RESISTER/RESISTi7Eff:
NARRATIVES OF FEMALE HOLOCAUST RESISTERS AS MORAL EDUCATION
SARAH L. KING
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1*1 Canada RESISTER/RESISTHER: NARRATIVES OF FEMALE HOLOCAUST RESISTERS AS MORAL EDUCATION
by Sarah King a thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of York University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF EDUCATION
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Abstract
The central question underpinning this research is: how can Holocaust education inform issues of social justice and moral education, with particular attention paid to the growing rate of psychological bullying amongst female adolescents. An introduction to the Holocaust through a discussion of resistance to psychological bullying or other problems they have faced might offer girls the opportunity to consider connections between their experiences and the experiences of female resisters to the Holocaust. A discussion of historical and contemporary resistance can also include tenets of moral education, offering students frameworks of morality through which to view their resistance efforts. I believe that an interdisciplinary and multimodal approach to the teaching of Holocaust history, incorporating literature and other media forms can also incorporate tenets of moral education, resulting in an increased awareness of the dangers of psychological bullying and an improved ability on the part of female students to resist these practices. V
Dedication and Acknowledgments
To my family ...
... To my mother, first of all, for dedicating her life to education in all its forms. For being my sounding board, my proof reader, my mentor and my friend.
... To my grandfather, whose love of education was apparent in everything he did, from driving the 'school bus' to winery tours, to epistles from afar. For pulling the strings that aligned the fates to make this degree, and this thesis possible.
... To my buddy, without whose experience with volatile friends my ire might never have been piqued and this work never commenced, much less completed.
... To all the Sainty women, whose strength and tenacity have inspired my determination to change the way all girls find their way to womanhood.
To my friends for your potluck suppers, your shoulders to cry on, your conversation and ability to make me see reason when life threatened to overwhelm me and for your many hours of commiseration over endless bottles of wine.
To J, for your love and support and most of all for always being one step ahead of me in the process so I knew what to expect.
To my committee, and especially to Karen, for your inspiration, guidance and support throughout this process.
To the faculty, staff, and students of Renaissance College for your commitment to your students, for your dedication to education, and your example of how invigorating and inclusive learning can be.
Thank you all. Without you, I would never have been able to accomplish so much. vi
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Introduction 1
Defining Terms 4
Significance of the Study 10
Purpose of the Study 12
Scope of the Study 13
Limitations of the Study 15
Chapter Two: A Comparative Analysis of Relevant Sources 18
Resistance 20
The Danish Resistance 22
The Danish Resistance in Young Adult Literature 23
The White Rose Resistance Movement 26
The White Rose in Literature and On Film 28
Holocaust Film in the Classroom 28
Young Adult Literature and the Holocaust 32
Reader Response Theory & Holocaust Literature 36
Bullying 38
Chapter Three: Studying High School Students' Perceptions on
Bullying and the Holocaust 45
Methods 46
Participants 48
Materials 49 Vll
Procedure 50
Results 51
Chapter Four: 'Good' vs. 'Bad' - How Moral Education Curricula Can Inform
Anti-Bullying Education 62
Moral Education in Theory and Practice 64
"Us" vs. "Them" 67
"Good" vs. "Bad" 70
Closing the Divide 72
Frameworks of Morality 73
Resistance as Moral Behaviour 75
And Now, to Act 77
Chapter Five: Interdisciplinary Education 80
Interdisciplinary Education in Theory and Practice 83
Project-Based Learning 86
Interdisciplinary and Intercommunity Education 88
Interdisciplinary Moral Education 92
You Can't Say You Can't Play 93
Final Thoughts 95
References 98
Appendix A: The White Rose Reading 108
Appendix B: Guidelines for Group Discussion 115 via
What Would You Say?
What would you say, if I told you I wrote a collection of poems? The subject was forgotten genocides, But forgot the Native Americans, the Rwandans, the Western Sudanese, the Serbians. The Hereros, Eritreans, and Cambodians. The Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians— Anathema, I forgot those other Holocaust millions: Jehovah's Witnesses, Gypsies, the gays, and more!
Funerary urns groaned, awakening me from deep sleep. Millions of spirits— trying, trying, to climb up the slippery sides— climbing— desperate to come out still climbing, wanting to be heard.
The denialists, distortionists, and perpetrators of "Let's kill them all," stuffed them into funerary urns, hoping that we'd forget. Rendering us unwitting accomplices of "Let's kill them all."
Truth's still writhing, twisting, struggling to come out To be heard, to be revealed. I hear their spirits pleading, pleading, "Do not forget us."
—Sofia Kontogeorge Kostos
In: Forgotten Genocides of the 20th Century 1
Chapter One
Introduction
July 15, 2007 - Stuttgart, Germany
This whole trip still seems a little bit surreal, even though I'm actually in Europe now. I'm still uncertain about whether or not this trip was a good idea. What if people don't like me, or I don't like them? What if the trip isn't what I expect it to be? What if I'm overly emotional when we go to Auschwitz or some of the other camps, or what if I'm not emotional at all?
