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FACING
HISTORY
AND
OURSELVES
copy
September 28, 1984
Lisa Caputo
Deputy Assistant to the President
Press Secretary to the First Lady
First Lady's Press Office
Old Executive Office Building
Room 100
Washington, D. C. 20500
Dear Lisa:
Terry Schaefer suggested that I contact you about the possibility of a meeting between Mrs.
Clinton and Margot Stern Strom to discuss the violence prevention initiative that Mrs. Clinton is
about to launch. I understand that Terry called you about Margot's work as Executive Director of
the Facing History and Ourselves Foundation.
Last Friday at a fund raiser for Sen. Kennedy, Margot and I heard Mrs. Clinton and I think
that both would benefit from talking with each other about this critical issue. With Facing
History's National Teacher Training Team, Margot has pioneered a violence prevention
program to train teachers to help children develop critical thinking skills and learn about
citizenship and individual choice. Margot has an extraordinary wealth of knowledge and
hands-on experience with classroom teachers, educators, community leaders and most
importantly from students whose voices she refers to as "our true moral philosophers."
Annually more than 500,000 students, as well as thousands of teachers, participate in the
Facing History program across the nation.
I understand that you all are in the beginning stages of this project but Terry encouraged me
to see if Margot might speak with Mrs. Clinton early on during the planning phase. I know
that I may be prejudiced but I think Margot's unique perspective, tremendous knowledge and
down-to-earth style are a good match to Mrs. Clinton's open and thoughtful manner.
Vickie Kennedy has also spoken with Margot numerous times about the Facing
History program. In addition, Sen. Kennedy's staff has been supportive of our work.
Margot would be happy to come to Washington and would be flexible in order to
accommodate Mrs. Clinton's schedule. Thank you for your interest.
Sincerely,
Erica Erica Stern
Stern
Director of External Relations
FACING HISTORY AND OURSELVES NATIONAL FOUNDATION, INC 16 HURD ROAD. BROOKLINE. MA 02146-6919
617-232-1595
FAX 617-232-0281
FI
Printed on Recycled Paper
FACING
HISTORY
AND
OURSELVES
Facing History and Ourselves is a national educational and teacher training organization
which provides a powerful, thought-provoking course of study for middle and high
school students that both examines a watershed event of the twentieth century--the
Holocaust--and directly links issues of individual choice and social justice to the day to
day experience of young people, particularly those in urban areas. It is a dynamic, long-
term educational approach that provides an ongoing system of services to help improve
the overall quality of instruction to a school system, encouraging professional leadership
and building a constituency that links the school and the community.
Facing History is doing something vitally important to the future of our country--bringing
social justice and citizenship education into the schools, the only place where our nation's
diversity is truly represented. Children of all social, economic, and racial backgrounds
have the opportunity to explore the issues of peer pressure, scapegoating, and the
responsibility of the individual in a democratic society.
The program is having a profound effect on education by preparing teachers to help
students learn to think critically and to connect history to the moral choices they face in
their own lives. Facing History illuminates themes of racism, antisemitism, and violence,
and the difference each individual can make when a stand is taken for what is right.
Begun as a local grassroots organization 18 years ago, Facing History has a national
impact on school reform. It is a model for partnership between government and the
private sector, as it is now disseminated through the National Diffusion Network and
funded by a combination of individual, foundation, and government grants. Founded by
two Brookline middle school teachers, Facing History now reaches over 500,000
adolescents each year through the work of program staff in the national headquarters in
Boston, regional offices in Chicago, Memphis and New York, and major initiatives in
Baltimore, Los Angeles, and many other areas.
Facing History is an archetype of what can be done to jump-start education in urban areas
by addressing the questions that kids face every day. Facing History provides timely
classroom materials and the staff development opportunities necessary for teachers to
address these crucial issues through a rigorous program of study. By working directly
with teachers, Facing History's impact is multiplied each year that a trained teacher
works with groups of students.
If you would like to receive further information or become involved with the work of
Facing History, we encourage you to call or write our national headquarters in Brookline.
FACING HISTORY AND OURSELVES NATIONAL FOUNDATION INC to HURD ROAD BROOKLINE MA 02146-6919
617-232-1595
FAX 617-232-0281
Printed on Recycled Paper
Boston Sunday Blobe
Fighting hate's
hidden curriculum
Excerpted from an editorial by
Margot Stern Strom, Executive Director
"Increasingly, the nation's youth are expressing
rage through violence. We must provide our
our
children with a reason to go to school - a
curriculum that matters. We need to re-
energize, re-support and re-tool our teachers to
reach and to teach the students who need the
lessons of tolerance first before they can
practice the science, math and history neces-
sary to work and live in this complex world
3
Facing History's Approach to Violence Prevention
Facing History's approach to violence prevention
Facing History encourages students to look for
emphasizes the decision making process. The
alternatives to violent behavior. As students
case studies featured in Facing History's
develop an appreciation for the importance of
resource books show democracies in crisis.
choices, they begin to realize that one's actions
Holocaust and Human Behavior, our primary
or inactions can determine the future. All of our
publication, begins with raising questions of
publications highlight examples of people who
identity and decision-making, and then applies
refused to stand idle in the midst of injustice,
these issues to the Nazi era and students' lives
recognizing the fragility of democracy and the
today.
need to act to preserve it.
These materials enable students to study the
Our staff has worked closely with teachers in a
complex steps and decisions that contribute to
variety of schools around the country (urban
gradual dehumanization. Students investigate
and suburban, private and public) to help
the escalation from verbal scapegoating and
students think about the process of becoming
social isolation of those deemed "different" to
empowered without using violence.
episodes of state-sanctioned violence and
eventual mass murder. The program helps
Facing History is one of 21 organizations
students analyze the role media images play -
recently selected to be part of the National
then and today - in creating a climate that
Network of Violence Prevention Practitioners.
desensitizes violence and is conducive to hate
the Network is sponsored by the Education
crimes. As students read about the choices of
Development Center (EDC) with funding from
ordinary people during this history, they realize
the Carnegie Corporation of New York. As a
that individuals are capable of being both
member of the network, Facing History is eager
bystanders and perpetrators.
to share its expertise and resources with other
organizations and schools working in related
fields.
FACING
HISTORY
AND
OURSELVES
Violence and Education Fact Sheet
A series of strategic planning ("2000") reports initiated by the RAND foundation describes the challenges that
we face as we approach the next century. LA 2000 outlines the shifting demographics of the Los Angeles
area- people from more than 100 cultural and ethnic backgrounds will compose the new mosaic in LA.
According to this report (whose conclusions are mirrored in similar reports such as Baltimore 2000, New
York 2000, etc.), the implications of increased diversity could be: "increased racial isolation; destabilization
divisive political conflicts; escalating crime and, ultimately, shrinking economic opportunity." To avoid these
consequences and to create a positive future, the report concludes that "we must find a way to foster mutual
respect, equality, and partnership" (p. 52).
Increasingly, some in our society seem to be turning to violence and intolerance as a response to difference.
This violence is spilling over into the lives of adolescents at an alarming rate. The National Center for
Education Statistics reports that more than 100,000 students bring guns to school each day and 160,000
students each day do not attend school because of fear of harm or intimidation, while over 2,000 students are
physically attacked each hour. The National Education Goals Report, just issued, confirms that substantial
numbers of students continue to be victims of violent acts at school. 10% of 10th graders reported bringing a
weapon to school at least once in the previous month. 25% of 12th graders report having been threatened
with a weapon in the previous year. Most alarmingly, threats and injuries are higher among younger students
(8th grade) than among students in upper grades, suggesting that the scale of violence will accelerate. Over
one-third of all students report that students at their school belong to fighting gangs (pp. 148-160).
