Resources
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Regional handbook on life skills programmes for non-formal education Year of publication: 2012 Corporate author: UNESCO Office Bangkok The Regional Handbook on Life Skills Programme for Non-formal Education (NFE) was developed for education policy makers, experts in curriculum development, materials development and trainers of personnel in the field of NFE, NFE practitioners such as Community Learning Centres (CLCs) personnel, teachers and facilitators, and researchers. It aims to provide information about life skills programmes and to serve as a practical guide to implement educational programmes to enhance life skills. It is expected to help NFE personnel with adopting, adapting and integrating life skills programmes in NFE. This Handbook consists of two parts as follows: Part one- overview of Life Skills Programme for Non-formal Education (NFE), Part Two- Practical Guide on Integrating Life Skills Programme in NFE. Part One provides answers to various questions related to life skills and life skills progrmmes. Part Two intends to provide practical information about the systematic planning and implementation of life skills programmes for NFE. It offers suggested steps for curriculum development, development of teaching and learning materials, delivery of life skills programmes and monitoring and evaluation strategies. Details of this process are elaborated for NFE practitioners at various levels, but in particular at the community level. This Handbook was developed based on the project outputs of UNESCO Bangkok's 'Life Skills Learning through Non-formal Education" carried out in Asia and the Pacific region from 2003-2006 within the framework of Asia-Pacific Programme of Education for All (APPEAL). The project consisted of country studies, regional meetings, pilot projects and action research in selected countries in the region. A group of experts from the region consolidated the main outputs of the project and developed this Handbook through a series of workshops in 2006-2007 in coordination with UNESCO Bangkok and the office of Non-formal and Informal Education (ONIE) of Thailand Ministry of Education. In addition, resource materials of various organizations including United Nations agencies, government institutions, universities and NGOs were also collected and used for developing this Handbook. 
Controversial Issues - Teachers' attitudes and practices in the context of citizenship education Year of publication: 2004 Author: Christopher Oultona | Vanessa Dayb | Justin Dillon | Marcus Graced A survey of the literature suggests that the principles and methods relating to the teaching of controversial issues are themselves controversial. This irony is more relevant to teachers now than ever before. This paper explores the issue of teachers' readiness to use controversial issues in the classroom, and reports on research involving focus groups and questionnaires. We suggest that many teachers are under‐prepared and feel constrained in their ability to handle this aspect of their work. 
Terrorism, Religious and Ethnic Intolerance Issues in the Syllabuses and Textbooks of Bengali and English Medium and Madrasah Education in Bangladesh an Appraisal Year of publication: 2014 Author: NM Sajjadul Hoque The author argues that education is a catalyst for social change and a powerful instrument for overcoming social and security problems. In other words, the author believes that syllabuses and textbooks of both the general and madrasa education streams of Bangladesh have a significant role in educating people to counter terrorism as well as religious and ethnic intolerance. This paper attempts, however, by reviewing the current syllabuses and textbooks of general and madrasa education streams, and also by assessing peoples’ opinions in Bangladesh, to know whether the syllabuses and text books are adequately addressing, or not, the issues of terrorism and religious and ethnic intolerance. 
Unsafe Gods: Security, secularism and schooling Year of publication: 2014 Author: Lynn Davies This book makes the compelling argument that religion can be complicit in conflict and that a new secularism is vital to foster security. Using insights from complexity science, it shows how dynamic secularism can be used to accommodate diverse faiths and beliefs within worldly politics. Exploration of the interplay of religion and education in the context of security and notions of safe schools offers new understandings of how religions learn – or instead remain frozen accidents that hinder societies from adapting to change. The book shows how turbulence and amplification underscore the necessity for an education that is critical even of patriarchal religious texts and that recognizes the power of satire and humour. 
Good practices in education for sustainable development: teacher education institutions Year of publication: 2007 Author: Rosalyn McKeown Corporate author: UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Teacher Education towards Sustainability | International Network of Teacher Education Institutions The case studies in this document reflect individual and institutional efforts to reorient curriculum, programs, practices, and policies to address sustainability at institutions of teacher education. The studies come from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, and North America. The case studies deal with professional development for in-service teachers, curriculum revision at the pre-service level, research with students in a local school, greening of a building and its garden, creating a network of universities, starting a journal, and creating new undergraduate and graduate programs. The diversity of efforts is broad; the impact is deep. The dedication of teacher educators around the world is evident on every page of this document. 
