Teaching About Thanksgiving

Teaching about Thanksgiving not as easy as it used to be. The iconic images of the Mayflower passengers disembarking at Plymouth Rock and being met by Native Americans who were about to serve a feast out of some gourmet magazine is just not entirely true.

There are a number of web sites that may be useful in creating lesson plans that are both fun and historically accurate.

The online education magazine Education World has an article about the “real Story of the First Thanksgiving.” Hint- it is more than just the story of Squanto.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/Teach-the-Real-Story-of-the-First-Thanksgiving.shtml

Lessons can include writing and speaking about what students are thankful for. The topic of Thanksgiving also   provides teachers with the opportunity to discuss diversity in America.

Scholastic.com also provides classroom teachers with lesson plans about the Mayflower as well as the customs and culture of the time period. Check out

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/collection/teaching-about-first-thanksgiving. You will also find video clips and excerpts of actual letters written by the Mayflower settlers. There are also link to Common Core standards that can be integrated into the teaching about Thanksgiving.

For those of you in the Massachusetts area a visit to the Plimouth Plantation, a living history museum depicting 17^th century life in Massachusetts Bay Colony. For the rest of use, visit the web site www.plimouth.org.

Finally, there are a number of various media resources that can be found in the archives of the Library of Congress. Visit www. loc.org

Best wishes to you, your families and your students for a Happy Thanksgiving

c.2015 J. Margolis

Remembering Kristallnacht- November 8, 1938

This year marks the 77^th anniversary of Kristallnacht, “ The Night of Broken Glass.”

This methodical, Nazi led pogrom destroyed synagogues and Jewish owned businesses in Germany and Austria. This event is generally believed to be the beginning of what was to become the Holocaust, leading to the deaths of over six million European Jews as well as many non-Jews.

As of today there are six states that have mandatory Holocaust education as part of their curriculum.  New Jersey was the first state to recognize this need and the Richard Stockton State University, in New Jersey was one of the first institutions of higher education to offer a graduate degree in Holocaust studies.

Now, all of these years later, the discussion and teaching of the Holocaust is as relevant as ever. More states should make the study of the Holocaust and Genocide an integral part of their curriculum. Readers may wish to take a look at a YouTube video directed by Pennsylvanian Rhonda Fink, who was trying to impress state legislators about the fact that many college students knew little about the Holocaust and that there was a pressing need for Holocaust education in Pennsylvania schools.

In several states like, New York, New Jersey, and Florida, Holocaust survivors visit local schools and share their stories of how they lost their families and about the horrors of concentration camp life. But like our World War Two veterans, Holocaust survivors are reaching the end of their days and there will come a time when all of the survivors will be gone. If schoolteachers and administrators doubt what a class of young people can to bring a light to that dark time in our history, I suggest that they get a copy of the DVD “Paperclips” and see what the middle-schoolers in Whitwell, Tennessee accomplished.

Fort more information about Kristallnacht and the Holocaust, check the web site of the United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum. (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005201)

C.2015 J. Margolis