These facts and other studies have raised the public consciousness concerning violence in the lives of our
youth. Yet studies show that this violence is neither random, uncontrollable, nor inevitable (APA Commission
on Violence and Youth). The State of Virginia's report, Violence in Schools, being presented to Congress by
the National Education Association as a model for federal action, suggests the key role that education can play
in confronting this issue. According to the report (pp. 30-31), we need to teach students fundamental skills in
human relations and citizenship: "The social studies and related curriculum areas need to assist children to
apply concepts of civic responsibility in a more direct fashion than presently is done."
While many call for increased school safety through additional metal detectors, etc., we are wary of solutions
that do not address the issue of personal responsibility. A recent report from the Center for Disease Control
summarized a study that showed that the installation of metal detectors "had no apparent effect on the
prevalence of threats and physical fights in any location" (CDC, October 15 Weekly Report, "Violence
Related Attitudes and Behaviors of High School Students, New York City, 1992). We agree that any solution
must be comprehensive, focusing on the attitudes and behaviors that foster youth violence. The American
Psychological Association's Commission on Violence and Youth also points towards education solutions in its
recently released report, "Violence and Youth." Their research confirms that schools and teachers can
educate youth to work and live together, and to resolve conflicts and differences through non-violent means.
The relationship of the individual to society, the connection of constitutional issues to our daily lives, avenues
for working out differences, the origins and dangers of violence and hatred, opportunities for care and
compassion; these are essential lessons of democracy that have been untaught in our schools.
FACING HISTORY AND OURSELVES NATIONAL FOUNDATION, INC., 16 HURD ROAD. BROOKLINE, MA 02146-6919
617-232-1595
FAX 617-232-0281
Printed on Recycled Paper
(Facing History Resource Book)
"Human Behawic & the Holocaust"
Preface
T
he struggle today is for the nation's "conscience and future-a future
that is being determined right now in the bodies and minds and spirits
of every American child-white, African American, Latino, Asian
American, Native American, rich, middle class, and poor," writes Marian
Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children's Defense Fund. "Many of
the battles for this future will not be as dramatic as Gettysburg or Vietnam
or Desert Storm, but they will shape our place in the twenty-first century
no less." And she warns that even as Communism is collapsing all around
the world, "the American Dream is collapsing.
for millions of children,
youths, and families in all racial and income groups. American is pitted
against American as economic uncertainty and downturn increase our
fears, our business failures, our poverty rates, our racial divisions, and the
dangers of political demagoguery."
Day in and day out, the morning newspapers and the evening news-
casts document the struggle Marian Edelman describes. And each of us
feels the consequences of life in a racially and ethnically divided nation in
small ways and large. As David Schoem, a sociology professor, points out:
The effort it takes for us to know so little about one another across
racial and ethnic groups is truly remarkable. That we can live so closely
together, that our lives can be so intertwined socially, economically,
and politically, and that we can spend so many years of study in grade
school and even in higher education and yet still manage to be ignorant
of one another is clear testimony to the deep-seated roots of this human
and national tragedy. What we do learn along the way is to place heavy
reliance on stereotypes, gossip, rumor, and fear to shape our lack of
knowledge.
The success of that "reliance on stereotypes, gossip, rumor, and fear"
can be seen and heard in classrooms across the nation. Students express a
universal knowledge of negative words and hostile images of "the other."
When asked what they know about "them," the answers too often reveal
virulent stereotypes: "Asians are
"Blacks are
"Jews are
"Italians
are
Even very young children have managed to acquire a
store of racial and religious epithets. Although we teach our children that
"sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me,"
they know a different reality. They are well aware that words of hate
degrade, dehumanize, and eventually destroy. Indeed, much of the vio-
lence that threatens our society has its roots in bigotry and hate.
How did our children acquire the language of bigotry? One answer lies
in the lyrics to a song from the musical South Pacific: "You've got to be
taught to hate and fear. You've got to be taught from year to year. It's got
to be drummed into your sweet little ear. You've got to be carefully taught,
Preface xiii
you've got to be carefully taught." Our children have indeed been carefully
taught and far too many of them have mastered the lesson. If we are to win
the struggle for the nation's conscience and future, we must counter lessons
of hate with lessons that promote understanding and caring. We must help
students examine their thoughts and feelings and then confront not only their
own potential for passivity and complicity but also their courage and
resilience. And we must teach them to value their rights as citizens and take
responsibility for their actions. To do so, they must know not only the tri-
umphs of history but also the failures, the tragedies, and the humiliations.
Why is it necessary to study evil in the past to understand freedom,
value difference, and seek justice today? Hannah Arendt, one of the fore-
most political philosophers of our time, offered one answer to that ques-
tion. She argued that we can put past evils into the service of a future good
only by squarely facing reality. She wrote, "The methods used in the pur-
suit of historical truth are not the methods of the prosecutor, and the men
who stand guard over the facts are not the officers of interest groups-no
matter how legitimate their claims-but the reporters, the historians, and
finally the poets." The facts, no matter how horrifying must be preserved,
not "lest we forget," but so that we may judge.
Joseph Brodsky, a Nobel-Prize-winning poet from what was once
Yugoslavia, agrees. In his view, evil is not an aberration that stands apart
from ourselves but a mirror-"a reflection of ourselves: of human negative
potential." And he maintains that we will never be able to combat evil
unless we honestly examine the negative as well as the positive aspects of
our nature. History matters for other reasons too. It fosters perspective-tak-
ing, critical thinking, and moral decision-making. Our students must learn
that the world they live in did not just happen. It is the result of choices
made by countless individuals and groups. And even the smallest of those
decisions can have enormous consequences for both good and evil.
Journalist Bill Moyers proudly notes that every school he attended was a
legacy created "brick by brick, dollar by dollar, classroom by classroom,
book by book" by people he had never met, many of whom had died long
before he was born. In Before the Mayflower, Lerone Bennett, Jr., uses a simi-
lar metaphor to describe how communities throughout the nation came to
be segregated. He likens it to the building of a wall "brick by brick, bill by
bill, fear by fear." After World War II, a German professor described a sim-
ilar process when he confessed:
If the last and worst act of the whole [Nazi] regime had come
immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes millions, would
have been sufficiently shocked
But of course this isn't the way it
happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them
imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the
next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make
a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
xiv Facing History and Ourselves
In a Facing History course, students examine each of those small steps.
As they do so, they discover that history is not inevitable. They also come
to realize that there are no easy answers to the complex problems of racism,
antisemitism, hate, and violence, no quick fixes for social injustices, and no
simple solutions to moral dilemmas. Meaningful change takes patience and
commitment. Still, as one student said of the course, "The more we learn
about why and how people behave the way they do, the more likely we are
to become involved and find our own solutions." Another writes:
Life used to be so easy. There always seemed to be an answer to
everything. Everything fit into place, getting up at seven o'clock, going
to school at eight, coming home at four, doing homework at eight, and
finally going to bed at eleven. In my tightly scheduled life I left no time
to reflect. In these past four months, however, I've been forced to think.
It hasn't been easy.
She's right. It is not easy. Facing History began for me in 1976, at a time
when I was both teacher and student. I taught history and English to junior
high school students in a suburb of Boston in the morning and studied
moral development theory at Harvard University's Graduate School of
Education in the afternoon. That spring, I attended my first workshop on
the Holocaust and discovered a history of which I was totally ignorant. As
I listened to the speakers and reflected on the issues they raised, I began to
feel a sense of disquiet about my own education and that of my students.
As my uneasiness intensified, I came upon a letter that a principal sends to
his teachers on the first day of school:
Dear Teacher:
I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man
should witness:
Gas chambers built by learned engineers.
Children poisoned by educated physicians.
Infants killed by trained nurses.
Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college
graduates.
So I am suspicious of education.
My request is: Help your students become human. Your efforts
must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated
Eichmanns.
Reading, writing, arithmetic are important only if they serve to
make our children more human.
That letter provided the impetus for me to face my own history. My
journey began with newly awakened memories of my childhood. I grew up
in Memphis, Tennessee, at a time when separate never meant equal. I grew
up in a city where "colored" water fountains did not spout brightly colored
water as a child might expect but stood instead as symbols of the unchal-
lenged dogmas of racism. I grew up in a city where black children could
Preface XV
visit the zoo only on Thursdays and where "their" library housed discard-
ed books from "our" library. I grew up knowing there would always be
plenty of empty seats at the front of the bus for young white girls while
those with a darker skin color would stand crowded at the back of the bus.
