MONTREAL – The effects of genocide are known by many, but according to Heidi Berger, an award-winning film producer, the younger generation is too removed from mass genocide to understand what exactly it is.
She made it her goal to tour schools and teach students about the effects of mass genocide through video. Particularly a video about her mother who survived the Holocaust.
“After my presentations, teachers were coming up to me and telling me that students are graduating from grade 11 not even knowing what the word genocide means,” Berger said.
She started the Foundation for the Compulsory Study of Genocide in Schools to help bring the importance of genocide into a classroom environment.
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She has also met with two provincial education ministers to discuss the possibility of incorporating the subject into the curriculum.
The first meeting didn’t go as planned, but Berger came back with suggestions, which caught the attention of Liberal MNA, Sébastien Proulx.
“We found a way of how to introduce it into grade 11,” Berger said.
She suggested including more content about genocide to the Contemporary World class taught in the final year of high school.
There are currently only two paragraphs regarding the subject in the class textbook.
The added content would also allow teachers to better educate themselves on the topic, enabling them to have in-depth conversations with their students.
Berger hopes that by pushing for more education about genocide, it could help deter radicalization of youth.
She will meet with Proulx again in a few weeks to continue discussing the curriculum.
“With students understanding the steps leading to genocide, they will develop critical thinking that will allow them to understand today’s genocide,” said Berger. “Prevention is in education.”
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