I'm also second guessing the amount of knowledge I'm bringing with me, which is making me second guess my whole academic career. My own formal Holocaust education was virtually nonexistent. The Holocaust was treated as a minor subsection of the military history of World War II in my high school history class. Most of the knowledge I have about the Holocaust is self-taught. The vast majority of that knowledge I gleaned from reading fictional books -from the time I was a child, I've been reading novels about the
Holocaust and WWII. From there, I developed the idea that fictional texts can be used in conjunction with (or in lieu of) non-fiction books - either textbooks or other information texts - to teach young people about the Holocaust and other historical events. Now, I'm wondering if this is the case. I feel woefully inadequate because I feel like I haven't learned enough history to even be on this trip. I guess that's not the case or the professors wouldn 't have chosen me, so I'll have to see what the days to come will teach me. 2
The academic study of the Holocaust is overwhelmingly focused on the study of the victim and, more specifically, the Jewish victim. Six million Jews perished due to the
Nazi's Final Solution, but it is important to remember, memorialize and research the other groups whose histories contribute to an inclusive narrative of the Holocaust, but are seldom heard. In total, eleven million people—including Jews, gypsies (specifically Sinti and
Roma), homosexuals, Catholics, Communists, those deemed mentally challenged, trade unionists and political dissidents—were systematically murdered by the Nazis, and their stories need to be told. However, we must memorialize the Holocaust through narratives of all of its many victim groups. It is imperative to note that the stories of those who witnessed this cataclysmic event and sought to confront the evil they saw overtaking their lives must be discussed as eagerly as those whose stories remain as documentation of the inner workings of concentration camps. The stories that document the lives of Holocaust resisters should be considered as an integral part of Holocaust history. This is especially important when one considers their applications to the way modern society operates.
The stories of victims, perpetrators, bystanders and resisters combine to create a multidimensional history of the Holocaust, each history equally important to the creation of a history of the Holocaust. The history of the perpetrators has been well documented— ironically it is Nazi record keeping, whose comprehensive, meticulous records of their reign of terror still remain—and is evolving to include the voices of many victim groups. The history of the bystanders, while undocumented and difficult to study—who, after all, wants to admit that they stood by and merely witnessed the greatest crime in history?— nonetheless remains in perpetuity. We know that there were those who did not act. Their 3
compliance, albeit perhaps less overt, nevertheless allowed Hitler's National Socialist party to continue their Reign of Terror unencumbered.
The history of resistance has been arguably well documented, with numerous accounts of heroism, on every scale, memorialized in many ways. One important group whose voices have been marginally ignored the stories of female resisters. As Rohrlich
(1998) notes, "it is taken for granted that resisters to the Holocaust were male and little has been written about the fact that many women, both Jewish and non-Jewish were outstandingly heroic" (p. 6).
As a high school student, my own historical education was certainly lacking. A self- proclaimed 'history buff, I devoured historical fiction for younger readers, in particular books on the Holocaust by Carol Matas. I was fascinated by the complexity of the events and particularly the experience of young people—victims, perpetrators and resisters— during the Nazi regime. When I was introduced to the Holocaust in my high school history classroom, I was disappointed by the seemingly perfunctory treatment it was given; the
Holocaust was discussed as a minor subsection of study under a broader, military history of
World War II. Already, I had made connections between the experiences of those brave resisters and my own life. As a high school student, I was very concerned with issues of social justice including combating racism and homophobia even though students, teachers and administrators at my high school, where the students were predominately white
Christians and difference was not accepted or recognized, tried hard to pretend those problems did not exist. Throughout my undergraduate degree, and now as a graduate student, I continue to wonder why the study of history is often treated as a self-contained discipline, without exploration of the ramifications of what history can teach us about the 4
exploration of solutions to contemporary problems. Thus, this frustration became the impetus for an interdisciplinary study of resistance within the context of secondary education.
The role of the female resister is central to the discussion of two main resistance movements—the White Rose resistance movement at the University of Munich, Germany and the Danish resistance movement—as documented through narratives both fiction and non-fiction. What is also intriguing about these two movements is that both were, at least partially, run by youth. I believe that including a discussion of the resistance and in particular the importance of female youth in these resistance movements in the Holocaust education classroom will provide an important framework through which high school students can judge and analyse their own behaviours. Thus, we come to the central question underpinning this research: how can Holocaust education inform issues of social justice and moral education, with particular attention paid to the growing rate of psychological bullying amongst female adolescents.
Defining Terms
The concept of resistance is problematic at best. Resistance itself can be defined in many ways. The Oxford English Dictionary has six definitions for the term including
Organized covert opposition to an occupying or ruling power; spec. (usu.
with def. article and capital initial) in the war of 1939-45, the underground
movement formed in France in June 1940 with the object of resisting the
authority of the German occupying forces and the Vichy government; any
organization of this type with similar ends. 5
According to Geyer and Boyer (1994), the current state of resistance scholarship and education has been shaped by the resistance movements during the National Socialist period of Germany's history. It is this aspect of resistance, focusing on the events of World War II in Europe, with which this paper concerns itself.
Rohrlich (1998) offers an interesting problematization of the term resistance. She writes:
To some, resistance is active; it means fighting, using a stick, a gun, taking
your chances, knowing the odds are against you. For active resistance to
take place with any degree of success what is required are intelligence,
logistics, communication among the various units, leadership, support by
the non-fighting environment, and perhaps, above all, luck. It means
inflicting as many casualties as you can, knowing that in the end you will
most likely not come out of it [...] This view of resistance assumes death
for the resister (p. 1).
While this 'definition' of the term resistance is no doubt accurate, the very active
(read: violent) nature Rohrlich stresses makes the definition problematic, particularly when considering the applications for this research within the school system.
