Survey results published in 2020 found that 63 percent of Millennials and members of Generation Z vastly underestimated the number of Jewish people murdered during the Holocaust. That’s according to a report from CBS News. Men and women who find this alarming may be interested in an organization providing a curriculum for teaching the Holocaust to high schoolers.
Relevant Statistics
A full 10 percent of survey respondents were unfamiliar with the word Holocaust. Nearly half could not name even one Nazi concentration camp. Five percent thought the Holocaust took place during the Civil War, and 3 percent associated it with the Vietnam War. Some believe the atrocities have been exaggerated or that the Holocaust is an outright myth.
Implications
A large number of teenagers and adults under 40 clearly are not learning about this part of world history in school or elsewhere. Materials for teaching the Holocaust to high schoolers allow history instructors to easily fit the information into a semester’s syllabus.
Teaching the Curriculum
The organization that developed the curriculum has made the materials appropriate for adolescents. It’s important not to focus too much on statistics. Instead, explaining how the situation affected individuals, families and society brings a better understanding. Details can be presented in a way that helps students relate to what happened and imagine themselves there.
Teachers will want to facilitate discussion among their students. This encourages everyone to think more deeply about a very complex subject. Instructors who would like to know more about this curriculum may visit the website https://zachorlearn.org.
