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The boy in the striped pyjamas: a blessing or curse for Holocaust education This essay analyses the effectiveness of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas as a pedagogic tool in Holocaust education. Drawing upon an empirical study conducted on 298 students’ preconceptions of the Holocaust, it suggests that the book and the film have had a large influence on existing ideas and have helped to establish problematic misconceptions. By highlighting its historicalinaccuracies and skewed moral messages, this essay suggests that The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is principally a curse for Holocaust education. It concludes by considering practical responses to the story’s popularity and how its negative impact can be reduced. (By the author) Historical Understanding - Beyond the Past and into the Present In this chapter Boix-Mansilla looks at the possibilities for using history to understand present-day issues. Partially funded through the Facing History and Ourselves organization, this study looked at whether learning about the Holocaust provided a more contextualized understanding of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. This research found that students often used an ineffectual I-know-this-history-so-I-know-that-experience reasoning when making links between the two genocides, even though historical comparisons rely on both similarities and differences in analysis. Boix-Mansilla emphasizes that directed instruction on the process of historical comparison can remedy the weak reasoning demonstrated in the study and cites the literature on the strengths of using history to speak about present events to support this. (By the author) 
Expérience et projet : la pensée de Dewey traduite en action pédagogique Year of publication: 2016 Author: Marc Boutet Corporate author: Phronesis John Dewey parle du sujet comme d’un « agency of doing » qui, par son action, s’efforce de créer du sens. À partir de cette conception, Dewey propose de nouveaux principes d’enseignement mettant l’accent sur l’apprentissage dans un contexte d’activité libre plutôt que dans un contexte de discipline contraignante. L’apprenant n’est plus seulement invité à se représenter le phénomène à comprendre, il est en quelque sorte invité à aller à sa rencontre, à en faire l’expérience, celle-ci étant définie comme une transaction entre l’être humain et son environnement physique et social. Dewey affirmait également que l’absence d’une continuité dans l’expérience marque l’amorce de la démarche d’apprentissage, qu’il nomme démarche d’enquête (inquiry), laquelle n’est plus décrite comme essentiellement individualiste, ce qui fonde sa perception épistémique de la démocratie. Après avoir décrit brièvement notre rencontre avec la pensée éducative de Dewey, nous tenterons d’établir, à partir de sa conception de l’action, de l’enquête et de la démocratie, comment sa pensée peut être considérée comme fondatrice d’une innovation pédagogique majeure symbolisant la réforme de l’éducation au Québec des années 2000 : l’approche par projet. "Hitler is a Bully" Middle School Students’ Perspectives on Holocaust Education in Greater Victoria, British Columbia This study investigates middle school students’ interest in learning about the Holocaust, which methods are the most effective at teaching the Holocaust and how the testimony of Holocaust survivors can be retold to the next generations of middle school students. In order to answer these research questions, my study uses surveys with three classes of current middle school students in Greater Victoria, British Columbia, a focus group with graduate students at the University of Victoria and an interview with Larissa Weber, the director of the Anne Frank Exhibition in Berlin. These quantitative and qualitative results are analyzed using a mixed methods approach. The middle school students’ perceptions regarding effective educational methods when teaching the Holocaust in my limited sample (n=77 in the first survey and n=58 in the second survey) suggest that there is a connection between personal narrative and empathy when teaching the Holocaust in middle school classrooms. These findings are contextualized with a summary of the history of Holocaust education in Canadian public schools and a discussion regarding the role of empathy in learning about the Holocaust. (By the author) 
Educating Citizens at School: Individualization and Depoliticization of Citizenship Year of publication: 2018 Author: Géraldine Bozec Corporate author: Lien social et Politiques This text analyzes the features and the figures of the legitimate citizen in the sphere of school, through both official guidelines and school staff’s conceptions and practices. Data from two qualitative fieldwork surveys in French schools are used. The analysis focuses on the political dimension of citizenship: the relationship between individuals and power and their agency in collective and political life. Overall, citizens’ participation is a secondary dimension in school citizenship education, which rather emphasizes the intellectual autonomy of the critical citizen. The school hardly offers tools enabling students to understand political life, its issues, its actors and its concrete processes. The avoidance of political issues that is observed in classrooms is related to a particular conception of school political neutrality, but still more to the objective of cohesion officially attributed to school and recognized by teachers as legitimate. In other respects, citizenship is increasingly intended to be translated into the school life itself, whose modes of organization must move closer to those of adult political democracy. The article shows the limitations of such an analogy between the school and political society and identifies several obstacles that hinder the implementation of this “democratic school”. Lastly, it highlights the gap between the emphasis on the figure of individual citizen in the school space and the relationship to groups entailed by the actual practice of citizenship. La formation du citoyen à l’école : individualisation et dépolitisation de la citoyenneté Year of publication: 2018 Author: Géraldine Bozec Corporate author: Lien social et Politiques Ce texte analyse les qualités et les figures du citoyen légitime dans la sphère de l’école, en s’intéressant à la fois aux