Teaching the Holocaust in School History: Teachers or Preachers?

Description

If we expose students to a study of human suffering we have a responsibility to guide them through it. But is this the role of school history? This issue is the rationale behind teaching the Holocaust primarily historical, moral or social? Is the Holocaust to be taught as a historical event, with a view to developing students' critcal historical skills, or as a tool to combat continuing prejudice and discrimination? These profound questions lie at the heart of Lucy Russell's fascinating analysis of teaching the Holocaust in school history. She considers how the topic of the Holocaust is currently being taught in schools in the UK and overseas. Drawing on interviews with educationalists, academics and teachers, she discovers that there is in fact a surprising lack of consensus regarding the purpose of, and approaches to, teaching the Holocaust in history. Indeed the majority view is distinctly non-historical; there is a tendency to teach the Holocaust from a social and moral perspective and not as history. This book attempts to explain and debate this phenomenon.

Lucy Russell is Lecturer in the Educational Studies Department at Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. Prior to that she was a History teacher at a school in Kent, UK. Dr Lucy Russell taught at Goldsmiths' College, University of London, until the birth of her first child in 2006. She is the author of two education titles (both published by Continuum) and a regular contributor to the Church press.

Title mentioned by author, Lucy Russell, in an article in The Independent [Postgraduate], Thursday 14th February. Mention -Book News, February 2009 Article by Lucy Russell, mentions book * Independent, The * "Teaching the Holocaust is a sensitive and contentious issue. Lucy Russell offers a clear and through outline of the arguments that have surrounded it. There is a fascinating behind-closed-doors account of how the topic passed in and out of favour with the history working group...Lucy Russell's own sympathies clearly lie with the Holocaust-as-ordinary-historical-topic camp, but she doesn't impose them; she invites is to debate the issues she has raised." -- Sean Lang, TES Magazine * TES * Lucy Russell article on Rwanda and war, mentions book. * The Times Higher Education Supplement *