12019 The Pain of Knowledge: Reflections on Holocaust and Genocide Issues in Education in Israel and Elsewhere 1
Credits: 3 graduate credits in Democracy Studies / History, Education and Citizenship or Communication and Culture or in Education: Technologies and Learning Systems
Prerequisites for Democracy Studies: Democracy: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Israeli Democracy: Selected Issues, Contemporary Democratic Theories; one of the following: Democracy and Democratization, Selected Problems in the History of Western Democracies, Education Policy: Education for Democracy in Democratic Societies, Democracy and Mass Communication,2 Selected Topics in Public Administration; and exemption from bibliographic assignments on computer searches in the “Alef” catalog and databases.
Prerequisites for Education: Admission to the graduate program in Education: Technologies and Learning Systems
Author: Yair Auron. The materials also include a reader.
Objectives: The course focuses on the wide range of considerations and concerns relating to how the Holocaust is discussed and taught in the Israeli education system. It examines how the education system views lessons that should be drawn from the Holocaust and the relative importance it attributes to them, and the degree to which the education system influences the attitudes of Israeli youth. It also surveys the differences in teaching the Holocaust in various sectors of the Israeli educational system.
Topics: Philosophic and theological reaction to the Holocaust; Constructing the memory of the Holocaust; Holocaust studies in Israel over the years – historical processes; Teaching the Holocaust in Israel – didactic aspects; Curricula in Israel; Holocaust memorial day; Youth journeys to Poland; The Arabs and the Holocaust; Attitudes of Israeli youth towards the Holocaust; Teaching the Holocaust around the world; Teaching about genocide.
1Students may write a seminar paper in this course, although it is not required.
This course is also offered in Russian (42302). Its description is available on the Russian-language website of the Open University (https://www-r.openu.ac.il/).
There is some overlap in the content of this and other courses. For details, see Overlapping Courses.
2or Liberalism: Texts, Contexts, Critiques (12005), for students who took it as a required course in the Culture specialization before Spring 2010.