MS Students Create Holocaust Memorials

Middle School Social Studies Department Chair Chrissie Ferguson and her 6th grade students have been studying the Holocaust, culminating in a week-long unit on heroes and heroines of the time. 

Ferguson has been trained by Facing History and Ourselves and teaches the Facing History scope and sequence in many of her units. The organization partners with educators around the world in thousand of classrooms and aims to address racism, antisemitism, and prejudice at pivotal moments in history.

Ferguson and her students dove into units about judgment, memory, and legacy along with the individual’s role in society.

“Basically, we decide how we will remember those we have studied and how we will honor those who are still living,” said Ferguson. “When we studied the Seminole Indian tribe, ‘Judgment, Memory, and Legacy’ became our Seminole-inspired patchwork.”

Ferguson’s students created Holocaust memorials and discussed what it means to choose to participate.

“How will we take what we have learned into the real world? Answers usually include ideas on a smaller, more middle-school student level,” said Ferguson, whose students thought of everything from being more inclusive, to being upstanders instead of bystanders.

Ferguson said she loves integrating Facing History and Ourselves into her middle school curriculum.

“They have helped me to infuse the teaching of empathy into all of my units; they have changed the way I teach,” she said.