I grew up knowing all this, but it was never addressed at school.
Conspicuous by its absence from my formal schooling was any study
of the ethical or moral dimensions of history or human behavior. Our
teachers didn't trust my classmates or me with the complexities of history.
The dogmas were easier to teach. There were, on occasion, inspirational
teachers who encouraged dialogue, risked inquiry, or introduced contro-
versy. But I am hard pressed to remember any discussion of race or any
explanation of the water fountains, ZOO admission policies, the separate
libraries, or the way seats were allocated on the buses. What my teachers
neglected or elected not to teach, I ultimately learned at home. My real
education was family centered. My parents taught me the meaning of
social justice, the importance of political participation, and the value of
faith. Those lessons nurtured my development and gave impulse to my
life's work. Later as a teacher, I tried to ensure that my students learned
what my own teachers failed to teach-that history is largely the result of
human decisions, that prevention is possible, and that education must have
a moral component if it is to make a difference.
Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO) is based on those beliefs. It is
also based on the conviction that education in a democracy must be what
Alexis de Tocqueville once called an "apprenticeship in liberty." That is, it
must promote the attitudes, values, and skills needed to live in freedom. In
an article entitled "America Skips School," Benjamin R. Barber, a political
science professor, said of that process:
The claim that all men are born free, upon which America was
founded, is at best a promising fiction. In real life, as every parent
knows, children are born fragile, born needy, born ignorant, born
unformed, born weak, born foolish, born dependent-born in chains.
We acquire our freedom over time, if at all. Embedded in families,
clans, communities, and nations, we must learn to be free. We may be
natural consumers and born narcissists, but citizens have to be made.
Our nation's early leaders understood the connection between freedom
and moral education. After all, liberty, equality, and justice are assertions
of right and wrong; they raise moral issues that require the ability not only
to reason but also to make judgments and then take appropriate action.
Only a people that truly values its own freedom will respond to injustice
with moral outrage. That is why Harriet Beecher Stowe viewed the mid-
nineteenth century, the age in which she lived, as a time when "nations are
trembling and convulsed." When asked if the United States was safe from
those convulsions, she replied, "Every nation that carries in its bosom great
and unredressed injustice has in it the elements of this last convulsion."
Langston Hughes expressed it more directly when he wondered what hap-
xvi
Facing History and Ourselves
pens to a "dream deferred." "Does it sag like a heavy load?" he asked. "Or
does it explode-like a raisin in the sun?"
Today the danger still lies within the nation. As Barber notes we have
been "nominally democratic for so long that we presume it is our natural
condition rather than the product of persistent effort and tenacious respon-
sibility. We have decoupled rights from civic responsibilities and severed
citizenship from education on the false assumption that citizens just hap-
pen." He describes civic literacy as the "fundamental literacy by which we
live in a civil society. It encompasses the competence to participate in
democratic communities, the ability to think critically and act with deliber-
ation in a pluralistic world, and the empathy to identify sufficiently with
others to live with them despite conflicts of interest and differences in char-
acter. At the most elementary level, what our children suffer from most,
whether they're hurling racial epithets from fraternity porches or shooting
one another down in schoolyards, is the absence of civility."
Barber and others have defined civility as "a work of the imagination,
for it is through the imagination that we render others sufficiently like our-
selves for them to become subjects of tolerance and respect, if not always
affection." Vaclav Havel has called the building of a civil society the "great-
est challenge of our time." Facing History and Ourselves seeks to meet that
challenge by reviving the time-honored idea that history is a branch of
moral philosophy with lessons that can serve as guidelines for prudent
thinking and moral behavior. With the guidance and support of the Facing
History staff and resource speakers, teachers and students explore the roots
of religious, racial, and ethnic hatreds and their consequences. And they
come to recognize that "the shadowy figures that look out at us from the
tarnished mirror of history are-in the final analysis-ourselves."
Facing History holds up "the tarnished mirror of history" by asking
students to analyze events that threatened democracy in one of the most
murderous centuries in history-the twentieth century, a century marked
by the Nazis' attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe solely because of
their ancestry. That history, like every history, is both universal and partic-
ular. As Eva Fleischner has noted, "We can attain universality only through
particularity: there are no shortcuts. The more we come to know about the
Holocaust, how it came about, how it was carried out, etc., the greater the
possibility that we will become sensitized to inhumanity and suffering
whenever they occur." She therefore views the history of the events that
led to the Holocaust not as their history but as our history. In her view, it
touches us all.
Important connections can be made with the events that led to the
genocide of the Armenian people during World War I; the enslavement of
Africans; the destruction of Native American nations in the years that fol-
lowed European colonization of the Americas; and mass murders during
World War II in Nanking, China, and the Soviet Union and more recently
in Cambodia, Laos, Tibet, and Rwanda. However, the series of events that
led to the Holocaust is the focus of this book for a number of reasons.
Preface xvii
Perhaps the most important is that it helps students better understand the
modern world and ultimately themselves. In no other history are the steps
that resulted in totalitarianism and ultimately genocide so carefully docu-
mented not only by the victims but also by perpetrators and bystanders. It
is a history that clearly shows the deadly consequences of unexamined
prejudices, unfaced fears, and unchallenged lies. It shows too the dangers
of charismatic leaders who manipulate the young by appealing to preju-
dice, fear, and ignorance. We do not want yet another generation
of young people influenced by propaganda to march blindly in someone
else's parade.
It is a history that shattered what historian Ronnie Laudau calls in his
book The Nazi Holocaust, "Europe-centered, liberal dreams of Western rea-
son and culture as forces that necessarily sensitize and humanize us and
which promote genuine tolerance of difference. It also destroyed, once and
for all, the tottering belief that science and technology were securely har-
nessed for the good of humanity, as scientists, politicians, bureaucrats and
generals found the means progressively to give destructive expression to
their decisions and fantasies."
Landau notes that the Holocaust was, "in part, the outcome of problems
of identity-the alienation and isolation of the individual in our modern mass
societies, which have become so depersonalized and conformist."
Nazism appealed to people's need for a sense of belonging, loyalty
and community, a need left dangerously unfulfilled by modern, vast,
centralized society. It encouraged a psychological state whereby they
could easily be sucked into the entire bureaucratic process.
Bureaucracy is a human invention which can subjugate its inventor,
undermine human conscience and allow individuals to abdicate
personal moral responsibility.
Thus the events that led to the Holocaust raise profound and disturb-
ing questions about the consequences of our actions and our beliefs, of how
we as individuals make distinctions between right and wrong, good and
evil. Those questions are universal even though the Holocaust is unique.
Many of these questions center on the ways we as individuals and as mem-
bers of groups define what Helen Fein calls our "universe of obligation"-
the circle of persons "toward whom obligations are owed, to whom rules
apply and whose injuries call for [amends] by the community."
This history also forces us to consider the consequences of what it
means to be pushed outside that "universe of obligation." In The Cunning of
History, Richard Rubenstein describes such individuals as "superfluous."
As he puts it, "Political rights are neither God-given, autonomous nor self-
validating. The Germans understood that no person has any rights unless
they are guaranteed by an organized community with the power to defend
such rights." And in the 1930s and 1940s, no organized community was
willing to defend the rights of Jews, "Gypsies," and other groups the Nazis
regarded as "subhuman."
xviii
Facing History and Ourselves
The racism that permeated Nazi Germany was not an isolated occur-
rence. As Rubenstein explains, Auschwitz is linked, although not exclu-
sively, to a cultural tradition of slavery "which stretches back to the Middle
Passage from the coast of Africa, and beyond, to the enforced servitude in
Ancient Greece and Rome. If we ignore this linkage, we ignore the exis-
tence of the sleeping virus in the bloodstream of civilization, at the risk of
our future."
