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    Categories: 2017

A ‘huge step’in effort to teach Quebec youth about genocide

The Gazette (Montreal)
November 28, 2017 Tuesday


A 'huge step'in effort to teach Quebec youth about genocide

by ALLISON HANES, The Gazette


There are countless sayings about the importance of learning from
history to avoid the mistakes of the past. And yet humans are
hopelessly inept at heeding this wisdom, particularly when it comes to
teaching history.

Quebec's Grade 11 contemporary world history course barely mentions
some of the most consequential and chilling events of the 20th
century. The Holocaust as well as the Armenian, Cambodian and Rwandan
genocides are mentioned in a single paragraph in a chapter of the
history textbook devoted to tension and conflict. Similarly, the Grade
8 history course glosses over the mass murder of six million Jews by
the Nazis as an example of the deprivation of freedom under the
heading of civil rights.

But a group that has been working to rectify this shockingly
inadequate instruction is on the verge of a major breakthrough in
convincing the Quebec government to act.

The Montreal-based Foundation for the Compulsory Study of Genocide in
Schools has a meeting this Thursday with senior officials from the
Quebec education ministry. A working group has been struck to develop
a teaching manual for teachers on how to teach about genocide.

"This is a huge step," said Heidi Berger, the founder and director of
the organization.

While the first meeting of the stakeholders who will create this
toolkit falls short of the foundation's ultimate goal - having the
study of genocide incorporated into Quebec's high school curriculum -
it is a promising start.

At present, teachers can address genocide with their students, but it
is optional.

"They could spend two minutes or they could spend two hours or they
could spend two days," Berger said. "No teacher has to teach if they
don't want to and they often don't have time to teach it."

Also, many who might be interested simply aren't sure how. So, too few
do. The result is that too many Quebec students graduate ignorant
about the darkest chapters in human history, a sad comment on our
efforts to ensure such atrocities never happen again.

Berger has been campaigning for the study of genocide to be part of
history courses for years. Her motivation is intensely personal.
Berger's mother survived the Holocaust in Poland, witnessing the rape
of her best friend, the firing-squad execution of her father and
brother, and the murder of her mother. After immigrating to Quebec,
she didn't speak much about her ordeal. But in her later years, she
began sharing her story with young people who were the same age she
was when she lived through the Holocaust. She visited high schools and
recorded her testimony for Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation.

After her mother died of cancer in 2006, Berger, a documentary
filmmaker, felt compelled to continue her work. Berger brought her
mother's story via video to students in Quebec. But only in response
to invitations.

What began as a one-woman crusade to change the curriculum has morphed
into a movement since Berger started the foundation. It now counts
several experts and educators as board members and has gained powerful
political allies. But the effort to convince the Quebec government to
do something has at times been an uphill battle.

Former education minister François Blais and his deputies were
disinterested when approached. In contrast, current Liberal Education
Minister Sébastien Proulx was sympathetic when they first met him two
years ago.

"It helped that he's a history buff himself," Berger recalled. "He
said, 'I never learned about genocide in school, I learned about it in
movies.'" Since then, Liberal MNA David Birnbaum tabled a petition in
the National Assembly with 3,000 signatures the foundation gathered.
And the group has captured the ear of Anne-Marie Lepage, the deputy
minister of primary and secondary education. After a meeting in
October, the government set up the working group to create the
genocide teaching resources.

A guide might encourage more teachers to address this difficult
material, even without changing the curriculum, although it won't make
it mandatory. Berger said she is optimistic it will pave the way to a
pedagogical day dedicated to training teachers on how to broach the
disturbing subject.

Expanding young Quebecers'awareness of genocide - and, crucially, to
recognize precursors - is urgent in the era of fake news, social media
echo chambers, identity politics and attempts to undermine democracy.

"It's not enough to hear a testimonial. They have to learn about the
steps that lead to genocide ...

There's classification, separation, stigmatization, dehumanization,
justification, elimination," Berger said, rhyming off some of these
preconditions. "They have to learn the critical-thinking skills around
it."

Education is the key to combating racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism,
Islamophobia and radicalism - dangerous forces that have contributed
to the massacre at a Quebec City mosque last January, the rise of
far-right groups and an uptick in hate crimes.

It's essential for people to realize genocide is not a concept
consigned to the history books. The Rohingya are being annihilated by
the army in Myanmar. The Yazidi were systematically slaughtered by
Islamic State terrorists in Iraq. And the cultural genocide against
Indigenous Peoples in Canada continues to play out in ways big and
small.

The stakes could not be higher. Each time terrible things happen, we
wonder why and ask ourselves how to prevent a repeat. The answers are
often simpler than we expect.

Youth must be educated about the grave mistakes of the not-sodistant
past. And teachers need to be taught how to bring these imperative
lessons into the classroom. But the curriculum must also be changed to
reflect the importance of history to society - present and future.

Vatche Chakhmakhchian:
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