Much has been written about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the role young men and women played in its development and execution. When Jewish members of the
Sonderkommando in Auschwitz plotted and attempted a revolt against the SS officers keeping them captive, they were successful in destroying one of the crematoria and thus reducing the camp's terrible productivity and efficiency. This admirable act of heroism has been documented in memoirs (Edelman, n.d.; Kazik, 1994) and academic literature 6
(Mamus, 1995; Gutman, 1998). By focusing here on those resistance efforts not enacted by victims, it is certainly not my intention to negate these movements. However, educators have access to numerous resources explaining and documenting resistance in the face of adversity (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum [USHMM], n.d.)
It is my intention as a researcher to document the efforts of those who were not victims of Nazi brutality, those who took a moral stand against the degradation of their neighbours and fellow citizens and to inspire links between these actions and the lives of the high school students who will be studying them. It is my hope that by focusing on the
Danish resistance movement and Sophie Scholl's involvement with the White Rose in
Munich I will both expand scholarship on these two relatively unknown movements and demonstrate to students and educators the power of resistance by any group or individual.
Werner Rings (1982) identifies four key forms of resistance—again, these resistance movements are limited specifically to Jewish experience, but their application to other groups' resistances is apparent. Rings' four categories include Symbolic and Personal
Resistance, which relates to attempts to preserve individual dignity in the face of the Nazi dehumanization. For example, Jews engaged in symbolic and/or personal resistance may have chosen to continue covertly practicing their faith through silent prayers. For non-Jews, this form of resistance may have manifested itself in an internal rejection of the Nazi ideology. Thus, the resistance to National Socialism was not overtly manifested or easily recognizable (and consequently punished).
Another form of resistance, as outlined by Rings, is Polemic Resistance, sometimes called intellectual resistance. Those engaged in polemic resistance felt compelled to disseminate information about the Nazi brutality to other parts of occupied Europe and the 7
free world. The leaflets of the White Rose resistance movement in Munich, Germany and the underground newspapers of the Danish resistance are concrete examples of polemic resistance to the Nazi oppressors. Defensive Resistance and Armed Resistance complete
Rings' analysis of forms of resistance. Related concepts, those engaged in defensive resistance would have actively tried to protect and help Jewish victims of Hitler's wrath like
Miep Gies, the secretary who hid Anne Frank's family in the Annexe in Amsterdam during the occupation of the Netherlands. Armed Resistance was comprised of those organized groups—including the AK (Armia Krajowa - Polish Home Army) during the Warsaw
Uprising—who mounted armed attacks of sabotage or partisan warfare against the Nazi army.
For this thesis, given the actions of the White Rose and Danish resistance movements, I chose to focus on Rings' definition of polemic resistance. While symbolic or personal resistance is also appropriate for this type of application, polemic resistance
(during the Holocaust, specifically, and also presumably in other applications) was a more covert form of resistance, less defiant and less observable. It included acts such as continuing to offer traditional Jewish prayers before meals, and honouring the Sabbath in imperceptible ways unidentifiable by the Nazi guards. However, most importantly for this study, polemic resistance also includes the intellectual opposition and expression of this opposition against difficult circumstances.
For the purpose of this study, I have operationally defined resistance, based on the concepts of intellectual and Rings' polemic resistance to mean an intellectual, but unconcealed, opposition to the oppressing factor. This form of resistance is appropriate to 8
characterize applications to current acts of oppression and intolerance, particularly acts such as these which are perpetrated within schools.
When projecting this internalized type of resistance to the phenomena of school bullying and female group dynamics, I argue that symbolic resistance alone is not enough to end the cycle of psychological violence perpetuated by female bullies. In the face of bullying, symbolic and/or personal resistance might take the form of an internalized, unarticulated, displeasure with the methods and practices of bullies. While having an internal aversion to the practice might allow students to remain strong, thus deterring a potential bully, the student in question remains a bystander in the bullying cycle (Coloroso,
2002; Olweus, 2003), unwilling to take a formal stand against the bully's action. Given the youth of the resisters, and assumedly the victims and perpetrators as well, allowing youth to approach resistance from a non-violent perspective allows the cycle of violence to be broken. Giving students the intellectual framework in which to situate their resistance might also allow students to analyze their actions with greater depth and understanding.
Most Canadian students are lucky to live in a society that does not share the same features as the Nazi regime. Students' lives are, however, shaped by experiences with those who wish to exert and demonstrate power over them. Parents and teachers have a responsibility to use their power assertively and without harming. However, adults are not the only domineering force in most middle and high school students' lives. The clique is a powerful force in the lives of many high school students, particularly adolescent girls.
Cliques find strength in numbers when it comes to exerting their power over others through such methods as social exclusion, rumour spreading and gossip. Not all groups of adolescent girls can be immediately termed "cliques". In fact, close friendships among girls 9
can be effective resistance against the relational aggressions practiced by cliques. For the sake of this research, then, and in this thesis, the word clique can be read with a negative connotation, representing a group of girls whose motives are based not solely on friendship, but who also practice psychological bullying against their peers. This unique brand of aggression has been termed psychological bullying. However, these pervasive acts are easily dismissed, as noted in the title of an article by Bright (2005), as "just a grade 8 girl thing" when their effects are real and felt keenly by many adolescent girls.
Psychological bullying has also been referred to as indirect aggression, which has been defined as "[being] characterized by its somewhat covert nature and use of third parties, had principal forms of gossiping and spreading rumors and social exclusion
(deliberately not allowing a person into a group)" (Smith, Cowie, Olafsson, & Liefooghe,
2002) and described as "subtle, covert, and manipulative" (Elinoff, Chafouleas, & Sassu,
2004).
