School and Community Fall 2023

Genocide Education in Missouri

O n June 30, 2022, Governor Parson signed into law Senate Bill 681 and 662 (2022), mandating Holocaust education in the state of MO for students in grades six through 12 as determined by each school district. This mandate will be phased in via a pilot program beginning in the 2023-24 school year with all school districts participating by the 2025-26 school year. The Genocide Education Project (GenEd) is a nonprofit organization that assists educators in teaching about human rights and genocide, particularly the Armenian Genocide, as the predecessor of the pattern of genocides that followed. GenEd develops instructional materials and provides workshops, consultation and presentations on these topics, which could be a valuable asset for Missouri teachers in particular under this new legislation. Kerri Flynn, a recently retired social studies teacher from the School District of Washington, has taken on the role of Education Director for the GenEd and provided the following information. An excerpt from The Armenian Weekly (April 2023 edition) by GenEd co-founder Roxanne Makasdjian: Without fully recognizing and investigating the causes of the most destructive chapters in history, the human race seems doomed to replay them. Only after the true scale and pervasive nature of these acts are acknowledged and understood can individuals and societies act to stop them. It starts with education. The Genocide Education Project was founded with this mission at its heart. Established by Armenian-Americans in 2005, GenEd has steadily expanded its work to bring teaching materials and professional development programs to high school educators across the United States. GenEd offers a particular expertise on teaching about the Armenian case as an essential episode in modern world history, WWI history and any curriculum that addresses human rights and genocide. Indeed, the Armenian Genocide holds a singular place in genocide studies. It was the stimulus for Rafael Lemkin’s invention of the word “genocide” itself. It was the most significant human rights crisis of

WWI, with record numbers of people murdered, an entire population erased from its historic homeland. New technologies made it possible to murder 1.5 million human beings faster than ever before, and the Turkish government’s total impunity for this unprecedented act served as inspiration for future perpetrators, beginning with Adolph Hitler. That impunity and the genocide denial campaign of successive Turkish governments also has a direct connection to the genocidal actions of Turkey and Azerbaijan against Armenians today, currently playing out with the months-long blockade intended to empty Armenians from Artsakh. With this history and current events in mind, the value of including the Armenian Genocide in standardized social studies curriculum is indisputable. Yet, despite its important place in modern history and its unique and powerful educational merit, it has been overlooked in most secondary curricula. Providing students an understanding of key examples of genocide across time, their common stages (including the stage of denial which perpetuates a genocide and enables new ones), equips our students as they become responsible global citizens, to take action when the early stages begin to appear. Through presentations at social studies conferences, teacher training workshops in major U.S. cities, and dissemination of free teaching resources through its website, GenEd has directly reached more than 10,000 social studies teachers. GenEd also collaborates with numerous state education departments and genocide education commissions. Studying Genocide Abroad Kerri Flynn planned and led the 2023 GenEd Teacher Fellowship Program which guided 15 teachers from 14 states to Armenia to study the Armenain Genocide, as well as Armenian culture and life. “Through a unique partnership with the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI), adjacent to the Tsitsernakaberd genocide memorial in Yerevan, Armenia, the program combines GenEd’s expertise in training U.S. social studies and English language arts

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