[SolidWood]

Have you educated them on the subject during this lesson?

[Marie2]

I don’t think I knew what the holocaust was when I was 10.

I believe I read “Diary of Anne Frank” in 6th grade. A good intro to the whole mess for girls of that age, I think. True, believable, very sad, but not bulldozers of bodies piled up.

Then in 7th/8th grade I saw “World at War,” another excellent education if you can stomach the unspeakable visuals.

[neb52]

Most students in public school don’t hit world history until the 7th or 8th grade. Any introduction to WWII would be limited prior to that. Frankly that is fine since history is a very easy subject to learn outside of schooling compared to other subjects and people ignorant of history are going continue to do so no matter how much class time you force them into.

As far what you would tell them in the Catechist class, I would keep it simple since they are not there to learn about the holocaust or WWII.

[SuziQ]

It's very likely that they haven't yet learned about the Holocaust by the 5th grade, because of the nature of the schedule of history classes through the grades.

I only learned about it when I took World History in the 10th grade. Of course that was 40 years ago, so things may have changed somewhat, and kids may be learning somewhat earlier, but I don't know.

Our World History teacher arranged for all of her different sections to go to the auditorium at the same time to see a documentary about the Holocaust. It was the first time I'd ever seen teenage boys cry. There were big old football players blubbering like fools. Of course, most of us were, because we'd had no idea about what had happened to the European Jews. Heck, at that time, unless we were big WWII movie fans, or knew a returning vet from WWII who would actually talk about it, we didn't know about the Japanese atrocities against their prisoners. I knew about that, because a family friend had been in the Bataan Death March, and it was something from which he really never mentally recovered.

[SuziQ]

Oh, yeah, I forgot about “Number the Stars”, but that only dealt with the Jews in Denmark being smuggled to Sweden. It didn’t get into the full Holocaust, with the death camps in Europe, but I guess teachers could mention it as part of the larger discussion in history classes. I think our kids were older, in Middle School, before they read Anne Frank.

[sageb1]

11 years old? I have a 10-yr.old grandson and I’m going to tell you his understanding is not at that level.

[Frogtacos]

My son (just turned 13) is in the 7th grade, at public school. He has NEVER been assigned any books of 'substance' to date. His current 'book report' assignment is to read a book with at least 100 pages (that the teacher approves) and to find a word beginning with each letter of the alphabet and define those words. That's it. He has never written an actual book report - never had to. By the time I was his age I was reading my mothers books and did a book report on The Clan of the Cave Bear. The boy is in for a rude awakening as we will be homeschooling starting next year.

And on topic, I know he hasn't learned about the Holocost at school.

[beaversmom]

I knew about Nazi Germany and the killing of Jews at least by 10 if not before. My mom was a little girl when London was being bombed so that is probably why I knew about it— from her stories and also seeing documentaries on TV. I have discussed it with my children too—I know with my oldest, now 12, I have read books to him (Survivors: True Stories of Children in the Holocaust) and we have watched documentaries on TV and videos on YouTube together. This was a few years ago that we did that. Even with my now 7 year old we have discussed it. He went through the Holocaust exhibit at a local church’s annual Israel Awareness Day. He was 6 then. I’m sure he has vague understanding of it. My 3 year old—of course, not even a clue. If I hadn’t discussed it with my two older children, I doubt they would have any knowledge of it from their school(s) at this point.

[GeronL]

It is kind of hard to re-educate the masses if we let them learn stuff. I bet they all know who Martin Luther King and Harriet Beecher Stowe were, and global warming of course.

[athelass]

I homeschooled my kids. They read Diary of Anne Frank in the 4th grade and studied WWII in depth, but they knew about the Holocaust in general terms well before that from a religious POV. We study the Old Testament, pray for Israel regularly, so we talk as a family about the history of Israel, both ancient and modern, and America's relationship and responsibility for the nation of Israel.

We also talked about it quite a bit through our Shakespeare units starting in 5th grade in terms of personal and public mores. I think it is very much a part of religious education, though IMO, with other people's kids it's probably a subject where I would just give the basics, let the parents answer the questions. Avoid the political and familial standpoints, the delicate stuff.