These forms of bullying are commonly associated with female bullies, particularly the "Queen Bees" (Wiseman, 2003): "Through a combination of charisma, force, money, looks, will, and manipulation, this girl reigns supreme over the other girls and weakens their friendships with others, thereby strengthening her own power and influence" (p. 25). Even popular culture references to adolescent life seemingly accept psychological bullying as the norm. Television programs like Gossip Girl and films such as 2004's Mean Girls demonstrate an acceptance of psychological bullying practices as normal. In a film, Sydney
White released on DVD in 2008, one character even advocates for the titular character's
"social death", presumably through gossip and slander. 10
If girls hope to be able to develop an intellectual, but unconcealed resistance to their bullies and the power dynamics that can create intense relational problems, we must treat psychological bullying with the same gravity with which we approach cases of physical violence. An introduction to the Holocaust through a discussion of resistance to psychological bullying, or other problems they have faced might offer girls the opportunity to consider connections between their experiences and the experiences of female resisters to the Holocaust.
Significance of the Study
Holocaust education, as it is practiced in Canadian classrooms today, seems to be segmented in a number of ways. First of all, the Holocaust is seen as a topic best left to history teachers. The idea of combining various in-school disciplines (history and literature, for example, or history and civics/citizenship education), while advocated for in scholarly literature (Kessler, 1991; Cooper, 1996; Short, 1997), has not become mainstream practice in the classroom. As well, the extrapolation of concepts from the study of the Holocaust to more contemporary problems seems to be limited to anti-racist or anti-antisemitism education (Short, 2000; Totten & Feinberg, 2001). Given the omnipresence of bullying, this study may provide important insights into the extent to which viewing Holocaust education may prove to be a means through which to strengthen anti-bullying curricula.
Bullying is a very contentious issue in the current practice of education. Rates of bullying—or, at least, reports of bullying—are rising. Citing two studies conducted in 1983 and 2003, Olweus (2003) states, "the percentage of victimized students had increased by approximately 50 percent from 1983, and the percentage of students who were involved
[...] in frequent and serious bullying problems [...] had increased by approximately 65 11
percent" (p. 13). However, the definition of what constitutes bullying remains unclear.
According to Olweus (1997), "[a] student is being bullied or victimized when he or she is exposed repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more students"
(Elinoff et al., 2004, p. 889). This definition, however, leaves the term 'negative actions' open for interpretation by the appropriate authority. Bullying is often associated with aggressive action, specifically physically aggressive action. However, as new research is beginning to demonstrate, the use of psychological bullying can also have grievous consequences on the intended victim. In a continuation of his earlier work, Olweus (2003) clarifies the term 'negative actions':
The person who intentionally inflicts, or attempts to inflict, injury or
discomfort on someone else is engaging in negative actions, a term
similar to the definition of aggressive behavior in the social sciences.
People carry out negative actions through physical contact, with words,
or in more indirect ways, such as making mean faces or gestures,
spreading rumors or intentionally excluding someone from a group (p.
12).
This definition of negative actions allows for schools, school boards and policy makers to include many forms of aggression in their policies on bullying. Thus, it is important to recognize alternative aggressions and other negative actions as the psychologically damaging conflicts they are.
Recent research in bullying examines the role gender plays in the manifestations of negative actions (Besag, 2006; Bright, 2005; Osier 2006). Simply put, girls are more likely than boys to engage in what Veenstra, Lindenberg, Oldehinkel, De Winter, Verhulst and 12
Ormel (2005) define as psychological bullying—"excluding, isolating and gossiping" (p.
672). Rosalind Wiseman's (2003) book, Queen Bees and Wannabes refers to cliques and gossip as "realities of adolescence" in the title. Through her own observations and discussions conducted with high school students, her book deconstructs the roles each member of the clique plays in its functioning as an entity and outlines the maliciousness with which girls attack each other. By examining the role gender plays in bullying and paralleling those discussions with an analysis of the role of female resisters in the
Holocaust, I hope to make connections between these two disparate phenomena. These connections can lead to a classroom discussion of the implications of interdisciplinary historical (specifically Holocaust) study and inform and inspire educators to make connections between historical and contemporary manifestations of violence.
I will endeavour to bring together research on Holocaust narrative, Holocaust education, gender roles and bullying. The significance of this study lies in a possible justification for Holocaust education focusing on the role of female resisters in intellectually opposing the Nazi regime in conjunction with a careful understanding of how gender influences bullying practices.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to examine the connections students make between the lives of female Holocaust resisters and their own lived experiences as victims, bystanders, perpetrators and resisters of bullying. It will examine the use of literature and film in the history classroom and the ways students create text-to-self, text-to-world and intertextual connections. 13
Students are able to make connections between events referenced in historical fiction novels and their own lives (Dublin, 2005; Kertzer, 1999; Kessler, 1991; Russell, 1997).
The use of film in the history classroom to teach about the Holocaust has also been well documented (Ellison & Pisapia, 2006; Totten & Feinberg, 2001). However, each of these studies has been undertaken to observe how these alternative pedagogical practices help students learn history. The need arises, then, for the study of how the study of history can help students learn about their own behaviours. By addressing bullying, a contemporary challenge faced by many students, within the framework of a historical event and its characters, in this case Holocaust resisters, it can be argued that students' connections to the subject matter studied will be more adept, meaningful and memorable when that study is relevant to their own individual histories.
