1. Deliver Responsible Instruction that is Age-Appropriate and Historically Authentic

Responsible instruction keeps students and their needs at the center of the instructional choices made by the teacher; foremost is the developmental level of the child and readiness to encounter material which can be confusing and/or traumatic for students who are not ready or adequately prepared for such material. Responsible education is also centered-around teaching authentic history, even in fictional texts or film. Teachers should work to avoid Holocaust/Genocide content that is inauthentic, even when a book or film is popular, sensational, or delivers emotional impact. Responsible instruction includes the selection and presentation of teaching resources and methodology, history/context resources, and age-appropriate and content-appropriate outcomes. Teachers should have a rationale for teaching about the Holocaust/Genocide, and instructional choices should be made with that rationale in mind.

2. Define Terms and Use Precise Language

To discuss the content of any single genocide or genocide as a whole, students and teachers will need words to define both historic events and nuances of history, human behavior, and many other complex subjects. Teachers should provide clear definitions of key terms, should avoid generalizations and language which is stereotypical or overly simplistic, or that distorts understanding because it is insufficiently clear and/or precise.

3. Contextualize the History

The study of any specific example of genocide/historic atrocity must include the specific details and context of the places, times, and circumstances in which it took place. To be able to think critically about the behaviors and choices of individuals, organizations, communities, and/or governments during times of genocide/atrocity, students have to consider them within the specific historical context. Teaching genocide through the use of narrative in any medium, nonfiction or fiction, often requires that students are provided with additional information so they can study the narrative in the correct historical context.

4. Emphasize the Stages of Genocide, and that Genocide is not Inevitable

While each historical example of genocide/atrocity is unique, Dr. Gregory Stanton established in 1996 that genocides take place in stages1, and the stages both share similarities and provide a helpful construct for genocide studies and the eventual goal of recognizing the warning signs of genocide and mobilizing to intervene when the early warning stages of genocide are underway. It is often the case that an example of genocide, such as the Holocaust or Armenian Genocide, is presented as one global, undifferentiated event, and that can lead to overly simplistic understanding of the event(s) and the mistaken belief that a genocide was inevitable. Emphasizing stages creates a mental model for students both to understand any genocide and all genocides, and also opportunities to study how intervention was possible in historic genocides and could be possible in future genocides for which stages would serve as warning signs. If historic genocides are taught or understood as inevitable, then students won’t think about the steps that were taken or could have been taken to accelerate or interrupt stages leading to the extermination of human beings.

5. Do Not Compare Pain; Do Not Use Simulations

Comparisons can be a useful and effective teaching tool, but those comparisons should not suggest nor establish, intentionally or unintentionally, that any one genocide was worse or more or less cruel, significant, or devastating than any other genocide. Instead, teachers should communicate that genocide is always about the intentional destruction of human beings. Comparisons are also problematic when teachers use classroom methods intended to simulate experiences of participants of a genocide, even when those simulations are well-intended, such as student engagement or the activation of empathy. It is not possible to create an appropriate, authentic comparison in a simulated activity, and too often simulations lead to artificial and/or simplistic conclusions, simulated or unintended yet real trauma or exploitation of students, and/or classroom activities that obscure or distort the actual history and opportunities for critical thinking about that history.

6. Embrace the Complexities; Avoid Simple Answers

A study of any genocide can and should lead to difficult questions about a variety of topics, and teachers are encouraged to see student inquiry as a primary driver of the teaching and learning that takes place, with the goal of having student questions lead to next, deeper questions, rather than to answers and conclusions. It can be useful to help students understand that when studying genocide content there will be what Facing History and Ourselves calls Factual Questions, Inferential Questions, and Universal Questions. It is especially important that teachers not shut inquiry or learning down by providing simplistic answers to questions at any of the three levels. Because time for the study of any genocide or multiple genocides is often limited, it is almost always the case that time runs out well before content and the questions about that content have been exhausted. Students should come to the end of any study of genocide(s) with new questions that follow the learning and critical thinking that took place during their study, oriented towards, open to, and excited for learning more about genocide(s) in the future.

7. Illuminate numbers with individuals stories; emphasize both the uniqueness of human beings and universality of human experience

A study of history can and should focus on specific historic details, such as the number of victims, communities impacted, the span of years, etc.; and while this specific historical information helps provide appropriate background knowledge and context for students, individual human stories are a critical resource for helping students understand that the history happened as an event in the real lives of real people. Testimonies, first-hand accounts by witnesses to genocide, are considered to be some of the most powerful resources in genocide education to help students connect the history of genocide to real people, real places, and real stories. Testimonies have been called “the formative center of genocide education” because they can make the historic content real through the stories of real people, stories of family, love, loss, fear, tragedy, and survival. Teachers are encouraged to incorporate testimonies from genocide survivors (and others who experienced or witnessed the history as it happened) into classroom lessons as often as possible. Human stories can foster empathy in students, and first-hand accounts of history, especially in survivor testimony, allow students to see how they are both different from and like the individuals who personally experienced genocide in one way or another.

8. Emphasize the Choices Made by Individuals (at all levels) and the Context of those Choices

A study of any genocide provides opportunities for students to learn and think critically about choices made by individuals who participated in or were impacted or targeted for violence or who took an active or passive role to assist or interrupt genocidal activity, and also the choices and actions taken by groups, leaders, and governments. Teachers often identify archetypal roles in a study of genocide, such as victim, perpetrator, collaborator, bystander, upstander/rescuer, and by identifying individuals and their choices in each of these roles, in the proper historical context and with the proper complexity, they can help students analyze the choices that became the history of a genocide. Teachers should avoid overly simplistic portrayals of human figures, blaming Hitler for the Holocaust (for example) so he is understood by students as the villain of the story, and instead should help students see choices were made by individuals at every level of society during a genocide. By learning and thinking critically about those choices, students will have a better opportunity to think of themselves as individuals with choices in their own places, time, and circumstances.