by Debra Shein
In May of 2019, with the passage of Oregon Senate Bill 664 directing schools to provide instruction about the Holocaust and genocide, a new chapter began in the life of the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education (OJMCHE). The broad mandate has given the museum the tools to greatly extend its reach and help accomplish its mission to “explore the legacy of the Jewish experience in Oregon, teach the universal lessons of the Holocaust, and provide opportunities for intercultural conversation.”
Since the passage of the bill, OJMCHE Director of Education Amanda Coven has been reaching out to school districts across the state to prepare them to integrate the teaching of the Holocaust and genocide into their curriculums. The mandate, which went into effect in July 2020, includes nine learning concepts, separate from the current Social Science Standards, that will need to be addressed at various points throughout a student’s K-12 education. These learning concepts will then be integrated into the revised Social Sciences Standards when they are released in 2026. Coven views the upcoming several years as a “piloting phase” during which the museum can work with teachers and districts to get them to better know the history and determine what works best when designing lessons for various grades.
In a twist that could not have been foreseen at the time of the bill’s passage in 2019, the pandemic has unexpectedly provided the perfect conditions to foster these efforts. Before 2020, the bulk of the museum’s outreach to schools was comprised of on-site visits by groups of students to OJMCHE. Since then, while this avenue of interaction was cut off due to closures — and virtual visits became standard with the increased use of Zoom and similar technologies — the museum has been able to reach exponentially more people. Most notably, these have included many outside of the Portland metro area, often in more rural parts of the region, who have been far less likely to be able to organize in-person visits. Coven reports that she has been “really pleased with the numbers of teachers from Southern Oregon, Eugene, Salem, and throughout the state, who are now more connected to the museum. The pandemic has provided an opportunity to rethink and restructure who we reach and how we reach them. . . . It has also allowed us to bridge the urban/rural divide and learn to understand and empathize with other people’s experiences.”
One significant outcome of this restructuring has been an increased focus on offering professional development for teachers. For educators already more experienced in teaching genocide-related content, this past summer OJMCHE offered a Museum Educator Fellowship in which a cohort of ten explored ways in which to enhance students’ understanding through exposure to multiple narratives and diversity of experiences. In February 2022, the museum will begin taking applications for next summer’s fellowship, which will take place in partnership with Lewis & Clark College. Its theme will be “pathways to justice: reparations, reconciliation, and reconstruction.” Participants will be eligible for college credit. In the future, a range of opportunities will be offered for teachers of all levels of experience.
The time of the pandemic has also been used to develop additional valuable resources for teaching and learning. The OJMCHE website has been greatly expanded to include a wide range of materials created by museum staff and links to materials created by others. These efforts have been assisted by the work of Andrew Duden, OJMCHE Education Specialist for Digital Learning; the input of Amit Kobrowski, Oregon Department of Education Social Science Specialist; and all of the members of the OJMCHE Teacher Advisory Board. The ongoing endeavors of museum docents and members of the Speakers’ Bureau — eager to get back into circulation after the hiatus brought about by recent events — also continue to be of vital importance.
Due to the tremendous increase of its educational program, OJMCHE is currently hiring for a new position, that of Museum Education Manager, who is anticipated to come on board in the late winter or spring. This new role will focus on educational efforts within the museum and allow the Director of Education to focus more on planning and outreach. Coven notes that with increased funding, the museum could easily add yet another member to its staff and expand its reach even further. Current efforts are mostly focused on teachers and schools, but many more opportunities for providing adult education in a variety of forms could be embraced.
Some people have wondered about how it might be possible to teach children in younger grades about such sensitive subject matter. However, Coven advises, there is no problem when one considers that before teaching the details of the history, one must provide the underpinnings for understanding it. In age-appropriate ways, elementary students can be taught about the broader issues of power relationships in society, fairness, when it might be necessary to protest existing rules, what qualities make a good leader, and how and when apologies should be given and received. “Although it would be inappropriate to talk about the Holocaust in first grade,” Coven emphasizes, “having these discussions [about the concepts listed above] lays the foundation and prepares students to have the hard conversations later on.” One of the directions that museum education efforts will take will be to teach elementary teachers to prepare students to learn the more difficult details of history in middle and high school and develop the critical thinking skills necessary to evaluate the past and apply its lessons to the future.
As a final note, Coven reports that since coming to OJMCHE in October 2018, she has been thrilled by the opportunity to build relationships and create meaningful, lasting impressions on people. It’s extremely rewarding to be able to make people want to learn about such a difficult subject. She values the many thank you notes she has received and very much appreciates the team of staff and highly dedicated volunteers she works with.
SB 664 Timeline
- May 2019: Oregon State Senate passes SB 664 mandating that schools provide instruction about the Holocaust and genocide. Instruction must also “develop students’ respect for cultural diversity . . . stimulate their reflection on the responsibilities of citizens in democracies to combat misinformation and discrimination . . . preserve the memories of survivors of genocide . . . and enable students to understand the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping” (see full text of bill).
- July 2019: Bill signed into law by Gov. Kate Brown at OJMCHE.
- July 2020: Law goes into effect for 2020-21 school year.
- 2020-2024: OJMCHE works with schools and teachers to assist in the implementation and lay the groundwork for integrating the mandate into Social Science Standards, develops a strategic plan to direct future efforts.
- 2024: Oregon Department of Education and Oregon educators begin discussing revisions and updates to the Social Sciences Standards to provide specific guidelines for how the mandate will be implemented at each grade level.
- 2026: Updated Standards released.