Frankly, I'm surpised that an entire class of students didn't know what the Holocaust is, outside of Iran. I guess I figured every family talks about pivotal periods in human history. Sad.

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

When I was ten (about a million years ago!) I knew that Hitler had killed millions of Jews, but I don’t think I knew the word “Holocaust” yet. I was introduced to and subsequently read “The Diary of Anne Frank” when I was in sixth grade. My guess is that the kids just haven’t had this in school yet. But there is nothing wrong with giving them a quick little history lesson yourself. My parents were big history buffs and were constantly discussing things like the battle of Agincourt at the dinner table (no, I’m not kidding!) which is probably the only reason I know any history at all today. Feel free to be a one-man history course!

[Obamageddon]

How many schools teach the facts of the Holodomor and the Armenian Genocide, and who the murderers were?

[GloriaJane]

I have a big one foot by two foot leather bound book called, “Collier’s Photographic History Of World War II” that shows not only the complete history of the war in pictures but also has a picture of hundreds of unburied bodies stacked on top of each other in one great big hole in the ground. It’s from Belsen concentration camp.

Back when my son was in middle school I took my book out and showed it to some of his friends who had come over. My son was the only one of them who knew anything about the Holocaust. The rest of them had never heard of it.

[markomalley]

Am I being a little harsh?

Shouldn't 11 year old American children know what the the Holocaust is all about or is it just too much?

Yes, they should know about the Holocaust. And yes, they should know about Stalin's purges and the Gulag Archipelago. And they should know, in all its gory detail, about abortion (since, unfortunately, statistically, at least one boy and one girl in your CCD class are sexually active at 11)

And they should know exactly who was targeted above.

And they should know in detail who did the targeting. *AND THAT IN ALL CASES, IT WAS LEFT WINGERS WHO DID THE TARGETING* (An explanation and proof that fascism is just another form of socialism would also be appropriate).

---

Were students taught that in public (or for that matter most private) schools? HIGHLY doubtful.

In CCD you can start to fix it, but you don't have time to really do a good job of it.

[rfreedom4u]

When my daughter was in (public) school in Hawaii (8th grade) they told her the horrors of the holocaust and the atomic bomb. They never mentioned a word of one single atrocity committed by Japan. I educated her on the rape of Nanking, Unit 731, the Bataan Death March, Korean “Comfort” Women and many of things.
Then I talked her into asking the teacher about these things in class and asking why he didn’t teach any of this. He was dumbstruck and asked her where she heard about them. She told him that I taught her.
His response was the school didn’t think they were mature enough to hear those things until high school. She graduated in 2008 and was never told any of this in school.

[goldi]

They do in my school district. It’s a state requirement.

[grellis]

I'd hang on to your shock. I knew of the Holocaust at a very young age because I thought my parents' copy of The Rise and Fall of the Thrid Reich looked interesting (and I had nightmares for a good year afterward). I didn't learn about it in school, apart from some oblique referencing, until I was in 7th grade. I actually approve of this approach. If parents want their kids to learn about any wartime horrors at an earlier age, they are free to do so.

[rmlew]

I went to a private school. The Holocaust did not come up in grade school until 7th grade US History and 8th grade European History. It came up well before that in Hebrew school, probably 4th grade. But I knew about it much earlier as my father is and grandparents were survivors. I found out about it at 5, asking about pictures of relatives, who my sister and myself are named after, in my grandparent's apartment.

I don't think that 10 is too young. St. Maximilian Kolbe is certainly worth celebrating.

[SunkenCiv]

What are US students learning about Islam?
Christian Science Monitor | 4-22-09 | Gary Bauer
Posted on 04/22/2009 10:24:32 AM PDT by Wolf13
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2235330/posts

[dfwgator]

It’s a hard subject to introduce to kids, I know I struggle with it myself, I frequently watch holocaust-themed movies and documentaries, but I’m careful not to when the kids are around, because I just don’t feel quite prepared to talk to them about it.

Probably a good way of introducing them would be to read or watch, “The Diary of Anne Frank.” That’s probably what I will do, when I feel comfortable enough.