Starting in Elementary School Archives - Teach the Shoah

Teaching the lessons of the Holocaust through storytelling, not allegory

Deborah Fripp — Wed, 20 Nov 2019 07:28:23 +0000

Stories are the bounty of Jewish culture. The Torah builds from our origin with history and lessons for living and dying. If the Torah is a tree of life, then storytelling is its roots. We teach our values to our children through the stories of our ancestors. What, then, do we do when we need to tell stories that are difficult to hear? How do we apply our tradition of storytelling to the story of the Holocaust? [Redirects to the Times of Israel]

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Can we just color camels? Do we need to teach the hard stuff?

Deborah Fripp — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 07:46:17 +0000

Can’t religious school be just about coloring camels from Torah portions? Do we have to teach the hard stuff? Many religious school education directors have fielded questions along these lines from concerned parents.
In classic Jewish fashion, the best answer is another question: How do we want our children to learn about the Holocaust? [redirects to the Times of Israel]

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How to talk to your kids about the Holocaust

Deborah Fripp — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 01:38:06 +0000

“Mom, what do you know about the Holocaust?” You swallow, take a deep breath, play for time, your mind racing. “They’re not old enough to know about this,” you think to yourself frantically. “Can’t I hold on to their innocence just a little bit longer?” They’ll never be old enough. No one is old enough to really deal with the atrocities of the world. I know I’m not. But ignoring evil does not make it go away. Ignoring evil gives it space to grow. We must face evil, and we must help our children to face it. [redirects to the Times of Israel.]

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Safety Nets for Teaching the Holocaust to Children

Deborah Fripp — Thu, 24 May 2018 02:07:52 +0000

Discussing the Holocaust with young children is important but takes careful planning. How we present Holocaust stories makes a big difference to whether the lessons feel traumatic to them. [Redirects to the Times of Israel]

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Teaching the Holocaust in Kindergarten

Deborah Fripp — Fri, 18 May 2018 02:24:23 +0000

Done carefully, Holocaust education should start in kindergarten and continue with progressively deeper layers into adulthood.

The basis of this age-layered Holocaust education is twofold: we must prepare our students for the full story, but we need not tell the whole story at every age. Preparing our students means telling age-appropriate, true yet balanced stories. In this way, we build a layered foundation upon which students can grow into the full story.

Over the past few weeks, we have been discussing critical mistakes we often make in teaching the Holocaust. We discussed the mistake of teaching through tears and the mistake of teaching through role play. We now come to the third mistake: Waiting until too late before starting a discussion of the Holocaust.

Mistake #3: Starting Too Late.

Most of us would agree that there are some Holocaust stories that should not be shared with the very young. For example, it is not appropriate to tell second graders about that time when their great-grandparents were rounded up and shot for being Jews. On the other hand, if we wait until middle or high school to even mention the Holocaust, then our students will get stuck in the basic facts of the Holocaust and never get the chance to grapple with the complexities of our history.

Read the complete blog at the Times of Israel.

Teaching the Holocaust in Kindergarten

Breaking the Holocaust myth of evil monsters and indifferent bystanders

What do you think of when you hear the word “Holocaust”? I bet you think of helpless Jews wiped away by evil monsters while the world watched and did nothing. Every word in that sentence is wrong. The Jews were not helpless, and they were not wiped away. The Nazis were not evil monsters. And … Continue reading Breaking the Holocaust myth of evil monsters and indifferent bystanders

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