The story of those connections is not an easy history to teach or learn.
As one Facing History student noted, "This history would be much easier
to learn if it weren't true." It is a violent and painful history. But it is one
that we must confront because it serves as a compelling reminder of the
power of ideas, even mistaken ideas, to shape our thoughts, our judgment,
and ultimately our behavior. Albert Camus was among those who reflected
on the relationship between thought and action. He wrote: "I know that the
great tragedies of history often fascinate men with approaching horror.
Paralyzed, they cannot make up their minds to do anything but wait. So
they wait, and one day the Gorgon devours them. But I should like to con-
vince you that the spell can be broken, that there is only an illusion of
impotence, that strength of heart, intelligence, and courage are enough to
stop fate and sometimes reverse it."
Scientist Jacob Bronowski tried to break that spell not long after the
United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan at the end of World
War II. The evening he viewed the the ashy, clinical remains of the city of
Nagasaki, he experienced what he called a universal moment. He says of
that moment, "On an evening like that evening, some time in 1945, each of
us in his own way learned that his imagination had been dwarfed. We
looked up and saw the power of which we had been proud loom over us
like the ruins of Nagasaki." The experience convinced him that all deci-
sions about disarmament and other issues which weigh the fate of nations
"should be made within the forbidding context of Nagasaki: only then
could statesmen make realistic judgments of the problems which they han-
dle on our behalf." But bureaucrats and scientists alike disapproved of the
idea. They told him that delegates would be "uncomfortable" in Nagasaki.
Confronting the history of racism and antisemitism at home and
abroad is profoundly uncomfortable. But by denying our students access to
this history, we fail to honor their potential to confront, to cope, and to
make a difference today and in their futures. As one student wrote,
"Maybe in the future, this great chance of learning this history could affect
how I reason, act, and maybe eventually what I might become, or do." Or
as another pointed out, "Once a person has been subjected to the materials
of the course, they can never again feel the same way about their own
humanity or that of others."
Preface xix
Introduction
F
acing History and Ourselves is devoted to teaching about the dangers
of indifference and the values of civility by helping schools confront
the complexities of history in ways that promote critical and creative think-
ing about the challenges we face and the opportunities we have for positive
change. Facing History is unique in that it is not a program of one-week
seminars that are all-too-easily forgotten, a packaged curriculum, or a pre-
scribed set of lessons. Rather, it offers dynamic, long-term intervention. It is
designed to have a lasting effect on the life of a school.
THE FACING HISTORY APPROACH
With the help of the Facing History staff and resource speakers, teachers
who participate in the program learn to use the tools of the humanities-
inquiry, analysis, and interpretation-to supplement or enrich existing
courses. At workshops and follow-up sessions, those teachers are offered
materials that engage and challenge their students' most advanced think-
ing and promote individual reflection and group discussion.
Adolescence is a time when many young people struggle with issues of
independence, trust, freedom, and responsibility. It is also a time when life
centers around peer groups and mutual relationships. The readings and
films recommended by Facing History support and challenge students in
their efforts to define their own identity and their relationship to society as
a whole. Thus many of those materials promote an understanding of differ-
ing perspectives, competing truths, and the need to comprehend not only
one's own motives but also those of others. By offering a framework for
examining issues students regard as important, Facing History helps them
find meaning in their education and empowers them to make positive
changes in their lives.
Adolescence is a time of major developmental transitions. Students
need to think about their thinking in order to become aware of their moral
development. As a student explained, "One thing this course has done, it
has made more aware-not only of what happened in the past but also of
what is happening today, now, in the world and in me." Facing History
seeks to foster cognitive growth and historical understanding through a
content and methodology that induces conflict and continually complicates
students' simple answers to complex questions. The readings and activities
included in the Resource Book, the recommended videos, and the guest
speakers encourage students to view the world from more than one per-
spective, to place themselves in someone else's shoes, and to express their
ideas freely. They are stimulated to think about the choices they have as
individuals within a society and the consequences of those decisions.
XX
Facing History and Ourselves
At a time when many are urging that students learn to think critically
without paying much attention to what those students are to think about,
Facing History stresses compelling content. This is not a program that is
mired in relativism. Facing History has a strong bias. It is committed to
content that furthers democratic values and beliefs. It is also committed to
prevention. We believe that unexamined prejudices, myths, and misinfor-
mation are threatening the nation and its future. The violence in our streets
is but one sign of the danger. We therefore must teach our students to look,
listen, read, and think critically. And they must be constantly challenged to
complicate their thinking by not accepting simple solutions to complex
questions. Many of the readings and films used in Facing History courses
were deliberately selected with that aim in mind. Some focus on the choices
open to various individuals. Others draw attention to aspects of society or
human behavior that affect the kinds of decisions groups and even nations
make. Each reading helps students realize that "life is almost always more
complicated than we think. Behind the gleaming ranks of those who seem
totalitarian robots stand men and women, various and diverse, complex
and complicated, some brave, some cowardly, some brainwashed, some
violently idiosyncratic, and all of them very human."
As students engage in thinking about thinking, they develop a vocabu-
lary of decision-making and justice as aids to their reasoning. And as they
grapple with the range of choices individuals actually had in the decades
before the Nazis took power, many find it harder and harder to defend
simple explanations of why democracy failed in Germany. They also begin
to see critical connections between past and present. And they begin
to wonder. As a Facing History student from South Africa wrote in her
journal, "We learnt lessons that cannot be found in any textbook. The dis-
cussions and stories held me spellbound. Now my mind is like a probing
satellite and I can ask more than 'who, how many and where.' I can ask
'why and how could." In time she may also begin to raise questions of
"should and would."
The fundamental concerns of Facing History and Ourselves figure
prominently in the works of Hannah Arendt. She has traced her own
impulse to think about thinking to the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi
official in charge of the deportation and extermination of Jews. She expect-
ed the trial to reveal that he acted out of ideological conviction, evil
motives, or stupidity. Instead she concluded that he never gave much
thought to what he did. Indeed, he was protected from thinking by rou-
tines, cliches, and the constant pressure to conform. Arendt therefore won-
dered, "Could the activity of thinking as such, the habit of examining.
be
among the conditions that make men abstain from evil-doing or even con-
dition them against it?"
In the end, Arendt decided that even though the activity of thinking
breaks down preconceived ideas, thinking in and of itself does not lead to
action. In her view, informed judgment is the bridge between thought and
action. Thus, she did not consider judgment the mechanical process of
Introduction
xxi
applying a rule or law to a particular case but rather an art that can be car-
ried out only within the realm of choice.
The writings of Jacob Bronowski have also influenced Facing History's
approach to the process of thinking, judging, and ultimately taking action.
"There is no way of exchanging information that does not demand an act
of judgment," he wrote. "All knowledge, all information between human
beings can only be exchanged within a play of tolerance. And that is true
whether the exchange is in science, or in literature, or in religion, or in poli-
tics, or even in any form of thought that aspires to dogma." For Bronowski,
the ability to tolerate divergent views is what distinguishes humans from
all other creatures.
The Facing History program incorporates both Arendt's ideas and
Bronowski's by offering students a variety of perspectives and helping
them sift through differing, and at times conflicting, points of view before
asking them to make wise judgments. It is, writes one high school teacher,
a program that "honors duality; process and product, head and heart, his-
tory and ethics."
The importance of pushing students to form judgments was brought to
light by the research Betty Bardige conducted for the thesis she wrote
under the direction of Professor Carol Gilligan. Bardige discovered that
unless students are encouraged to make moral judgments, they are likely to
become paralyzed by their own thinking and therefore unable to respond
to injustice. She maintains that it is essential that students examine the con-
sequences of actions as well as analyze the causes.
Facing History and Ourselves does both. It helps teachers move their
students from thought to judgment and ultimately to participation.
Through that process, students and their teachers build a community of
thinkers. As Hannah Arendt once observed, the activity of thinking is a
solitary endeavor-a dialogue with oneself in order to formulate moral
principles. Judgment, however, requires dialogue with others. Arendt
stressed the importance of that discourse.
