Comments on: The Holocaust for Young Children

By: Poetry in the Classroom - Who Was the Woman Who Wore the Hat? at Open Wide, Look Inside

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:23:41 +0000

[...] Edinger at educating alice has a post on the Holocaust for young children, and why it isn’t necessary to introduce it to children at such an early [...]

By: New in November « Meeteetse School Library Blog

New in November « Meeteetse School Library Blog — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:08:24 +0000

[...] grade teacher in New York and one of my favorite education bloggers, has some reservations about teaching the Holocaust to young children. I mention this by way of warning you that although Angel Girl is ultimately a hopeful story, it is [...]

By: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas Film « educating alice

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas Film « educating alice — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:51:36 +0000

[...] were German Jews and some, notably my grandfather, did not leave and were deported and killed) and my reservations about introducing the Holocaust to young children. I found Bruno’s naivete not credible and his mangling of words such as Fury for Fuhrer [...]

By: Lee

Lee — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:07:30 +0000

I think children in grades 5-8 should have a mandatory reading of a book related to Holocaust Education. We spend weeks and weeks on Black History and never relate the underlying fact of what hatred, prejudice and bullying can lead to. Sadly, I have taught in a district for 34 years and have yet to see a teacher even attempt to teach a book about that time period. I ,myself, was required to read The Diary of Anne Frank in 5th grade. It left a lasting impression on me. The teacher, a black teacher, related so much in a wonderful way. I am sure he met with some question by colleagues. He had the courage to do what he felt we needed to learn. I wish more teachers of all backgrounds had such courage and convictions to never forget.

By: How shall we tell the children? « educating alice

How shall we tell the children? « educating alice — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:01:07 +0000

[...] Most of the books mentioned in the piece seem for older children (e.g. The Book Thief that was published as adult title in Australia) and I’m kind of okay with most of them. However, I’ve yet to be convinced that this is a topic that younger children (e.g. 4th grade and under) need to know about. I’m the child of Holocaust survivors, by the way; read this post of mine if you want to know more of my opinions on this: The Holocaust and Young Children. [...]

By: Jaci Coehoorn

Jaci Coehoorn — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 06:21:13 +0000

I understand your concern about teaching the Holocaust to young children, and I don’t disagree with you on that. However, I am very much annoyed at your bashing The Boy in the Striped Pajamas in your argument, since that book explicitly states that it was not written for children. I would not recommend teaching elementary students with this book, but I do recommend it to every college student and adult I come into contact with.

By: karina herrera

karina herrera — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:08:49 +0000

why do we teach children about the holocaust ?
why is it important that people wont forget?

By: LJ Edinger

LJ Edinger — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 20:08:12 +0000

I like what you wrote and hope readers of this post realize that your grandfather could not see himself leaving Germany.

By: HoloScholar

HoloScholar — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 23:16:43 +0000

For those that might be interested there is a great new Online Holocaust Resource.

Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

maintains a website at:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/

By: janet pedersen

janet pedersen — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 04:24:44 +0000

In my school, for 5th grade, I used to teach literature groups and on the list given to me was The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss. I always tried to teach the book in the context of the history of the holocaust, using our first session as an introduction about the holocaust before beginning to read the book.

I also read them Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti.

I was always a little uncomfortable teaching this to children, wondering, as you do, whether it should be done at this age. I do have some picture books in my library about the holocaust but I do reserve them for 5th and 6th graders. And we have The Diary of Anne Frank which is very popular with the 6th grade girls.

Thank you for your thoughtful post. You verbalized some of my latent concerns. I no longer teach literature groups (to my dismay) and the book Number the Stars by Lois Lowry has been substituted for The Upstairs Room but I don’t think the classroom teachers spend too much time on the background of the book as they hurry along trying to meet state standards.

I had considered buying The Boy in the Striped Pajamas but after reading your post and the comments I think I’ll pass on it. Without being able to put a context with the book I’d be concerned about my students reading it. Thank you…

I do worry about the disappearance of childhood these days….