Holocaust education to be mandatory in Alberta's new social studies curriculum

The Alberta government announced that studying the Holocaust will be a compulsory part of the province's new social studies curriculum. 

The ministry of education will explore when to educate students about the Holocaust. The department will consider the Jewish communities' input and its partners in education, stated the government news release. 

At this time, the Holocaust is a component of a unit called "Perspectives on Nationalism," which students study in Grade 11.

They study the Holocaust as they learn to analyze ultranationalism as a cause of genocide. It is one of the units in a progression of classes Alberta students must take to graduate, said Jason Schilling, the president of the Alberta Teachers' Association. 

"The Holocaust is currently a mandatory topic in the senior high social studies curriculum and teachers would fully expect it to be incorporated in any forthcoming revision," he said in the government's news release. 

Schilling said teachers incorporate the study of the Holocaust in their lesson plans in different ways, including outside the social studies class. 

Schilling teaches high school English and assigns his students Night by Elie Wiesel, a classic piece of Holocaust literature. 

"There's different ways that students can cover the topic throughout their high school education," he said. 

Schilling said he is pleased to see "that the government is reaching out to a lot of different stakeholders to ensure that we're getting the correct input into the curriculum." 

Teachers want to make sure that the government is consulting with them as it develops the new curriculum, he said. 

Holocaust education 'a good foundational base' 

Steve Shafir, the former president of the Jewish Federation of Edmonton, believes there's a way to introduce students to the subject of the Holocaust earlier than Grade 11. 

"I think that there are many different ways in which the teaching of the Holocaust can be intertwined at a much earlier age — obviously, age appropriately — all the way from, probably, Grade 7 or 8 to Grade 12." 

"It can be used in a number of ways throughout grade-level schooling to teach about the effects of genocide and the effect of hate," he said. 

Shafir said antisemitism is a growing problem in Alberta schools. 

"We hear about antisemitism from parents within Alberta's schools repeatedly — sadly, at an increasing rate," he said. 

Shafir said the Holocaust is a solid foundational base to learn about the effects of racism and the results of genocidal policy applied against a targeted group. 

Shafir would like the new curriculum to incorporate testimonies from Holocaust survivors, even if they come to students in the form of video recordings so that the students can learn about the "human aspect" of the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis. 

Teachers up against antisemitic falsehoods on social media

Michael Mostyn, the CEO of B'nai Brith Canada, said teachers have to be very particular about how they present the material about the Holocaust to students who are growing up in a world of social media, where antisemitic falsehoods are rampant. 

He said giving students truthful, factually accurate information will be a real challenge and "inoculating them against the falsehoods and the conspiracies that we see all the time now on social media." 

Mostyn said that by studying the Holocaust, students should be able to understand what "systemic dehumanization" of certain groups can lead to. 

"We have to be teaching about civility, about respect for others, and that everyone is a human being; every individual has human rights," he said. 

"That is a message that can be learnt through the various actions that led to the genocide of the Holocaust," he added. 

"It is a very important lesson that the Holocaust itself can give to our students about what we do not want our society ever to become."