directives officielles et aux représentations et pratiques des acteurs scolaires. Les données de deux enquêtes qualitatives conduites dans des établissements scolaires français sont ici mobilisées. Le regard porte prioritairement sur la dimension politique de la citoyenneté : le rapport de l’individu au pouvoir et sa capacité d’action dans la vie collective et politique. Globalement, la participation du citoyen apparait comme une dimension relativement secondaire dans l’éducation scolaire à la citoyenneté, au profit de l’autonomie intellectuelle du citoyen critique. L’école offre peu d’outils permettant aux élèves d’appréhender la vie politique, ses enjeux, ses acteurs et ses processus concrets. L’évitement des sujets politiques que l’on observe dans les classes renvoie non seulement à une conception particulière de la neutralité politique, mais aussi et surtout à l’objectif de cohésion qui est attribué officiellement à l’école et que les enseignants reconnaissent comme légitime. La citoyenneté est par ailleurs censée s’exprimer de plus en plus dans la vie même de l’établissement, dont les modes de fonctionnement doivent se rapprocher de la démocratie politique adulte. Le texte montre les limites d’une telle analogie entre la sphère scolaire et la société politique et identifie divers obstacles qui pèsent sur la mise en oeuvre de cette « démocratie scolaire ». Il met enfin en évidence le décalage entre l’insistance sur la figure d’un individu-citoyen dans l’espace scolaire et l’inscription dans des collectifs que suppose l’exercice réel de la citoyenneté. Experience and Project: Dewey thought Translated into Pedagogical Action Year of publication: 2016 Author: Marc Boutet Corporate author: Phronesis John Dewey talks about child as an «agency of doing» which, by its action, strives to create meaning. From this view, Dewey offers new teaching principles focusing on learning in a context of free activity rather than in a context of restrictive discipline. The child is no longer just invited to represent the phenomenon to understand, it is somehow invited to meet it, to experience it, experience being defined as a transaction between the human being and physical and social environment. Dewey also said that the lack of continuity in the experience marks the beginning of the learning process, he called inquiry, no longer described as essentially individualistic, which bases his epistemic perception of democracy. After briefly describing our meeting with Dewey’s educational thought, we will try to establish, from his conception of action, inquiry and democracy, how his thought can be considered as a foundation for a major innovation educational innovation symbolizing education reform in Quebec of the 2000s: the project approach. Teaching the Holocaust in Primary Schools in Scotland: Modes, methodology and content Most consideration of teaching the Holocaust in Britain is based on teaching pupils aged 12-15 in England (Supple, 1993; Short, 1995; Carrington & Short, 1997; Brown & Davies, 1998). This paper directs attention to some experiences of teaching the Holocaust to pupils of primary stages 5-7 in Scotland (i.e. those aged between 9 and 11) and considers the significance of teaching Holocaust history in the primary context. The rationale for teaching this area is examined both in terms of the topicality, the universality of its lessons and the suggestions in various documentation about developing positive values in pupils. Eight primary teachers, five of whom regularly teach aspects of the Holocaust to this age group in Scottish schools when allocated the upper primary stages, were interviewed at length to ascertain the nature of the integration of the Holocaust into the Scottish 5-14 curriculum, the methodologies applied and the content of their studies. These findings are analysed and their implications discussed. (By the author) 
Holocaust Memorial Days : An overview of remembrance and education in the OSCE region Year of publication: 2015 Corporate author: OSCE. Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) This publication provides an overview of governmental and non-governmental practices in the OSCE area to commemorate the Holocaust. It is intended to promote remembrance and education by publicizing and facilitating the exchange of good practices. The publication shows that most OSCE governments, as well as many local and municipal authorities, schools, civil society organizations, religious groups and others, are actively involved in Holocaust commemoration activities. While many of these activities take place throughout the year, there is a particular focus on promoting Holocaust remembrance, research and education during Holocaust Memorial Days. Across the world, 27 January, the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, is devoted to educating future generations about the Holocaust. This overview provides a snapshot of the types of Holocaust education activities that have been developed to mark Holocaust Memorial Days, while also identifying where and how the Holocaust is taught in schools throughout the region. (By the publisher) Authentic Pedagogy and the Holocaust: A Critical Review of State Sponsored Holocaust Curricula Year of publication: 2005 Author: Samuel Totten | Karen L. Riley Over the past decade and a half, states in all regions of the United States have formed Holocaust councils, advisory groups, and other agencies for the purpose of developing educational programs in response to a growing interest in the Holocaust. Some states have called upon educators and Holocaust agencies within the state to develop curricula and/or resource materials for use in social studies and English classrooms. Furthermore, many states now either strongly recommend the teaching of the Holocaust or mandate that it be taught in their public schools. In the present paper, we present a critical analysis of the instructional strategies advocated in state–sponsored Holocaust curricula. We ground our evaluation within the framework of authentic pedagogy—particularly the work of Fred Newmann. More than an attempt to simply criticize these works, we offer constructive alternatives to inadequate and/or poorly designed instructional strategies. Fundamental to the intent of this paper is its usefulness as a guide for evaluating instructional activities designed to support the teaching of content knowledge about the Holocaust. (By the author)