The world is not humane because it is made by human beings, and
it does not become humane just because the human voice sounds in it,
but only when it has become the object of discourse. However much
we are affected by the things of the world, however deeply they may
stir and stimulate us, they become human for us only when we can
discuss them with our fellows
We humanize what is going on in
the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it, and in the course of
speaking of it we learn to be human.
In a Facing History classroom, teachers and students chronicle their
learning in journals. They use their journals to reflect on who they are and
to re-examine their goals, values, and beliefs. Only then do they come
together to share insights and responses to complex questions. That shar-
ing requires trust and mutual respect. Building that kind of classroom com-
munity is hard work and requires a new relationship between students and
xxii Facing History and Ourselves
teacher. Many teachers make contracts with their students to underscore
the importance of that new relationship. One teacher wrote:
I told the students that the curriculum touches on a great many
things that could hurt us all if we were not sensitive to one another's
feelings. I stated that I was uncomfortable teaching the unit unless we
could maintain an atmosphere of mutual respect. The contract included
that each person could express his or her feelings without being put
down by others.
The materials provided in this Resource Book are designed to stimulate
and inform that interaction by reinforcing the idea that learning is a collab-
orative endeavor that benefits every participant. It guides both the teacher
and the student. Thus Facing History seeks to:
develop an educational model that helps students move from thought
to judgment to participation as they confront the moral questions
inherent in a study of violence, racism, antisemitism, and bigotry;
reveal the universal connections of history through a rigorous
examination of a particular history;
further a commitment to adolescents as the moral philosophers of
our society and help them build a "civil society" through an
understanding that turning neighbor against neighbor leads to
violence.
Educators learn the Facing History approach by experiencing it in
workshops, retreats, and institutes, where they encounter scholars who
challenge their thinking not only about ethics and history but also about
the process of teaching. As one administrator has noted that "the material
is so powerful and so significant that it calls to question why we teach and
how we teach. It calls for mastery of teaching skills, learning how to pose
the significant questions and how to complicate the thinking of those who
would be content with simple solutions."
The Facing History staff helps educators acquire those skills as they
explore the opportunities new approaches can provide to challenge stu-
dents and stimulate their thinking. Later teachers meet individually with a
Facing History program associate to design a Facing History course that
meets their students' needs and the needs of their particular school.
Teachers who participate in Facing History programs have access not
only to the program staff and resource speakers but also to the Facing
History Resource Center, a lending library of relevant videos and films,
books, slides, tape recordings, posters, and articles on a broad range of top-
ics. They also receive newsletters, invitations to Facing History conferences,
and an opportunity to join a community of teachers in their region who
meet regularly to continue learning. In addition, Facing History offers
adult education programs and community-wide events that help link the
work of Facing History to the larger community.
Introduction xxiii
For nearly two decades, Facing History and Ourselves has been docu-
menting the effectiveness of these efforts. Reports of those evaluations,
which are available from the Facing History Resource Center, show that
the program is achieving its goals. Students are indeed capable of handling
a rigorous course that demands their best thinking. And they are able to
make connections between the past and their own lives. And although each
student seems to feel the impact in a slightly different way, few partici-
pants are able to avoid comparisons with issues close to home; any discus-
sion of prejudice, discrimination, or violence almost invariably draws par-
allels to similar problems in the students' own schools and neighborhoods.
Henry Zabierek, the director of social studies in Brookline at the time
Facing History was founded summarized the program in this way:
This curriculum is about more than the Holocaust. It's about the
reading and the writing and the arithmetic of genocide, but it's also
about such R's as rethinking, reflecting, and reasoning. It's about
prejudice, discrimination and scapegoating; but it's also about human
dignity, morality, law, and citizenship. It's about avoiding and
forgetting, but it's also about civic courage and justice. In an age of
"back to basics" this curriculum declares that there is one thing more
basic, more sacred, than any of the three R's; namely, the sanctity of
human life.
In all probability, Facing History will not end prejudice, discrimination,
scapegoating, or even fights on the playground. Nevertheless, program
evaluations demonstrate that students and teachers in a Facing History
program have heightened awareness of the causes and consequences of
those issues. In some cases, the impact has been subtle, with students
observing that they have begun to think differently about stereotypes and
racial slurs. As one student explained, "This unit showed me that as a
young black man my race is not the only race that has suffered
We are
all simply human beings.
This course made me look inside myself. I for
one know that I have felt prejudice toward someone of some other group.
These things are all a part of being a human being, but cooperation, peace
and love are ingredients also." Achieving that degree of awareness is a
meaningful objective for many students.
In other instances, participants in the program have shown more dra-
matic changes. A young Chicagoan who found the courage to leave his
gang said of the program, "Facing History showed me that there are peo-
ple, teachers and other students concerned about teenagers' well-being in
this world of violence. Facing History showed me that yes, people do know
we have problems growing up in today's society and no, we are not turn-
ing our backs on it."
In another community, a school recently reported the way its students
responded when teachers discovered that someone had written "KKK" and
"Nigger go home" on the washroom walls. When those students were
confronted with what had happened, the room was silent for a moment
xxiv
Facing History and Ourselves
and then a white student turned to a black classmate and said, "Valita, I'm
sorry that's written on the walls; it's no different than what we've been
studying. This is how it begins. I'm going to go and take it off, and anyone
who wants to join me, can." One by one, students rose and followed her to
the washroom where they erased the graffiti.
Parents have also observed measurable differences. One parent wrote,
"In no other course was [my daughter] exposed to real dilemmas as com-
plex and challenging. In no other course has she been inspired to use the
whole of her spiritual, moral, and intellectual resources to solve a problem.
In no other course has she been so sure that the task mattered seriously for
her development as a responsible person."
Just as many students find that the program has altered their percep-
tions and compelled them to think more about their behaviors, many teach-
ers find that it has changed not only the way they teach but also the way
they think. Ron Gwiazda, the assistant to the headmaster of Boston Latin
School, described that process when he spoke of the impact the program
had on one of his students.
Bedelia is an excellent student, runs 400 meters in under 60
seconds, has a radiant smile, and is one of the most sweet and gentle
human beings I know. We like each other very much, but when Bedelia
thinks through the complex issues of race and violence and writes in
her journal "we," I realize that I'm not part of that "we." And I don't
have simple answers to the conflicting emotions that she feels, nor to
this invisible but present distance that arises in that "we."
What I can offer Bedelia, because of Facing History and Ourselves,
is ways of thinking about complex issues and ways of coming to know
herself and me better, which is essentially the core of Facing History
and Ourselves. What Facing History and Ourselves does so well is to
avoid substituting one set of simple solutions, one polemic, one
propaganda, for another. Instead it aims to teach teachers to teach
young people to think critically and independently, to know the past as
fact and to confront its implications in ways that make us all seek to
change the future for the better. If there are no simple answers to the
hatred and violence from the past or in the present, there are the
countering forces of intellectual honesty, integrity, justice, and
empathy.
Introduction
XXV
A CLOSER LOOK AT THE
RESOURCE BOOK
This new edition of the Facing History Resource Book, is similar to the pre-
vious one in many respects. Like the earlier edition, it is not a textbook-a
series of discreet lessons with goals and objectives. Rather, it provides stu-
dents and teachers with a meaningful but flexible structure for examining
complex events and ideas. It also fosters original and thoughtful responses
by encouraging students to reflect on difficult questions and issues. The
new edition, like the earlier one, helps students make connections between
historical events and their own lives. And it too can be used not only in
social studies classes but also in combination with English, art, and science
classes.
There are differences between the two editions. The "Using" section
that followed readings in the earlier edition are now known as
"Connections." Films and key quotations no longer appear as readings.
Films are now referenced in Connections along with suggestions for their
use in the classroom. Key quotations appear as sidebars. And the new
book, unlike the earlier one, contains a detailed table of contents, an index
of audio-visual resources, and an index.
