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Possible Applications of a Unit on the Holocaust to the Oklahoma Priority Academic Student Skills |
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| A Color Key: Blue: A link to the USHMM teacher’s guide web page. Black: Directly quoting a state’s social studies standard. Red: The correlation of studying the Holocaust to the standards. Brown: Other information. |
If a secondary teacher would decide to teach a unit on the Holocaust, it would be highly recommended to first read "Guidelines for Teaching about the Holocaust" created by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum which can be found at <http://www.ushmm.org/education/foreducators/> | |
The Oklahoma "Priority Academic Student Skills" in its presentation is oriented mostly to content k-12. The following looks at the content standards for grades 9-12 and applies Holocaust studies to those standards. The section entitled "United States History: 1850-Present, Grades 9-12" most specifically mentions the reaction to reports of the Holocaust under the "World War II" standard. Under the section entitled "World History, Grades 9-12" the Holocaust is again mentioned under the "major twentieth century events" standard. However, all content areas labeled as 9-12 do set forth standard outcomes that can be applied to the teaching of the Holocaust. Those that specifically do are given with comment following.
Following the content standards the The Holocaust
is applied to the Core Content Areas .
I. Define government as the formal institution with the authority to make and implement binding decisions about such matters as distribution of resources, allocation of benefits and burdens, and management of conflicts.
Students studying the Holocaust will need to study the structure, the decisions, the actions of the Nazi regime from 1933 through to the war's end in 1945.
II. Analyze the philosophical and a historical
development of government as an institution.
Students will compare democratic development to the development of the dictatorship of Hitler. Students will analyze the destruction of democratic institutions that are replaced by ones that could and did commit horrific crimes against humanity.III. Describe the purpose of Government and analyze how its powers are acquired, used, and justified.
Students will examine the anti-Semitism doctrines of the Nazi regime and analyze how these were used to justify genocide.
IV through XVI (These standards set forth the knowledge of American
government and the skills for civic responsibility.)
As students study American government in its development and present day actions, the past in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s is to be an ever present reminder of what must never happen again. These students are the future guardians of what must be and what must not be.
The student will:
I. Analyze causes, key events, and the effects of the Civil war and
Reconstruction.
Related to the Holocaust are the conditions of a camp like Andersonville, the racism generated by the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and the race laws of Jim Crow.
II. Analyze the impact of immigration on American society.
The attitude of the government and the press toward immigration is to be analyzed. This with the culmination of the Immigration Act of 1924. This Act's implementation through the 1930s and the reaction of those in authority in the 1940s are to be studied as news of racism and the Holocaust itself reached the shores of the United States.
IV. Describe and analyze the changing role of the United States in world affairs between 1898 and 1930....
The role of the United States in World War I, the Versailles Treaty, and its isolationism is important back ground that helps explain the rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime.
V. Describe the social, cultural, economic and technological
ideas and events of the 1920s and 1930s.
Racial attitudes and their effects are part of the story: The creation of "eugenics science" in the United States and its spread to Germany is to be understood.
VI. Investigate and analyze the causes and effects of the Great
Depression.
America's reaction to the Great Depression is again back ground needed to the study of the Holocaust.
VII. Analyze and explain the major causes, events, leaders, and
effects of World War II. E. Analyze public and political reactions
to reports of the Holocaust and its impact.
Students must understand the Holocaust as a major event of the war.
VIII through XI (These standards look at post-World War II and
recent developments in the United States.)
Our understanding of the importance of the Holocaust and the effects this understanding has had on American society can be approached with these standards.
XIII. Demonstrate social studies research skills.
In Holocaust studies, a complete understanding of the chronology of events is an absolute must. One must take the student back to the origins of anti-Semitism, the development of racial theories in all corners of the world including the United States. The time line of events in the 1930s and 1940s is to be completely understood.If a teacher centers in on an individual's story in the Holocaust, the context of that story in time is a must.
If a teacher assigns research to a specific person or event, the context of the time is to be understood.
The Holocaust is one of the major events of the modern period that has had its effects on the world and the United States. The event must be fully analyzed to comprehend that effect from what it did to the culture of the Jewish peoples, to the culture of Europe, to the impact on the United States.
In the study of the Holocaust, multiple sources are available that the teacher can make available for the student. Questions of how and why, questions of interpretation such as who did what, who knew what when, questions of reactions of victims, etc. all can be formulated with the vast availability of primary sources and secondary sources that range from personal testimony of survivors, to photographic archives, to diaries and memoirs, to the records of the period, to the arts and literature, to historians interpretations.
XVI. Develop discussion, debate, and persuasive writing skills,
focusing on enduring issues and demonstrating how divergent viewpoints
have been and continue to be addressed and reconciled.
One topic added to the suggested list could be the Holocaust and America's reaction. Differences among historians on the topic would be the basis for the discussion and/or debate.
See the "Core Content Area: Geography" below.
IV. Describe and analyze, ancient Rome (700 B.C.E. to 500 C.E.) and its impact on contemporary and future civilizations.
Background to the Holocaust begins with the Diaspora in this time period. This Diaspora is to be looked at its ebbs and flows in Europe and the Mediterranean world into the twentieth century. Thus it would be part of many of the standards not stated here.
XIV. Analyze and explain the effects of the Industrial Revolution.
One effect of importance is the technological mind set of the industrial factory that results in the 1940s with the death factories is East Europe.
XV. Analyze major twentieth century historical events: E. The
rise of nationalism, and the causes and events of World War II (e.g.
the Holocaust....)
