Afterword

 

 

At the end of the semester I give a survey of the Social Injustices students to see what they liked and didn’t like.  Over the 2002 summer I used the information I’d gathered in May to make the decision to expand the Holocaust unit to 10 weeks.  Many responses had come back that one of the projects/units that could be deleted was a simulation where students “built” a refugee camp.  I found it to be a worthwhile use of time and a great lead-in to the Holocaust – just what do people need to survive in a situation like that (in terms of caloric intake, water cleanliness, living space)?  The main reason they wanted to drop that was due to the fact that in the spring we didn’t get through the last four units of Holocaust information, and they surmised that dropping that two-week simulation would be a good way to pick up some time.

 

I will report several responses from the surveys.  Students were allowed to remain anonymous, although a handful chose to sign their names (my personal opinion is that if you’re not willing to stand behind your comments, then maybe they shouldn’t be made).  Positive comments seemed to outweigh negative comments about 9-1!  I will include the questions to which they responded.

 

Which unit did you like the most and why?

 

   The Holocaust unit.  It’s interesting because you learn a lot more about it than you thought you knew.

   Holocaust, definitely.  It really made me look at it all in a different sense.  So much worse than I could’ve imagined.

   The Holocaust unit.  You get more in-depth and learn more than Anne Frank or Auschwitz.

   Holocaust.  I found it very interesting and touching.  You could really sympathize for them.  It made me more grateful for what I have.

   The Holocaust unit was by far my favorite.  The wealth of information was presented thoroughly and accurately.  You could arrange a whole semester on Holocaust study.

   I really enjoyed the information prior to WWII that told how the antisemitic seed was sown in Europe centuries before the Holocaust.

 

Which unit did you like the least and why?

 

   I didn’t like the Holocaust.  Too many notes and too depressing.

 

Which unit do you wish we’d have spent more time studying and why?

 

   I wish we would have spent more time on the Holocaust unit, but I would like to get into more of the personal accounts and stories that you don’t always hear.

   I wish we did more learning videos for the Holocaust unit.  Seeing what happened hits more than taking notes about it.

   The camps and ghettos, because we didn’t really get in depth about the “popular” camps and ghettos, and it would have helped with our papers.

   Holocaust, to help us understand how this could have happened.

   Slavery and Indians, because their social injustices were just as bad as the Holocaust.

 

If you could delete one unit we covered, what would you replace it with and why?

 

   Spend more time learning about Hitler and the Holocaust.  It’s much more interesting and you don’t mind learning about it.

   More of the Holocaust, about children, and Schindler, Mengele.

 

Which unit do you wish we’d have spent less time on, and why?

 

   Given the time constraints I do not believe you can spend less time on slavery or Indian removal, but I would have enjoyed a semester of Holocaust study very much.

   Slavery and pre-Holocaust.

 

Which single assignment did you like the most, and why?

 

   I liked the workbook assignments from the Holocaust book.  I can’t really single one out; they were very interesting.  I learned a lot from them.  I usually liked doing them.

   I liked the questions at the end of each Holocaust chapter.  There was no confusion on assignments and opportunity to work ahead was available.

 

Additional comments:

 

   I think this class is a really good class.  It teaches us about injustices all over the world.  Things we probably didn’t know much about before and it’s a great college prep class.

   I enjoyed the way you taught, by talking about the notes as we were taking them, instead of just making us write them.

   Keep the Holocaust term paper.  Trim down the Holocaust notes.  Maybe make copies of the notes more often and hand them out, because we had better discussions when we didn’t have to write.

   Although I didn’t like the term paper assignment, I think it was necessary in order to understand what happened in the camps.

 

These responses come from students in two classes.  If one thing can be interpreted from the above comments, it’s that these kids have a passion for learning about this particular period of history, and it can perhaps be inferred that they have empathy for not only the Jews, but also other social groups who have gone through similar persecutions.  It is times like these when my faith in today’s teens is restored; at times they seem so carefree, bordering even on self-centeredness.  But they can care, and it’s finding the ways to reach them that continues to not only be one of the major objectives of teaching, but also our hope for a caring community tomorrow.

 

 

Back to The Holocaust:  Teaching the Shoah to High School Students