beautyberry1

I am a pre service history and English teacher. What is something you'd want all teachers to talk about when teaching their students about the Holocaust?

Thank you so much for telling your story and for this advice. It is strongly discouraged amongst history teachers to try and compare the Holocaust to other things in an attempt to help students understand it better. When showing the year 9 group I had last year videos of interviewed survivors, some of them said to me "Is this real, Miss?". It's so shocking to students that is beyond comprehension a lot of the time. Some of these kids didn't know what the Holocaust was and genuinely thought it was just something from the novel we were studying. I had to spend a 60 minute lesson just trying to help them sort the fact from the fiction.
You are amazing for sharing your story. When I went to my local Jewish museum and spoke with a survivor, it changed my life. I'll bet you've changed lives as well.

I haven't had this yet, but keep in mind I am a pre service teacher, so I haven't taught many classes yet!

Some of the students I've had couldn't wrap their heads around it. I played them several videos of survivors talking about what they endured and some just couldn't fathom that people would do that sort of thing to other people. It does make kids sad to discuss it, some try to act macho but you can see it does upset them.