Breaking Historical Silence through Cross-cultural collaboration: Latvian curriculum writers and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum fellows In response to the need for Holocaust curricula in Latvia, Latvians and Americans worked collaboratively to overcome the historical silence surrounding this event. During their project, Latvian curriculum writers worked with teachers and scholars at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This descriptive analysis of the Latvians' experience with Museum Fellows revealed opportunities to learn from each other the complexities of teaching the Holocaust in a country viewed by some as collaborators and still somewhat anti-Semitic. Findings included depth of guidance, values, and limits of innovative teaching methods, cross-cultural benefits, and continued collaboration. Recommendations for future efforts by post-Communist countries and American partners to develop curriculum on teaching a most complex and contentious aspect of history such as the Holocaust conclude the study. (By the author) 
Israeli Youth Pilgrimages to Poland. Rationale and Polemics The article, based on material collected as part of a project evaluating the pilgrimage trips to Poland by Israeli adolescents as part of the Holocaust curriculum, attempts to provide the reader with the background for these trips. In this context, the authors discuss the evolving national agenda in Israel, and the transition from experiencing independence to experiencing the Holocaust. The authors of the article stress that in the wake of the profound social changes that took place in Israeli society, the memory of the Holocaust gained new significance among the country’s national priorities. While a policy known as “the great silence” regarding the Holocaust prevailed among the first generation after statehood, the Holocaust has now become a factor that shaped the national ethos. In 1979, for the first time, the Ministry of Education commissioned two curricula dealing exclusively with the Holocaust. The article notes that the Holocaust and its lessons can be examined from three different perspectives: The first focuses on presenting the universal significance of the Holocaust and perceiving it as parallel to other cases of genocide. The second focuses on presenting the national significance of the Holocaust as a unique and unparalleled case of the Jewish People. The perception held by this approach is actually “the whole world is against us.” The third perspective is a synthesis of these two approaches. In this article, the authors note that the longstanding debate in Israeli society over the various methods for instilling the Holocaust and the journeys to Poland by adolescents expresses these three perspectives. (By the author) The Construction of the American Holocaust Curriculum Remembering the Holocaust has become a central part of American culture. The Holocaust has also become an important topic in the nation's schools. By the 1990s many states had adopted or mandated their own Holocaust curricula in addition to the dozens of organizations dedicated to Holocaust study and education in the United States. This rise in interest was accompanied by a public debate over how to represent the Holocaust properly in American life, making the Holocaust one of the most controversial historical topics of the late twentieth century. This study traced the construction of the Holocaust curriculum through historical case studies of five of the first Holocaust curricula taught in American classrooms, through which I present two major arguments. First, that Holocaust education was a grassroots movement engineered by school teachers ‒ many of whom were not Jewish. These teachers introduced the Holocaust as way to help students navigate the moral and ethical dilemmas of the time. Certain researchers have suggested that Jewish elites pushed the Holocaust into the American consciousness, or that this interest was initiated by events in popular culture. My research will complicate both these claims. My second argument is that the intense debate over how to represent the Holocaust in the curriculum has been misinterpreted as a cultural clash over different interpretations of the event ‒ the Jewish version vs. the "Americanized" one. This explanation is too simplistic. The controversy is better understood as a curricular debate over the teaching of history. For nearly a century, educational researchers, interest groups, and historians have argued over the role and purpose of history in the schools. Having entered into this debate, the topic of the Holocaust has made these issues more conspicuous to the general public. (By the author) Developing Holocaust Curricula: The Content Decision-Making Process The content decision-making process involved in developing Holocaust curricula is unusually complex and problematic. Educators must consider factors such as historical accuracy, selection of topics covered, potential teaching materials (such as textbooks and literary texts), and graphic materials (such as films and photographs) as they plan their Holocaust units. Judiciously considered decisions regarding these factors allow teachers to present accurate, appropriate and meaningful units on the subject, thus conveying the story of the Holocaust in ways that are pedagogically sound and historically viable. Accordingly, the author does not focus on the content to be included in a Holocaust unit but rather considers several factors important to selecting that content. (By the author) The Holocaust in the textbooks and in the History and citizenship education program of Quebec This article analyzes the treatment of the Holocaust in Quebec's history textbooks, in view of the subject's potential and actual contribution to human rights education. Given that Quebec's curriculum includes citizenship education in its history programme, it could be argued that the inclusion of the Holocaust has particular relevance in this context, as it contributes to the study of both history and civics, and familiarizes Quebec's youth with representations of Quebec's Jewish community, which is primarily concentrated in Montreal. This article demonstrates that the textbooks' treatment of the Holocaust is often superficial and partial, and prevents Quebec's students from fully grasping the impact of this historical event on contemporary society. (By the publisher)