The Holocaust is a major twentieth century historical event.
XVI. Demonstrate social studies research skills.
In Holocaust studies, a complete understanding of the chronology of events is an absolute must. One must take the student back to the origins of anti-Semitism, the development of racial theories in all corners of the world including the United States. The time line of events in the 1930s and 1940s is to be completely understood.The Oklahoma "Priority Academic Student Skills" lists three Core Content Areas of History; Geography; and Civics, Economics, and Government. Below, Holocaust studies is applied to each of these three Core Content Areas .If a teacher centers in on an individual's story in the Holocaust, the context of that story in time is a must.
If a teacher assigns research to a specific person or event, the context of the time is to be understood.
The Holocaust is one of the major events of the modern period that has had its effects on the world and the United States. The event must be fully analyzed to comprehend that effect from what it did to the culture of the Jewish peoples, to the culture of Europe, to the impact on the United States.
In the study of the Holocaust, multiple sources are available that the teacher can make available for the student. Questions of how and why, questions of interpretation such as who did what, who knew what when, questions of reactions of victims, etc. all can be formulated with the vast availability of primary sources and secondary sources that range from personal testimony of survivors, to photographic archives, to diaries and memoirs, to the records of the period, to the arts and literature, to historians interpretations.
In Holocaust studies, a complete understanding of the chronology of events is an absolute must. One must take the student back to the origins of anti-Semitism, the development of racial theories in all corners of the world including the United States. The time line of events in the 1930s and 1940s is to be completely understood.If a teacher centers in on an individual's story in the Holocaust, the context of that story in time is a must.
If a teacher assigns research to a specific person or event, the context of the time is to be understood.
The Holocaust is one of the major events of the modern period that has had its effects on the world and the United States. The event must be fully analyzed to comprehend that effect from what it did to the culture of the Jewish peoples, to the culture of Europe, to the impact on the United States.
In the study of the Holocaust, multiple sources are available that the teacher can make available for the student. Questions of how and why, questions of interpretation such as who did what, who knew what when, questions of reactions of victims, etc. all can be formulated with the vast availability of primary sources and secondary sources that range from personal testimony of survivors, to photographic archives, to diaries and memoirs, to the records of the period, to the arts and literature, to historians interpretations.
The teacher who teaches a unit on the Holocaust has an opportunity to make the period of that time come alive with the real stories of people who survived, who did not survive, who were victims, who were rescuers, who were bystanders. The resources are readily available and multiple. The best is a survivor to speak with students if one willing to present to students is available. Both written and video sources are plentiful.
A look at the anti-Semitism within this nation and in Europe before 1939 is to be compared and studied. The actions of a government and society that carried out genocide is to be studied. The consequences of the mass murders in the post 1945 world is to be realized: from the founding of the United Nations, to the Declaration of Human Rights, to the center of Jewish culture no longer in East Europe, but now in Israel and the United States.
In a study of the Holocaust the basic tenets of Christianity and Judaism should be understood. These both are part of the history of the Holocausts as a student studies the issue of anti-Semitism.
Music and the arts of the perpetrators and victims can help students understand the cultures of the people of Europe at the time of the Holocaust.
Analysis of Nazi racial doctrine and how it moved from racial laws to the "final solution" is to be made. The shift of the center of Jewish culture from eastern Europe to Israel and the United States as a result of the Holocaust is to be understood.
Holocaust studies require the knowledge of and use of maps: the chronology of war fronts, the location of the various types of camps, the transportation systems, etc. The maps of camps are needed to understand how they operated and for what purpose. The maps of ghettos are needed to understand the events that occurred in the ghettos. The Holocaust created unnatural environments. Students will become aware of how humans modified and responded to the horrors they faced: racial laws, ghettos, camps.
Students are faced with the economics of the Nazi regime and their wartime production. This included mass use of slave labor. Questions of transportation of war supplies and human transportations to death camps are to be faced. The economics of the ghettos and the death camps themselves serves as an example of what happens when civilized morals become warped.The policies of governments in the post World War I, Versailles Treaty era can show students how the economy in Germany led to the rise of Hitler .
The Holocaust can be incorporated into a study of government in order to demonstrate how the development of public policy can become directed to genocidal ends when dissent and debate are silenced. Inclusion of Holocaust studies in a government or a history course helps students compare governmental systems, study the process of how a state can degenerate from a democracy into a totalitarian state, examine how the development of public policy can lead to genocidal ends, examine the role of Nazi bureaucracy in implementing policies of murder and annihilation, examine the role of various individuals in the rise and fall of a totalitarian government, and recognize that among the legacies of the Holocaust have been the creation of Human Rights organizations and declarations.Inclusion of a study of the Holocaust into a U.S. history or a U.S. government course can encourage students to:
•examine the dilemmas that arise when foreign policy goals are narrowly defined, as solely in terms of the national interest, denying the validity of universal moral and human priorities. •understand what happens when parliamentary democratic institutions fail.
•examine the responses of governmental and non-governmental organizations in the United States to the plight of Holocaust victims.
•explore the role of American soldiers in liberating victims from Nazi concentration camps and killing centers.
•examine the key role played by the U.S. in bringing Nazi perpetrators to trial at Nuremberg and in other war crimes trials.
•understand the consequences of mass murder. Example: The attitude of the United States government to the anti-Semitism before 1939; the inaction and actions of the United States government during the war; the immigration of survivors to the United States in the post war period.