Scope of the Study
I employ several research methods in order to achieve these connections, including textual analysis, a review of scholarly literature, and participant observation. Each chapter of this thesis is accompanied by a personal, parallel narrative. I draw these narratives from the opportunity I had, through the Learning from the Past, Teaching for the Future program at York University, to travel to Germany and Poland in the summer of 2007 to visit some of the sites of the Nazi genocide and to enhance my own understanding of the Holocaust.
While there, I kept a journal of my thoughts, questions and emotions. It was on this trip that the idea for this thesis was conceived and developed. The excerpts from this journal are incorporated into my thesis as a way to substantiate the ideas and parallel the research I will bring forward. I chose to add the autobiographical sections of this thesis as a way to demonstrate what Hatch (2002) describes as the means through which "humans make sense 14
of their lives through story" (p. 28), autobiographical inquiry. Examining then, the themes present throughout this thesis, it became clear that another layer of storytelling could only serve to enhance the message presented herein, that stories about others' experiences can serve to elucidate connections between the experiences of others and one's own lived experiences.
In Chapter Two, I summarize my textual analysis of resistance narratives, both fictional novels and non-fiction accounts, which are relevant and appropriate for use in high school classrooms. In connection with this, I provide a literature review of relevant primary and secondary scholarly sources. I discuss and analyze accounts of the Danish
Resistance and the White Rose resistance movement, and I examine texts written for young adults which deal with these movements. I also introduce and discuss two analyses which offer guidance for choosing literature which is appropriate for its intended audience. I define key terminology for this study, including psychological bullying, connect these terms to the overarching theme of resistance, and discuss all terms in relation to their applications in the world of education.
In Chapter Three, I present data collected through my observations in a Grade Ten
Canadian History classroom, outlining the specifics of this research study and the methodology employed in its execution. I discuss first the composition of my sample group, and the discussion group I conducted with them. The materials I used for my study are listed, and my fieldnote methodology discussed. The limitations of my study are noted, and some of my assumptions are outlined and analyzed. I discuss the content of my field research thoroughly and outline my results. 15
In Chapter Four, I analyze the data collected during my field research through a discussion of moral education, drawing on the works of Martin Buber (1923) and Nel
Noddings (2003, 2006). I reference the importance of moral education as a counterpart to antibullying endeavours within schools. The theme of resistance is again discussed, this time in connection with theories of moral agency and moral education curricula. Each of these concepts is also analyzed through a feminist framework, with the intention of creating a moral education curriculum aimed at inspiring girls to reflect on their own behaviours through an historical lens. In this chapter, as well, I explore the power of literature to inspire empathetic identification and thus, its potential to inform students' moral behaviours
(Krasny, 2007).
In Chapter Five I discuss my findings in relation to interdisciplinary education, which solidifies the connections between the various themes of the study. I note examples of interdisciplinary and multimodal educational practices, including project-based learning, and their connections to the moral education and antibullying curricula discussed throughout this thesis.
Limitations of the Study
The primary limitation of my study was the small number of participants and the limited responses I received. Another pragmatic limitation to my study involved the confirmation of students' participation. In order to comply with ethics protocol, students must have both parental consent and individual assent to participate in the study. Students were given ample time to have their forms completed and returned to their classroom teacher before participating in the research project. Unfortunately, only fourteen of twenty 16
students returned their completed forms. Of these fourteen, only six students participated fully in each stage of the project, including returning their completed written responses.
This study finds itself faced with several limitations, primary among them the awkward relationship between researcher and research participants. Asking students to respond to personal questions without first creating a relationship with them creates a challenging dynamic in which to elicit responses. As well, this study was limited to one
Grade 10 Canadian History classroom. However, the Ministry of Education for the province of Ontario mandates only one History course for study in the high school curriculum. A wider group of participants would undoubtedly allow for more responses and thus, more useable data.
Ideally, I would have liked greater time to create a relationship between the students
I spoke with and me, as the researcher. However, and I believe this is the greatest limitation to the study, I only had the opportunity to meet the students I would be working with once before our formal discussion. While a researcher must walk a careful line in order to keep objective distance from her subjects, fostering a relationship of trust is undoubtedly beneficial when the researcher's questions—like mine—ask students to reflect on personal experiences. Thus, I believe that the responses to my questions may have been stilted and not as personal as I would have liked.
One of the most inspiring factors of each of the studies that I read (Wiseman, 2003;
Simmons, 2002; Gilligan, Lyons & Hamner, 1990) was that for these researchers, the relationships each was able to foster with her research subjects created a culture of mutual respect and trust. Simmons (2002) writes of her data collection, "[o]ver the months that followed, we traded e-mail and instant message handles, talked about music groups, new 17
shoes, summer plans, and crushes. They showed and told me things their teachers and parents couldn't know about" (p. 5). While developing my methodology, I envisioned a fruitful dialogue with students and an uncovering of hidden secrets about the harsh realities of high school experiences. However, given the time constraints and my small participant sample, I was unable to create these types of relationships with my participants.
More broadly, the main factor limiting the effectiveness of any instance of qualitative research is, of course, that the researcher is relying on subjects to respond truthfully to his or her questions, and to engage with the research study on a personal level.
This is particularly true for this study.
As well, the current state of resistance scholarship creates a barrier to the research of the project. The majority of new research being produced on the topic remains published in
German. Thus, similar pieces of work, examining the role of the female resister may already be published albeit not in English.
