Essay On Should Schools Teach The Holocaust

Should the Holocaust be taught to eighth grade students?

The Holocaust was a very important event in history that students should learn about. Some people believe that eighth grade students just simply aren’t mentally mature enough to learn about the Holocaust. The question at hand is should schools teach the Holocaust to eighth grade students? Are eighth grade students mature enough for the violence, the thinking, and everything that comes with learning about the Holocaust? Schools should teach the Holocaust to eighth grade students because it is important to teach the next generation about the past, the Holocaust confronts adolescents with everyday issues, and how students learn the Holocaust is very important to how they respond to the Holocaust.

“Those who do not know history are destined to repeat it.” (Edmund Burke) This is a powerful quote that many people believe in, they believe that if we do not learn from our past mistakes we will continue to make those mistakes. During the Holocaust other countries, that were not being invaded by Hitler, made a mistake by sitting quietly and not helping Europe to stop Hitler. Recent events prove to show that we have not learned our lesson. In 2003 the government of Sudan carried out genocide against Darfuri citizens. This event took the lives of 300,000 to 400,000 citizens, displaced over two million people, and caused the attacks and destruction of over 400 villages throughout Darfur. This is important because it shows how the lack of education about the past can lead to consequences. After the Holocaust the rest of the world should have learned their lesson about standing by and letting genocide occur. Yet, the genocide in Darfur occurred 58 years after the end of the Holocaust, and the rest of the world didn’t do much to stop the genocide from occurring. This shows us how it is important for the next generation to learn about the Holocaust, about the past, so that they know not to repeat past mistakes, unlike we have already failed at doing so, by letting the genocide in Darfur occur. “In spite of efforts by survivors, scholars, educators, civic leaders, and citizens to uphold the mandate ‘Never again!,’ genocide continues to plague humanity. According to the activist agency Genocide Watch, within the lifetime of today's graduating seniors acts of genocide or ‘ethnic cleansing’ have been perpetrated in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, East Timor, and Sudan.” Apart from learning how to not repeat history, learning about the Holocaust can teach young children things about themselves and about moral issues.
Learning about the Holocaust confronts adolescents with moral issues and issues that they may face in everyday life. Many sources believe that learning about the Holocaust can help children with their present concerns as adolescents. “Holocaust education provides a pathway for students to confront their present concerns involving loyalty, peer pressure, scapegoating, conformity and belonging.” These are things that adolescents may confront in their everyday lives, so learning about them will help them in the future. “ ‘Holocaust education’ to young children—teaching them the importance of accepting difference, caring for the hurt, not judging others, thinking critically… “ These are important things for children to learn at a younger age so that they can carry it into their adulthood. Learning how to accept others that are different, or learning how to think critically, or even learning about loyalty can teach them how to better themselves and become a good citizen for their country. Another point to be made is that students should learn about this topic from teachers or another adult.
Students will eventually learn about the Holocaust, it is better for them to learn about it in school, rather than another source.

Students have access to things like television documentaries, movies, etc. about the Holocaust. It is better for them to learn about the Holocaust from their teachers, rather than television. Television documentaries and movies about the Holocaust will teach about the event without “... intellectually simplifying or emotionally minimizing its tragic content,” for young children. As one source says “... it is better for kids to learn about the Holocaust for the first time from adults who can shape the experience carefully and caringly than for kids to learn about the Holocaust for the first time randomly…” This states that it is better for students to be able to learn about the Holocaust from their teachers and/or adults who can simplify and appropriately explain the events of the Holocaust, rather than them learning about it on their own. Children will come across the Holocaust at one point or another, in our age of advanced technology. It is better for them to learn about the Holocaust from people who can help them understand it better. Despite these descriptive claims for why the Holocaust should be taught to eighth grade students, there is still some doubt as to whether or not it should be

taught.
Teaching about the Holocaust in schools can cause offense to students and it can be age inappropriate. Schools avoid teaching the Holocaust to their students, due to their fear of offending some students. “Schools have avoided teaching the Holocaust and the Crusades in history lessons because they are concerned about causing offence to Muslim pupils or challenging "charged" versions of history which children have been taught at home… avoided selecting the Holocaust as a GCSE topic for fear of confronting ‘anti-semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial’ among some Muslim pupils.” (Vasagar Jeevan) This is a very good point that has been made. There are some students that have learned different thing in their homes and some parents stand firmly in what they have taught their children. The best solution, to avoid offending some students or upsetting any parents, is for a teacher to perhaps send out a permission slip home to all of their students, asking permission for the student to learn about the Holocaust. Teachers should also perhaps, explain the benefits of the students learning about the holocaust. Others argue that “ … early childhood should be a protected time… teaching the Holocaust to youngsters is also developmentally inappropriate; young minds are simply not sophisticated enough to comprehend the complexities of the Holocaust, and young hearts are not well-equipped to tackle the enormity of this tragedy.” While it is agreeable that early childhood should be a protected time, children will eventually learn about the Holocaust in one way or another. With our continuously advancing age of technology, students have access to all kinds of information. It is in everyone’s best interest that the student learns about the Holocaust in a version that will fit their age and maturity level, rather than something off of the internet that is too complex for the student to understand on their own. “... there is an appropriate version of any skill or knowledge that may be imparted at whatever age one wishes to begin teaching—however prepatory that version may be.” No matter their age, kids can always learn about a topic as long as you put it into terms that they can understand. Therefore, it is safe to say that the Holocaust should be taught to eighth grade students, rather than not taught.
Recent events, such as the Darfur genocide in 2003, have reflected the events of the Holocaust. It is important to teach our future generations about the past, so that they do not make the same mistakes. Also, learning about the Holocaust helps students to re-think things. It can also help them with their daily issues that they face as adolescents and even possibly in adulthood. Finally, students will eventually learn about the Holocaust, and it is much better for them to learn about it from an adult who can simplify it for their age, than from a source that will lay out all of the facts and most likely will not simplify the content of the Holocaust. Schools should teach the Holocaust to eighth grade students because it helps students learn history’s mistakes and avoid making them again, the Holocaust confronts adolescents with moral issues that they face everyday, and it is much better for students to learn about this tragic event from a teacher that will make it less complex for the students.