The readings in the new edition are somewhat longer and provide
more context. Many were selected to help students better understand the
links between the past and their own lives today. The new edition also con-
tains more social history and reflects the insights of current scholarship,
particularly scholarship on issues related to violence and racism. Two
important chapters in the earlier edition have been deleted and their con-
tent added to other chapters. As a result, anti-Judaism and antisemitism are
discussed within the context of particular eras rather than in an isolated
chapter. The same is true of the Armenian Genocide. It too has been placed
within a chronological framework.
The new edition is cross-referenced to two other Facing History publi-
cations: Elements of Time and Choosing to Participate. Elements of Time is a
companion manual to the Facing History videotape collection of Holocaust
testimonies-the result of a five-year collaborative project between Facing
History and the Fortunoff Video Archive at Yale University made possible
through the vision and support of Eli Evans and the Charles H. Revson
Foundation. The book includes transcriptions of the videos along with
essays and readings from some of the many scholars and resource speakers
who have addressed Facing History conferences. Choosing to Participate is
an outgrowth of the last chapter of the Resource Book. It addresses stu-
dents' questions about how they can make a difference by introducing
them to traditions of care and models for participation in American democ-
racy. The book provides a history of the voluntary sector and traces the
way individuals and groups have used the First Amendment to the
Constitution as avenues of outrage and advocacy.
xxvi Facing History and Ourselves
AN OVERVIEW
The first two chapters in the Resource Book use literature to introduce the
key concepts developed in Facing History. Those ideas are then applied to
real individuals and real events in history. The opening chapters engage
students in thinking about behavior and introduce them to the principles of
decision-making. They also help students build a vocabulary of morality.
In Chapter 1, for example, students explore the connections between indi-
viduals and the society in which they live. And they discover why Martha
Minow argues that "when we identify one thing as like the others, we are
not merely classifying the world; we are investing particular classifications
with consequences and positioning ourselves in relation to those meanings.
When we identify one thing as unlike the others, we are dividing the
world; we use our language to exclude, to distinguish-to discriminate."
Chapter 1 also begins an exploration of many of the central questions
developed in the program:
How is our identity formed?
How do our attitudes and beliefs influence our thinking? How does
our thinking affect our actions?
How can we keep our individuality and still be a part of a group?
How does our tendency to see us as unique but them as members
affect our behavior as well as our attitudes?
Chapter 2 then outlines the ways various nations, including the United
States, have defined their identity. And it helps students understand the
significance of those definitions. After all, those who define a nation's
identity determine who is a part of its "universe of obligation." Early in the
chapter, the focus is on the United States and the way three sets of ideas
shaped those definitions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:
democracy, race, and nationalism. All three concepts have had tremendous
appeal to people all over the world. And all three, when carried to an
extreme, have been abused. False ideas about "race" have on occasion
turned nationalism into ethnocentrism and chauvinism. At the same time,
some democrats have confused equality with conformity. Others have
viewed differences as proof that "they" are less human than "we" are.
The next few chapters focus primarily on the decisions that resulted in
the Holocaust and relate those decisions to issues important to students'
lives today-particularly to issues of racism, antisemitism, violence, con-
formity, and power. Chapter 3, which marks the beginning of the case
study, examines the choices people in Europe and the United States made
after World War I. The chapter highlights German efforts to build a lasting
democracy after the humiliation of defeat and explores the values, myths,
and fears that threatened those efforts. Chapters 4 through 8 examine how
the Nazis turned Germany into a totalitarian state by turning neighbor
against neighbor in order to break the moral backbone of a citizenry and
Introduction xxvii
why the German people allowed them to do so. Students also consider the
way individuals and nations defined their "universe of obligation" in the
1930s and 1940s and the consequences of those definitions. It is in these
chapters that students begin to wonder, "What might I have done?" And it
in these chapters that students see connections to their own world and
come to understand why Cynthia Ozick warns that "when a whole popula-
tion takes on the status of bystander, the victims are without allies; the
criminals, unchecked, are strengthened; and only then do we need to speak
of heroes. When a field is filled from end to end with sheep, a stag stands
out. When a continent is filled from end to end with the compliant, we
learn what heroism is."
As they read these chapters, some teachers and students emphasize the
acts of courage that rekindle hope in humanity. But, to study only heroes
and speak solely of human dignity is to distort and distract from the
painful reality of this history. Thinking about the victims and perpetrators
of mass murder requires a new "vocabulary of annihilation." The "choice-
less choices" of this history of human behavior in extremity do not reflect
options between right and wrong but between one form of abnormal
response and other.
In the last three chapters, students move from thought to judgment,
and then to action. As students think about judgment in moral and legal
terms, they consider such questions as:
What is the difference between crimes against humanity and killings
sanctioned by war?
What is the purpose of a trial? Is it to punish evil-doing or set a
precedent for the future?
Are individuals responsible for their crimes if they have obeyed the
laws of their nation? Or are there higher laws?
How does one determine punishment? Is everyone equally guilty?
Or do some bear more responsibility than others? Can an entire
nation be guilty?
Chapters 10 and 11 consider issues related to prevention by returning
to themes developed in the first two chapters in the book. Chapter 10
explores how we remember the past and considers the ways those memo-
ries shape the present. It also focuses on the ways individuals and nations
avoid, revise, deny, or rewrite their history. In the words of journalist
Judith Miller, "Knowing and remembering the evil in history and in each
of us might not prevent a recurrence of genocide. But ignorance of history
or the suppression of memory removes the surest defense we have, howev-
er inadequate, against such gigantic cruelty and indifference to it." What
then fosters memory? For Miller, it is anything that makes the past more
real and encourages empathy and caring. As part of this chapter, students
examine the way we memorialize the past through monuments, museums,
and schooling.
xxviii
Facing History and Ourselves
Chapter 11 further develops the idea of prevention by considering
what it takes to be a good citizen. The chapter is organized around
the idea that "people become brave by doing brave acts. People become
compassionate by doing compassionate acts. People become good citizens
by engaging in acts of good citizenship." Many of the individuals
highlighted in Chapter 11 help us understand what it takes to keep
democracy alive. The chapter also promotes participation through acts of
community service.
STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION
Each chapter in the Resource Book has a similar structure. Each begins with
an overview that outlines key concepts and themes. The readings that fol-
low allow students to explore those concepts and themes in greater depth.
Many are primary sources that capture the ideas, assumptions, and obser-
vations of those living through a particular age in history. As Jacob
Bronowski once wrote, those sources help us "draw conclusions from what
we see to what we do not see" and "recognize ourselves in the past, on the
steps to the present." Teachers are encouraged to select the ones that match
their objectives and the needs and interests of their students. Readings that
develop important concepts are identified in the sidebars and should not
be omitted.
At the end of each reading, students encounter a number of activities,
quotations, and questions grouped under the heading, "Connections."
These are designed to build curiosity, develop habits of inquiry, promote
critical thinking, encourage research, and foster an understanding of the
relationship between various ideas and concepts. Many ask students to
make inferences or think about attitudes and consequences. Others provide
practice in expressing ideas orally, visually, or in writing.
Some activities are set off with a special symbol
These activities
refer to videos, books, and other materials available from the Facing
History Resource Center. These materials can be used in place of a reading
or along with it. A number of these materials present ideas critical to the
program and suggestions for using them are provided.
The activities provided in the Connections are only a starting point for
helping students confront the past and themselves. Teachers should always
select the activities that relate the history most directly to the lives of their
particular students and add new questions and activities as appropriate.
Introduction xxix
Acknowledgements
L
earning is always a collaborative process, one that blurs the line
separating student from teacher. It is also a process that has no ending.
Preparing this resource book has truly been a learning experience-one
that mirrors the ways we have tried to develop Facing History as a team of
colleagues who collaborate in the very best sense of the word.
