Chapter 6: A Partnership Model For Incorporating Holocaust Education Into Middle School Civics

This chapter presents a curriculum development partnership that brings together a state department of education Holocaust education task force, K-12 and university Holocaust and civics content and pedagogy experts, and a university civic education institute. Through this partnership, the Holocaust-civics curriculum was developed. The Holocaust-civics curriculum is based on Florida’s Next Generation Sunshine State Standards (NGSSS) for Social Studies civics and government standards in a manner that brings Holocaust content into middle school civics. Florida is unique as the sole state requiring a high-stakes middle school civics exam developed and administered by the state. That high stakes exam tests 40 benchmarks covering four standards. By contrast, Florida is one of the earlier states to mandate Holocaust education, in 1994. That mandate includes content-focused teaching requirements although no courses or subjects, benchmarks, or grade levels are identified in that mandate. Bringing the Holocaust education mandate into middle school civics enhances the likelihood that students will learn the lessons of the Holocaust because the Holocaust is then taught as part of the required civics course. The partnership approach that brought together civics and pedagogy experts from the K-12 and university communities under the auspices of the state department of education task force devoted to Holocaust education presented here proved an effective model for developing the Holocaust-civics curriculum.