However, despite these limitations, I believe that the research contained herein contributes to the fields of Holocaust and moral education in a significant way and that this paper opens doors for further research into interdisciplinary studies of history. 18
Chapter Two
A Comparative Analysis of Relevant Sources
July 17, 2007 - Stuttgart/Hohenheim, Germany
This was our first day of 'real' study. I've already been inspired by some of the things that we have learned. We were led in a workshop about photographs and the Holocaust and taught us to analyze some of our assumptions that we formulate when we look at photographs.
In particular, one photograph stuck out for me. There was a picture of a pretty, smiling woman with finger curls and a bob haircut. My grandmother has two pictures of women who look just like her in her study. They are pictures of my grandmother and great-aunt when they were in their teens. They could have been sisters with this woman. As we were looking at the photograph and throwing out terms about her, it was interesting to think about how much we extrapolate onto those photographs because we know they have something to do with the Holocaust. My first instinct was to mourn for her, because I immediately assumed that she was a victim. Perhaps she was Jewish, perhaps not. But I instinctively thought that showing us a picture of a lovely, happy woman must have some sort of sinister juxtaposition that I wasn 't aware of. I wasn 't wrong in that assumption, this woman was indeed a sinister sort, but I was extremely off base when it comes to who she was and what she did. It turns out that the photo was of Irma Grese, an SS guard at 19
Ravensbruck Concentration Camp (where we '11 be in just a few short days). She was responsible for the brutal torture (physical and psychological) of hundreds of women interned at that camp. It's interesting to think, too, that perhaps I consider this woman a victim because she is female. We don't want to think of women as evil, but we know what they are capable of.
After viewing the rest of the photographs (some of Jews, some ofSS officers, some of those who stood up against Hitler) we discussed the categories into which we can fit those affected by the Holocaust. At first, we discussed the idea of three categories: victims, bystanders and perpetrators. In my opinion, this leaves out one incredibly important group, the resisters. Perhaps it's a personal affiliation I have formed with these 'heroes', but I feel that the resisters are an incredibly important group to commemorate and remember when discussing the Holocaust. I also think that their experience can be used in the classroom to help students to reflect on their own lives. In particular, I think the connection between resistance and modern-day bullying should be explored more. The resistance in many countries was full of young people eager to make a difference and to stand up to the tyranny that was forced upon them. If teenagers then could be actively involved in saving Jewish victims (as in the case of Denmark, where 90% of the country's Jews were smuggled to safety in neutral Sweden) or sabotaging German operations, then students of today should be able to latch on to that feeling of resistance and stand up to the schoolyard bully. I think that teaching about resistance can inspire the development of grassroots activism and political awareness in our modern day society. 20
In this chapter, I will explore the role of female Holocaust resisters, drawing from research exploring the act of resistance, as well as secondary literature which analyzes these experiences through a gendered framework. The Danish resistance movement and the
White Rose resistance movement from Munich, Germany, will be discussed in depth, each grounded in the definition of polemic resistance outlined in Chapter One. This section will also examine several examples of literature for young adults dealing with Holocaust resistance and their place in the classroom.
Next, the phenomenon of psychological bullying will be analyzed and its connection with theories of gender relations examined. Examples of the pervasive nature of this trend in popular culture and literature will be discussed and the potential for the use of popular culture media and literature in the classroom examined. Finally, the connections between
Holocaust resistance and psychological bullying will be discussed. The significance of each strand of research to this study will be elaborated and a theoretical framework in which to base the research developed.
Resistance
Joyce Mushaben (2004) outlines four stages of historiographical development in her article, "Memory and the Holocaust: processing the past through a gendered lens": the first phase is compensatory history, which surveys the historical event (through its narratives) for the roles of any and all women who made a noteworthy contribution to the event as it unfolded. The second step can be called contribution history, looking for specific contributions by women to events already deemed 'significant' by mainstream scholars. The third stage rewrites the dominant historical narrative, asking questions about our preconceived notions and/or knowledge based on the uncovering of new narratives, those 21
female voices ignored by the mainstream. The fourth and final "meta-stage reassesses the broader parameters of history as socially constructed through gender, race and class, along with new forms of female agency" (Mushaben, 2004, p. 149). Resistance scholarship, particularly when it comes to the role of women, remains grounded in stage two of this framework. There is still much research and critical thought that can be applied to resistance scholarship, in particular in the field of Holocaust education.
This study aims to contribute to a progression through Mushaben's stages of historiography. By examining literature for young adults, a rewriting of the current, biased historical sequence of events can be attempted. Through the inclusion and acceptance of female narratives as integral cogs in the wheel of Holocaust history, the standard study of history may move towards a meta-stage of development which Mushaben (2004) notes,
"reassesses the broader parameters of history as socially constructed through gender, race and class, along with new forms of female agency" (p. 149). Thus, through the use of literature as a pedagogical tool, and the encouragement of self-reflection and seeking connections between contemporary and historical events, this study posits that resistance narratives may be the tool necessary to move historiographical development into the fourth stage.
The resistance movement during the Holocaust was widespread and well-populated.