I would like to thank everyone who has taken part in that process,
particularly the many teachers, students, and scholars who informed our
progress. We heard their voices and felt their influence as we researched,
wrote, edited, revised, and wrote yet again. We are profoundly grateful to
each of them. It was especially gratifying for us to discover that some of
our former students have become teachers who are now transmitting the
lessons of Facing History to yet another generation.
I should also like to express my deep affection for the staff of Facing
History. As we worked on the Resource Book, individually and as a group,
they shared their knowledge and expertise and demonstrated their caring
and commitment in ways that have come to mark their approach to every
endeavor whether it is direct service to educators, interaction with students
in a classroom or study group, docent training for an exhibit, or prepara-
tion for conference or benefit. I would like to particularly acknowledge the
contributions of our editor, Phyllis Goldstein who pulled the resource book
together and wrote with me the final draft. I so enjoyed the process of
working with her, exchanging ideas and then watching those ideas take
shape in the book itself. We value her collaboration, her patience, and her
friendship. A very special thank you goes to Steve Cohen whose research
launched the first revision of this book and to Mary Johnson, Alan
Stoskopf, and Marc Skvirsky who guided the book through the revision
process by providing drafts, ideas, resources, critiques, and support. The
book would not have been possible without them. We also recognize the
contributions of Tracy O'Brien who handled everything from research to
permissions with enthusiasm and creativity and of Cathy McCarney who
typed much of the original manuscript. And special mention must also go
to Joe Wiellette whose friendship and devotion to Facing History, its
mission, and publications has quietly sustained us all.
I would also like to acknowledge the support we received from the
many scholars who worked with us at institutes, conferences, seminars,
and workshops. We are especially appreciative of the contributions made
by Philip Johnson and Benjamin Ferencz who drafted early chapters that
XXX
Facing History and Ourselves
Chicago Tribune
Wednesday, October 27, 1993
Tribune photo by Emie Cox Jr.
Chicagoan Sherrod Harris talks about life in a gang: "I was more afraid of the gang than anyone else.
I thought the gang had power and therefore I had power."
No easy answers on crime, youth group told
By Linda M. Harrington
Simon (D-III.), who addressed the
curriculum that focuses on the de-
TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
group about television violence.
cision-making process in violence
"It is a
flawed policy."
prevention and encourages stu-
WASHINGTON-The question-
Chicagoan Sherrod Harris, 18,
dents to look for alternative solu-
ers at Tuesday's hearing on chil-
dren and violence were not the
provided the children with first-
tions to violent behavior based on
hand accounts of gang violence
historical events.
usual assortment of stodgy poli-
and detailed how a school pro-
The overall theme expressed by
ticians spouting the usual political
gram changed his life.
witnesses and panelists was to
rhetoric. Many were pony-tailed
and freckle-faced. Some were so
After living with his grand-
focus on the plight of children af-
small their heads could barely be
mother in central Mississippi for
flicted by violence.
seen over the lectern; others used
a number of years, Harris said, he
Twenty-year-old Domico Curry,
phone books as boosters.
moved back to Chicago's West
also a former gang member, now
The children. ages 8 to 13,
Side in 1989. One day, as he was
is a peer counselor and founder of
turned the tables on politicians
leaving Kelvyn Park High School,
All Brothers Allowed, an anti-drug
and experts as they searched for
he was blindsided by a blow on
and anti-gang organization in
answers to why young people face
the left side of his head. Angered
Seattle. Curry urged the group not
mounting violence at home, in
by the staggering jolt, he began to
to ignore the children who may
school and on the streets. They
fight and ended up in a street
seem beyond hope.
were taking part in a three-day
brawl.
"A kid at Disneyland is a kid. A
hearing at the National Education
Harris soon found himself run-
kid packing a gun is the enemy,"
Association held by Children's Ex-
ning with a violent gang.
Curry said. But "the kid with the
press. a non-profit youth develop-
"I was more afraid of the gang
gun is still a kid; he's just headed
ment program.
than anyone else," Harris said. "I
down the wrong path."
Less cantankerous than most
thought the gang had power and
Curry, father of a newborn son,
congressional panelists, some
therefore I had power."
said his short-term goal is to be
timidly asked, "Why do kids join
But he had promised his grand-
the youngest member of the Seat-
gangs?" and "When did we lose
mother he wouldn't join a gang
tle school board. But he has a dif-
our streets?" Others boldly asked.
and would keep his grades up.
ficult time envisioning his life in
"What's the answer?"
After a year he left the gang.
the long term: "There's a lot of
"Violence in our country is not
His way out was "Facing His-
times I don't know if I'll make it
an act of God," said Sen. Paul
tory," a part of the high school
home the next day."
THE BOSTON GLOBE
THURSDAY, MAY 7, 1992
Teaching children a way of life without hate
By Joseph P. Kahn
GLOBE STAFF
When Los Angeles erupted
in violence last week, city offi-
cials moved swiftly to shut
down the schools, fearing for
the students' safety. That was
a no-brainer, most observers
would agree. Blood ran hot in
the mean streets of LA. In a
city at war with itself, every
citizen became a potential ca-
sualty.
To at least one onlooker,
however, padlocking those
classrooms may have been a
GLOBE STAFF PHOTO / JANET KNOTT
"Fenced Soldier," by a student at the
mistake. Not because safety is-
Runkle School In Brookline, is part of
sues were trivial, says Margot
an exhibit at the Mall at Chestnut Hill.
Stern Strom, executive direc-
tor of Facing History And
Ourselves, a nationally recognized educational program based in Brook-
line; but because an opportunity was lost for a more important process to
happen.
And what was important at that moment, Strom argues, was for
schoolchildren to examine the tragedy unfolding around them, from the
battlegrounds of their immediate neighborhoods to American society in
general. The opportunity to face history, in other words, as it was literally
GLOBE STAFF PHOTO JANET KNOTT
to
being written before their eyes: in smoke and tears, busted glass and
broken promises
STROM, Page 87
Margot Stern Strom, executive director of Facing History And Ourselves, based in Brookline.
Facing History aims to teach children a way of life without hate
and Klan points of view.
adds, "To call Phyllis evil is to dis-
STROM
There is one story she tells, howev-
Although a high-ranking DOE
miss her needlessly. She wants what
cr, which says much about her mis-
Continued from Page 85
official later said he was "embar-
we all want. A good life for her fam-
sion.
"School is often more of a safe
haven for kids than their neighbor-
rassed" by the comments, Facing
ily and the freedom to speak her
In 1968, Strom returned to her
History was suddenly faced with its
mind."
hoods are," notes Strom during a re-
hometown of Memphis to visit her
cent (and rare) break in her busy
own firestorm of controversy. A sec-
Democratic state chairman Ste-
parents, who owned and operated a
ond DOE review branded the pro-
ven Grossman, another FHAO
schedule. "Maybe shutting down
furniture store in a racially mixed
gram as "leftist" and "offensive to
schools that first day was the only
booster and board member, says
neighborhood. The day she and her
fundamentalists," while archconser-
reasonable option. I don't know."
that attitude represents the quintes-
sister arrived was also the day Rev.
vative Phyllis Schlafly complained
She lowers her voice, letting slip
sential Margot Stem Strom: tough
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassi-
that the curriculum had "adverse,
a trace of her native Tennessee
but open-minded; more generous
nated, touching off a spate of LA-
drawl. "Still," she says, "if I lived out
negative and offensive psychological
with her detractors than they per-
type rioting.
effects" on students.
there I would at least have wanted to
haps deserve; and a teacher first and
The family furniture store was
Strom was summoned to Con-
foremost, meaning (a) a good learn-
broken into and trashed. Tanks rum-
be part of the decision process."
Strom is, if nothing else, a cru-
gressional hearings in 1988, where
er, (b) a good listener and (c) a con-
bled down the streets outside her
she responded to her critics with a
sensus builder.
sader with credentials. And perspec-
home. Yet the worst moment hap-
characteristic mixture of passion,
"When potential donors find out
tive.
pened when the two sisters asked an
aplomb and wit.
