Trunk Focus
Our Town, Our Community (Grades K-4)
Students will investigate issues of immigration, cultural identity, community and family through the threads of character education. They will explore how to be a responsible citizen, what it takes to care for themselves and others, how to speak up for those being bullied and to understand core values of respect, compassion, justice, civic virtue and citizenship.
Materials Include: The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq; Kallaloo! A Caribbean Tale; The Bus Ride that Changed History: The Story of Rosa Parks
Memory, History, Culture (Grades 5-6)
Students examine how the lessons of Holocaust and genocide history can influence how we remember the past and whether we choose to take a stand for positive change in the future. This framework will explore how the themes of memory, history and culture intersect in an investigation into beginning Holocaust studies.
Materials Include: Letters from Rifka; Jacob’s Rescue; Good-Bye Marianne
Historical Perspectives through Different Voices (Grades 7-8)
Through the examination of fiction and non-fiction, diaries, and biographies students will focus on the historical impact of the Holocaust on individuals and be introduced to the more detailed history of the Holocaust, such as life in hiding, the ghettos and camps.
Materials Include: Bearing Witness: Stories of the Holocaust; Torn Thread; Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow
Investigating Human Behavior (High School)
This trunk provides a comprehensive study of the history of the Holocaust through an analysis of human behavior and the categories of victim, perpetrator, bystander, helper and collaborator. Through connecting themes students analyze the human and moral implications of individual choice, responsibility, memory and what influences our decisions to be bystanders, and what encourages us to become upstanders.
Materials Include: Salvaged Pages; A Partisans Memoir; A Scrap of Time
On Our Watch: Genocide and Human Rights (Secondary Educators)
At the high school level, students should have a desire to expand beyond their knowledge of the Holocaust and begin reflecting on the complexities of human rights violations and genocide. Resources will engage students in the further exploration of genocides in Armenia, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur, as well as human rights abuses against Japanese-Americans during World War II and child soldier recruitment in countries such as Uganda and Sierra Leone. Through this combination of history and the examination of human behavior, we provide educators and students with tools necessary to explore the precarious nature of human and civil rights, and allow for an investigation into the dynamics and relationships that make up our diverse communities.
Materials Include: A Problem From Hell: America in the Age of Genocide; Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Wartime Sarajevo; First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
Photos courtesy of IHMEC Collection
Skokie, IL