Many teachers across Scotland, and the world, use International Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January as a springboard for exploring extreme violence, both past and present. From a Global Citizenship perspective, this has to be accompanied by learning activities which promote peace and justice, through equipping learners to recognise and challenge discrimination and work towards conflict resolution.
This year teachers are facing the added sensitivities of the current conflict in the Middle East and growing Islamophobia and antisemitism here in Scotland. How can we balance emotional engagement, intellectual rigour and ethical reflection when designing learning around these issues?
Where to start
There are some excellent resources and support available in Scotland. Vision Schools Scotland (VSS) provide both primary and secondary resources for schools which use testimony from Scottish Holocaust survivors as a lens to view current world issues. VSS are partnering with WOSDEC and the Quakers Peace Education team to offer a two-part Professional Learning course this term which will explore the Israel-Palestinian conflict through this human rights-based lens.
"How can we balance emotional engagement, intellectual rigour and ethical reflection when designing learning around these issues?"
Razor wire and olive branches
Quakers have been involved in peace work in many parts of the world. They host the UK and Ireland branch of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), which provides international human rights monitors. EAPPI’s work is based on ‘principled impartiality’, meaning it is not ‘pro-Israeli’ or ‘pro-Palestinian’, but it is pro-human rights and international law.
These reports enabled the Quaker Peace Education team to create the Razor Wire & Olive Branches education pack. Using direct lived experience from real people and children from both ‘sides’ within the classroom is a vital way to counter the dehumanisation that can happen when we live far away from conflict.
Holocaust Education
To enable teachers to explore these themes in relation to the Holocaust, time and space is needed to build understanding of not only the historical events that led to the Holocaust itself, but the complexities of land and water rights, ethnic identity, religion, inequality, ideological opposition, colonialism, counter-terrorism and superpower rivalry. It’s a lot to ask of any teacher – intellectually, ethically and emotionally. However, we also cannot shy away from these discussions for fear of not understanding deeply enough and of causing
"Using direct lived experience from real people and children…. is a vital way to counter the dehumanisation that can happen when we live far away from conflict."
Only peace is the solution
“Never again” is a famous refrain of Holocaust remembrance, but the words can too easily be empty unless joined with action. Human Rights, as we know them now, were born in the wake of the Second World War and the Holocaust. Then, as now, there are peacemakers who have sacrificed as they seek to embody this. Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver, who set up Women Wage Peace, was killed when Hamas attacked her kibbutz on 7 October. Her belief in peace shines through her son Yonatan Zeigen, who said, “I hope that at least her death will be a part of some new movement, some change in our reality."
"We cannot shy away from these discussions for fear of not understanding deeply enough and of causing inadvertent offence."
Meanwhile, Issa Amro, a Palestinian peace activist from the contested city of Hebron, who has been arrested, harassed and assaulted over years of non-violent campaigning, describes the current situation thus:
"I think it's two opportunities. Either we choose to make it deeper and worse, or we make it as an opportunity to solve the conflict and to solve the occupation, to solve the apartheid and make living together possible because the security solution failed… only peace is the solution."
And for us as educators, only Peace Education is the solution.