Margot went head-to-head with
Fifteen years ago, the former
old friend and trusted neighbor to
"They were nervous because in a
Runkle School social studies teacher
Phyllis," Grossman says, "it only en-
come over and sit with them.
GLOBE STAFF JANET ANOTT
course like this, dogma gets ex-
hances her reputation. Margot has
co-founded an organization dedi-
The man turned up carrying a
Part of the exhibit coordinated by Facing Illstory And Ourselves at
posed," she explains, noting that
also never lost her humility. She can
cated to teaching teachers and stu-
shotgun, Strom recalls, and asked
the Mall at Chestnut Hill.
FHAO continues to receive around
see a challenge through with a sense
dents new ways of thinking about so-
for a bourbon-and-branch-water,
alternative home base here.
$60,000 annually in federal aid.
of humor and intensity of commit-
cietal evils like racism and anti-Sem-
eters of prejudice long before it be-
Sipping his drink, he said, "As soon
Meanwhile, an estimated 500,000
"However, I never viewed anyone as
ment that would have brought most
itism. Not what to think about them,
comes an ingrained part of their
as that nigger is out of town"
adult lives.
students have already been exposed
a personal enemy. I even enjoyed
people to their knees."
says Strom, since moral evolution is
meaning the slain civil rights leader
debating Phyllis Schlafly. In fact, I
Plus, Grossman adds, Strom is
perforce a personal journey. But a
"The one thing haters have in
to the course, including students at
"we'll be OK."
think Phyllis is the best advocate for
the Fenway Middle College High
extremely adept at sharing credit
better way of understanding how a
common is cowardice," says John-
"We immediately asked him to,
the First Amendment I've ever
horror like the Holocaust can occur
ston, bluntly, "whether they hide be-
School, a Boston public school in
with those around her, especially her
leave," says Strom. "We were both
known."
staff.
with the assistance, active or passive,
hind a sheet, a dark alley, a police-
Charlestown.
in shock. I'll never forget that mo-
Strom laughs instinctively at the
So much so, in fact, that focusing
ment."
of otherwise well-mcaning citizens:
man's badge or a politician's office.
"Facing History is really a
doctors, lawyers, poets, policemen.
grounding place, a way of thinking
thought of praising Schlafly for any
Facing History gives the potential
a conversation on Strom's personal
In such moments, it seems, are
reason. In more somber tones she
hater a reason not to hate."
about our whole curriculum," says
life is largely an exercise in futility.
The approach was altogether
great ideas born.
novel for a generation conditioned to
Johnston was introduced to the
Linda Nathan, the school's assistant
think of Nazi atrocities as ancient
program three years ago. Since
director, who has been using the
history.
then, he has gone into dozens of
program for the past nine years.
By studying the raw material of
schools to preach the message of
"It's a lesson in depth versus
prejudice - Ku Klux Klan recruiting
preventive medicine. Last week in
breadth. And as kids discover, there
films and pro-Hitler propaganda, for
LA, he laments, the message was ig-
is a lot of power in knowing some-
example - students learn about the
nored. With tragic results.
thing well."
root causes of genocide, not simply
"Any community that believes
"The significance lies in the ti-
the results. By examining the lives of
they're immune from that kind of
tle," says Rev. Robert Bullock of
unsung heroes, they better
trouble is insane," Johnston says.
Sharon, an FHAO board member.
appreciate how individuals can make
"The lesson we should all learn is
"The idea of facing history by using
a positive difference for society as a
that when people feel they can't turn
the Holocaust as an example of the
whole.
to the courts or the cops, they take
most graphic evil imaginable, to
And that's what Facing History
to the streets."
teach young minds about the limits
is really all about, Strom says. A
Given last week's painful civics
and excesses of human behavior.
dose of preventive medicine for a na-
lesson, this week's 15th anniversary
"One of the great moral centers
tion that goes into shock whenever
celebration for Facing History could
of Facing History," Bullock adds, "is
the virus of hatred activates itself,
hardly arrive at a more opportune
not to take evil lightly but to face it
causing a full-blown attack on the
moment. It will be marked by sever-
without illusions. It's not about
body politic.
al events, including a special exhibit
blaming or posturing. It's about un-
"My husband is an immunologist,
at the Mall at Chestnut Hill and an
derstanding and learning."
so I'm familiar with the language,"
all-day Human Rights and Justice
Strom's organization knows
Strom points out. "We spend mil-
Conference today at Northeastern
something about blaming and pos-
lions to develop a drug to treat the
University.
turing in political circles. In the mid-
symptoms of a disease. We wait for
Ensconced in the upper floors of
19S0s, it came under attack from
something acute to happen, and then
a Brookline school building sched-
right-wingers critical of its alleged
we respond. Doesn't it make sense to
uled for massive renovation, Facing
ideological bent. Despite high marks
try to avoid the disease in the first
History is, ironically, also losing its
from the Department of Education's
place? I think so."
headquarters at the end of this
Recognition Division, federal fund-
Lt. William Johnston, command-
month. Having expanded from a
ing that was earmarked to help
er of the Boston Police Department's
two-person operation into a multi-
FHAO expand into sponsor-risky re-
Community Disorders Unit, concurs.
service, nonprofit foundation with a
gions disappeared abruptly in 1986.
Outraged by the Rodney King ver-
$1.5 million annual operating budget,
One key factor in the decision: A
dict himself, Johnston believes that
FHAO has opened three regional of-
DOE reviewer had criticized Facing
kids need to learn about the param-
fices, yet continues to search for an
History for failing to include Nazi
Clinton Presidential Records
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of digitization. To see the full publication please search online or
visit the Clinton Presidential Library's Research Room.
Facing History and Ourselves
BRIEFINGS
Summer 1994
Volume XVIII, Issue 2
Facing History
Facing History's work in class-
rooms.
Launches Learn-A-Thon
As they delved into the com-
plexities of social justice issues,
Facing History's first annual
members of YLN raised more than
Learn-A-Thon brought 150 adults
$20,000 in sponsorship pledges
back to school to talk about
for the Facing History program.
racism, antisemitism and social
The funding, which includes a
change. Many participants never
$2,500 grant from the Gillette
had the opportunity to talk about
Company, will allow an additional
these issues when they were
750 Boston adolescents to experi-
adolescents.
ence the Facing History program
"I think I would have known
during the next school year.
myself better if I had been able to
Judy Cashman, a former Facing
tackle these issues when I was in
History student, said "As a ninth-
high school," said Learn-A-Thon
Dion Oglesby (left) and Jeffrey Bussgang
grade student, Facing History
participant Erin Lovely. "I want to
attend a workshop at the Learn-A-Thon.
helped me to identify prejudices of
take advantage of the opportunity
my own and work to overcome
to grapple with them today. Facing
them." Ms. Cashman, who served
History's Young Leadership Net-
Facing History program. Young
as Co-Chair of Fundraising for the
work has become my classroom."
Leadership Network (YLN), which
Learn-A-Thon, explained, "I got
Ms. Lovely served as Chair of
created and planned the event,
involved with Young Leadership
Outreach and In-kind Donations
enables young adults in their 20s
Network because I want to help
for the event.
and 30s to form partnerships
bring the program to more adoles-
The Learn-A-Thon took place
across community lines, continue
cents and let young adults in
May 22, 1994 at the Boston Latin
the dialogue about critical Facing
Boston know how they might
School, the site of a growing
History themes and support
Learn-A-Thon - continued on page 14
1994 Annual Dinner: Record Breaker Once Again
"This year's 10th
Annual Dinner has
again surpassed all
expectations as we
greet 1200 of you
who have come
together to express your concern
about racism and antisemitism
and your commitment to bringing
Facing History to young people.
You have enabled us to exceed our
financial goal for this Dinner."
With these words, Dinner Co-chair
and Board member Ira Jackson
addressed the packed ballroom of
Ira and Martha Jackson (1994 Dinner Chairs) with Margot Stern Strom and Susan and
the Westin Hotel in Boston on
Richard Smith.
Dinner - continued on page 8