As Rohrlich writes, "in practically every ghetto and in every labor and concentration camp there existed a Jewish underground organization that kept up the prisoners' morale, reduced physical suffering, committed acts of sabotage, organized escapes, collected arms, planned revolts and, in many instances, carried them out" (Suhl, as cited in Rohrlich, 1998, p. 2). 22
Drawing from the definition of resistance formulated in Chapter One, I will examine two resistance movements, neither of which is a Jewish group and each of which contains a narrative in the female voice. The Danish resistance movement is one of the most successful examples of a group who stood up to the Nazi regime. The Danish resistance movement smuggled Jews marked for persecution to nearby Sweden under the nose of the occupying Nazi party. Overall, approximately 90% of Denmark's Jews were rescued. The
White Rose resistance movement was a student group based at the University of Munich,
Germany. None of its members were Jewish and they opposed the Nazis on an ideological level, refusing to accept their authority and encouraging others to see the flawed logic of the
Nazi propaganda machine by counteracting those messages with written ideas of their own.
Both groups engaged in what Rings (1982) termed polemic resistance and while the Danish resistance movement eventually used deliberate acts of sabotage and violence towards the
Nazis, their roots lie in an intellectual resistance to Nazi policy.
The Danish Resistance
The Danish resistance has been honoured by Yad Vashem's Righteous among the
Nations, an honour bestowed upon non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the
Holocaust by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in
Israel (Mais, 2004). By the request of the Danish government, the Danish resistance has been honoured as a single entity, instead of each individual resister having his or her own nomination. This communal accolade is representative of the shared perspective the Danish people held with regards to their resistance efforts. In her essay "Foundations of Resistance in German-Occupied Denmark", Goodman (1998) outlines the conditions that contributed to Denmark's astonishing success as resistance against the Nazis' Final Solution - saving 23
all but five hundred of Denmark's seven to eight thousand Jews from deportation to concentration camps by smuggling them to neutral Sweden.
The key element of the willingness of the Danish people to help their Jewish compatriots was the culture of the Danish society. Jews were so well incorporated into the fabric of Denmark that Danes "closely identified the preservation of the Danish way of life with the safety and protection of the Jews in Denmark" (Goodman, 1998, p. 221).
Goodman (1998) focuses on three Danish institutions that contributed to this sympathetic Danish culture—the Danish Folk High School system, the Danish Lutheran church and the economic cooperation movement—and references "(1) the small number of
Danish Jews; (2) the geographical proximity of neutral Sweden; and (3) the relatively late date of the Nazi invasion [Denmark was invaded on April 9, 1940]" (p. 214) as contributing factors to the Danish Resistance movements' success.
Goodman (1998) also outlines the evolution of the resistance movement in Denmark and notes its progression from non-violent, passive resistance such as "open contempt for the Germans" (p. 225) to more elaborate acts of sabotage and intellectual resistance (such as the extremely popular underground newspapers) and the eventual mass smuggling of
Danish Jews to safety. She is careful to point out that "[t]he Danish experience is unique to the Holocaust" (p. 230) and notes that the exceptional combination of various factors gave rise to the resistance movement's victory.
The Danish Resistance in Young Adult Literature
The polemic resistance of the Danish resistance is well documented, particularly in fictional novels written for young adult readers. Carol Matas' novel Jesper (1989) features the title protagonist, a young male resistance fighter, working first as a distributor of and 24
then a journalist for one of Denmark's many underground newspapers. The 'prequeP or companion novel to Jesper, Lisa (1987) features Lisa, also operating for the resistance movement and distributing illegal newspapers. Both novels also illustrate the progression that the Danish resistance underwent as the Nazi occupation continued. As Cooper (1996) notes, by the end of Lisa, "Matas has Lisa and Jesper share in the killing of a young German soldier who is trying to prevent the escape of several Jewish families to Sweden. [...]
Obviously, this is difficult for both the young reader and the characters to witness" (p. 149).
However, while this single example of physical violence perpetrated by the resisters exists, it is juxtaposed against the horrific crimes the Nazi officials themselves committed. In
Jesper, Tivoli Gardens (a city amusement park that served as a haven for Copenhagen's citizens) is horrifically bombed and Jesper's resistance partner is shot and killed by the
Nazis. Thus, Matas portrays resistance as first an intellectual pursuit and then, and only as a last resort, so to speak, a reciprocal violent act. It is interesting to note, when considering these novels within Mushaben's (2004) framework that Lisa fits well into stage three of this historiographical development, involved with rewriting the dominant historical narrative.
Lisa's participation in resistance activities is questioned only briefly by her older brother
Stefan who quickly changes his mind when Lisa adamantly demands to be included. Thus,
Lisa's involvement is not questioned based on her gender, but rather based on her religion.
Lisa is Jewish and the very thought of the persecuted joining forces with the resistance makes those organizing the movement anxious. Instead of questioning her abilities based on her sex, they are wary of her religious affiliations and the danger of having Jewish resisters participating in the movement. Thus, Matas has created a strong, powerful female character to which many students may be able to relate. 25
Lois Lowry's (1989) Number the Stars also deals with this frequently recurring theme in Holocaust fiction written for young people - resistance. Like Matas' pair of novels, Jesper and Lisa, Number the Stars deals with the heroic story of the Danish resistance. Lowry tells the story through the eyes of an adolescent protagonist - Annemarie
Johansen. Misfortune certainly befalls the Johansen family - their eldest daughter, Lise, (a member of the resistance) is killed by the Nazis, thus reinforcing the historical brutality that underscored the heroism of youth involved in the resistance movement. In the novel, the
Johansen family hides their Jewish neighbours' daughter, Ellen, as her parents are smuggled to safety in Sweden. Adopting a Jewish child as one's own was a common form of resistance to the Nazis' genocidal doctrine and is recognized by Yad Vashem as a means by which an individual can become a member of the Righteous Among the Nations. This novel depicts many aspects of Danish resistance, spanning two generations of a family.
