I remember sitting on my parents' bed one evening after dinner when I was seven years old, squeezing into a spot next to my older brother, Marc. In the coziness and safety of their room—walls clad in purple fabric and a white shag rug underfoot—my parents began to share their stories.
Topics: Choosing to Participate, New York, Identity, Facing History Together, Holocaust, Memoir, Facing History and Ourselves, Survivor Testimony
December 10 is International Human Rights Day. Below are five resources that help make connections between struggles for human rights from history and our own lives today.
Topics: Books, Choosing to Participate, Human Rights, Facing History Resources, Video, History
For 38 years, Facing History and Ourselves has been empowering young people to examine complex moments in history and understand the transformative power we all possess as human beings. This Giving Tuesday, we are sharing some of the ways Facing History students and teachers around the world are making positive differences.
Topics: Classrooms, Give, Choosing to Participate, Students, Schools, Facing History Together, Facing History and Ourselves, Teachers
Each year, Facing History and Ourselves and Knights and Daughters of Vartan host an annual Armenian Genocide Commemoration Essay Contest. In 2014, the contest asked high school and college students across the United States to respond to the question, “On the threshold of the 100th anniversary, how should the world recognize the Armenian Genocide?” This essay, from Facing History student Elizabeth Ray, took second place. It was reprinted with Elizabeth's permission.
Topics: Student Voices, Online Workshop, Choosing to Participate, Armenian Genocide, Facing History Resources, Teaching, Facing History Together, Genocide/Collective Violence, Facing History and Ourselves, Teaching Resources, History
From over 400 nominations, we selected 20 finalists from around the world for the 2014 Facing History Together Teacher Recognition Contest. Then you voted for the educator whose story and work inspired you most.
Today we are so thrilled to introduce you to our 2014 Facing History Together Teacher Recognition Contest winner Hayden Frederick-Clarke, the founding math teacher at Diploma Plus, a small learning community at Charlestown High School in Boston, Massachusetts. Frederick-Clarke will receive a $5,000 teaching grant to benefit his school and community, and to further his work as a great educator.
Topics: Classrooms, Boston, Contests, Choosing to Participate, Teaching, Schools, Identity, Facing History Together, Upstanders, Facing History and Ourselves, Teachers
Teachers have to create this emotional space where it’s safe, but challenging. Where people can be themselves. Where people can take chances and fail. Where people can tell stories about themselves and reveal things about themselves without risk of derision, without fear of being marginalized. Without safety there is nothing, there is no learning.”
Topics: Classrooms, Choosing to Participate, Events, Safe Schools, Schools, Memphis, Identity, Facing History Together, Upstanders, Facing History and Ourselves, Teachers, Video
Topics: Classrooms, Student Voices, Choosing to Participate, Events, Human Rights, New York, Facing History Together, Upstanders, Facing History and Ourselves, Teachers
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Seventy years ago this fall, the word "genocide" made its debut into the English language, on page 79 of the 674-page Axis Rule in Occupied Europe [which you can find here in Reading 3], in a chapter called "Genocide—A New Term and New Conception for Destruction of Nations."
Topics: Books, Choosing to Participate, Armenian Genocide, Human Rights, Facing History Resources, Teaching, Upstanders, Genocide/Collective Violence, Facing History and Ourselves, Teaching Resources, Video, History
National Anti-Bullying Week takes place in the United Kingdom 17th to 21st of November. This year's theme is "let's stop bullying for all."
Topics: Classrooms, United Kingdom, Webinar, Online Tools, Professional Development, Film, Teaching Strategies, Bullying and Ostracism, Choosing to Participate, Human Behavior, Human Rights, Facing History Resources, Safe Schools, Teaching, Schools, Identity, Facing History and Ourselves, Teaching Resources
The recent row over Bill Maher and Ben Affleck's heated discussion of Islam on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher strikes me as an opportunity for a civic lesson–one rooted not in debating who is right or wrong, or who is bigoted or not, but one, that, in true Facing History and Ourselves fashion, is rooted in history. At Facing History, we have learned that history often provides a needed distance from which we can illuminate the present and inform more productive civic dialogue.
Topics: Antisemitism, Choosing to Participate, Human Behavior, Human Rights, Facing History Resources, Religious Tolerance, News, Readings, Identity, Facing History and Ourselves, Teaching Resources, History