over a desk speaking with four middle school students.

Lesson

Students deepen their understanding of the diversity and complexity of Jewish life in pre-war North Africa through an analysis of images, film, and readings.

A wedding portrait of family from the wedding of Terese and Nachum Cohen.

Lesson

Explore how power structures established through the European colonization of North African countries influenced the fate of North African Jewry during the Holocaust and ways in which individuals and groups responded to rising antisemitism.