Authentic Pedagogy and the Holocaust: A Critical Review of State Sponsored Holocaust Curricula

Over the past decade and a half, states in all regions of the United States have formed Holocaust councils, advisory groups, and other agencies for the purpose of developing educational programs in response to a growing interest in the Holocaust. Some states have called upon educators and Holocaust agencies within the state to develop curricula and/or resource materials for use in social studies and English classrooms. Furthermore, many states now either strongly recommend the teaching of the Holocaust or mandate that it be taught in their public schools. In a previous paper published in TRSE in 2002 (Understanding Matters: Holocaust Curricula in the Social Studies Classroom), we addressed the problematic aspects of much of the content found in state-developed Holocaust curricula. In the present paper, we present a critical analysis of the instructional strategies advocated in state-sponsored Holocaust curricula. We ground our evaluation within the framework of authentic pedagogy-particularly the work of Fred Newmann. More than an attempt to simply criticize these works, we offer constructive alternatives to inadequate and/or poorly designed instructional strategies. Fundamental to the intent of this paper is its usefulness as a guide for evaluating instructional activities designed to support the teaching of content knowledge about the Holocaust.