Holocaust Museum & Center for Tolerance and Education Director of Education Abigail Miller and Executive Director Andrea Winograd recently presented a workshop on diversity and tolerance, and acceptance to staff from William O. Schaefer Elementary School and Cottage Lane Elementary School. The workshop focused on how the Holocaust and other genocide events influence our teaching.
We watched a TED Talk with Chimamanda Adichie, The Danger of a Single Story: https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story
Ms. Miller shared books and resources for K-5 teachers and also talked about stereotyping, othering/segregating, intimidation, profiling, discriminating, badmouthing, and bullying as how the roots of hate begin. She also shared that what she learned in her studies of genocides is that they all occurred gradually over time, typically beginning with subtle messages in the form of the aforementioned areas. Ms. Miller stated, “Othering, stereotyping, and hate speech were the cornerstones of every genocide in the 20th century.”
She spoke about the importance of defining The Holocaust and genocide for students, and that often times, peoples definitions vary. Therefore, it’s important that everyone has a common definition and understanding. The most widely used and accepted definition of The Holocaust is, “The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. Holocaust is a word of Greek origin meaning “sacrifice by fire.” The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jews, deemed “inferior,” were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.” (Source: USHMM.) The definition of genocide is, “The deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.” (Source: Merriam Webster Dictionary.) The workshop will be done with South Orangetown Middle School and Tappan Zee High School staff in the coming weeks.
We are thankful for our partnership with the Museum & Center and for their ongoing support to our students, staff, and families. We plan to expand our work with together to include guest speakers and additional learning opportunities for our students. We are also at the beginning stages of assessing how our curriculum, including character education, addresses the Social Justice Standards from the Teaching Tolerance Framework: http://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/general/Anti%20bias%20framework%20pamphlet.pdf
