On International Women’s Day, bring the unique voices of women who survived or stood up against some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century into your classroom. Facing History is partnering with USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education to help educators access more than 1,500 video testimonies of survivors and witnesses to the Holocaust and other genocides using the Institute’s online learning tool, IWitness.
Topics: Memory, Survivor Testimony, Video, Holocaust Education, The Nanjing Atrocities, Rwanda, International Women's Day, IWitness
In an interview with Facing History and Ourselves, sociologist Claude Steele explained that “stereotypes are one way in which history affects present life.” Stereotypes about race are among the most common. The challenge many of us face is that there are few opportunities to talk about the impact of stereotypes, where they come from, and how to break them down. Schools can provide opportunities for these important discussions, yet teachers too often lack both resources and professional development to help them navigate what can be difficult terrain.
Topics: Classrooms, Race and Membership, Teaching Resources, Video, Eugenics/Race Science, New York Times
When you use video in the classroom, are you asking your students to be passive or active?
I can certainly appreciate the leisurely watching of movies and television shows, even documentaries. But as a teacher, when I chose to use valuable class time to view videos, I wanted my students to be as engaged as possible.
Topics: Video, Flipped Classroom, Facing Technology, Lesson Plans, Learning, Zaption
2015 marks a decade of partnership between Facing History and Ourselves and The Allstate Foundation. Together, we have held over 100 Community Conversations in ten cities, engaging more than 70,000 teachers, parents, and community members.
Topics: Facing History Together, Video, Sonia Nazario, Isabel Wilkerson, Community Conversations, Wes Moore, Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Douglas Blackmon, Don Cheadle, Bryan Stevenson, Lynsey Addario, Margaret Stohl
One of the reasons I went into teaching was for the opportunity to transform lives, but I didn’t anticipate how much my students would transform me. A Facing History and Ourselves classroom naturally lends itself to fostering a deep sense of community, collaboration, and constructed knowledge. And through this process, everyone ends up seeing the world a little differently, including the teacher.
Topics: Poetry, Spoken Word, Identity, Facing History Together, Video, Music, Hurricane Katrina
Over the last few weeks, South Africa has been rocked by xenophobic violence.
According to The New York Times, approximately five million immigrants have settled in South Africa since the end of the apartheid in 1994. Many are refugees, or are pursuing economic opportunities in the country, which has become a relatively stable multiracial democracy. Many native South Africans are greeting these newcomers with prejudice, hatred, and violence—destroying local businesses and in some cases committing murder. Today, South Africa’s immigrant population lives in fear.
Unfortunately, the trend is not new. In 2007, a year before xenophobic attacks would break out nationwide, violence erupted in the small township of Zwelethemba, about two hours from Cape Town.
A Facing History teacher at the local high school recognized that his community was in crisis.
Topics: Choosing to Participate, Human Rights, Immigration, Safe Schools, Teaching, Schools, Video, South Africa, Margot Stern Strom Innovation Grants
I am not Armenian.
I did not grow up learning about the Armenian Genocide.
I attended schools in two of the best public school districts in Southern California and achieved not just an undergraduate degree, but two master's degrees. I had been teaching for several years before I ever learned about the Armenian Genocide.
Topics: Armenian Genocide, Facing History Resources, Genocide/Collective Violence, Teaching Resources, Video, History
Poetry is one of my favorite mediums for teaching social studies.
Topics: Classrooms, Civil Rights Movement, Teaching Strategies, Poetry, Teaching Resources, Survivor Testimony, Video, History
Welcome to the fourth and final installment of our four-part blog series exploring the connections between music, history, and social change. In this fourth lesson, students will begin to contemplate the role of music as a social change agent.
Topics: Art, Teaching Resources, Video, Civil Rights, Sounds of Change, Flipped Classroom, Facing Technology
Next week marks Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. While Yom HaShoah affords us the opportunity to honor the memory of those we lost during the Holocaust, it's also a time to commemorate and celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the lives and communities decimated during this dark moment in history.
Topics: Classrooms, Art, Books, Online Tools, Benjamin B. Ferencz, Memory, Choosing to Participate, Facing History Resources, Teaching, Holocaust, Upstanders, Teaching Resources, Survivor Testimony, Video, History