Lise is presumably a member of a more active, violent resistance cell when she is killed.
Mr. and Mrs. Johansen, Lise and Annemarie's parents are engaged in a more covert mode
of resistance, hiding Ellen from the Nazis. Annemarie too is, arguably, a member of the resistance movement, since she is aware of and complicit in her parents' decision and
actions.
These novels (Jesper, Lisa, and Number the Stars) combine to create a rich
overview of the Danish resistance movement as seen and experienced by its youth. The fact that novels like this exist and have had commercial success (these are but a few examples of
a large subsection of Holocaust literature for young adults) indicates that children are ready
to engage with difficult subject matter, as long as the literature is written in a manner that
appeals to the similarities between the experiences of the characters and the readers. 26
The White Rose Resistance Movement
The White Rose resistance movement, which was composed of five university students and a sympathetic professor, sought to open the eyes of the German people to their complacency in the Nazis' tortuous regime by publishing and distributing six (and drafting another, unpublished) illegal leaflets expressing their outrage with the essentially unquestioning attitude of the German population. One of these leaflets admonished
Germans to "[r]ip off the cloak of indifference you have placed upon your hearts. Decide before it is too late\" (Dumbach & Newborn, 2006, p. 199). Others cited major German thinkers including Goethe and admonish Hitler's Mein Kampfas being "written in the worst
German I have ever read, in spite of the fact that it has been elevated to the position of the
Bible in this nation of poets and thinkers" (Dumbach & Newborn, 2006, p. 190). Calling themselves "Intellectual Workers" (p. 202), the White Rose students bemoaned the degradation of their Germany and advocated for the freedoms they had previously enjoyed:
"[fjreedom of speech, freedom of religion, the protection of individual citizens from the arbitrary will of criminal regimes of violence" (p. 200).
The White Rose movement, unlike the Danish youth resistance, was not physically engaged in the protection and saving of victims, however their intellectual resistance to the
Nazi regime was intended to achieve essentially the same ends, albeit through very different methods. It was the hope of the White Rose that the German people would be inspired by their work and their words and rise up in a large-scale revolt against the Nazi power.
Rutschmann (2007) writes,
[t]he Nazi government did not concern itself much with distinctions between
active and passive resistance that are made today by historians. Any form of 27
resistance was simply resistance, and since it posed a threat to the
government's existence, no matter how small, it was dealt with in a most
consistent and brutal manner. Common perceptions tended to hold the White
Rose in high esteem for its idealistic and moral commitment to non-violent
resistance (p. 377).
By dismantling the political power in this way and educating the public about the horrific actions of their current government by writing "since the conquest of Poland three hundred thousand Jews have been murdered in that country in a bestial manner" (Dumbach &
Newborn, 2006, p. 190), they hoped to put an end to the genocide and murder being enacted on millions of victims in their country. Sophie Scholl and her brother, Hans Scholl were the figureheads of the White Rose movement. On February 18, 1943, they were caught distributing leaflets at the University in Munich. They were turned into the Gestapo by a custodian at the university and stood trial four days later. Both were found guilty of treason and executed by guillotine the same day. Other members of the White Rose (Alexander
Schmorell and Kurt Huber) were beheaded on July 13, 1943 and a final member, Willi Graf on October 12, 1943.
An article by Michalczyk and Miiller (2004) examines the possibilities for modern applications based on the work of the White Rose movement. Miiller himself was a peripheral member of the White Rose movement who recognized the need to continue resistance activities with young adults. Michalczyk and Miiller focus on the work of the
White Rose Foundation in Munich. The Foundation aims to educate students about the
White Rose resistance movement while advocating for anti-racism and tolerance education 28
for all students. As well, "The White Rose Foundation also gets involved when neo-Nazis, right-wing radicals, racism and xenophobia raise their heads in Germany" (p. 219).
The White Rose in Literature and Film
Dumbach and Newborn's (2006) book Sophie Scholl and the White Rose is a non- fiction text. However, as indicated in a New York Times review, "the animated narrative reads like a suspense novel" (Halpern, 1986, online). The book follows the White Rose movement from its inception to its horrific end. The book—a reworking of the 1986 original Shattering the German Night: The Story of the White Rose as a companion to the
2006 film The Last Days of Sophie Scholl—offers a comprehensive look at the inner workings and relationships within the group and stresses the dangerous and fearful environment the young activists worked under as well as their eternal optimism in the face of adversity.
Holocaust Film in the Classroom
The importance of including many media in a classroom study of the Holocaust lies not solely in the creation of a richer experience for the student and educator. In the case of this study, the primary benefit of multimodal pedagogical practice lies in creating an experience related to the history of the Holocaust to which students can easily relate. Allowing students to see themselves in the characters of Jesper, Annemarie, or Sophie Scholl creates the opportunity for students to see their own lives and the worlds they live in mirrored by
Nazi-occupied Denmark, or Hitler's Germany. While most Canadian students are not seeing their own situations mirrored exactly, since their lives are not disrupted by the terror and violence that defined the lives of the characters in these novels, these novels present students with examples of morally ambiguous situations in which they can find elements of 29
their own lives. These types of situations give students the chance to reflect on their own behaviours and exercise their moral judgements.
Dumbach and Newborn's (2006) work became the basis for the critically acclaimed film Sophie Scholl - The Final Days (2005). The film chronicles the downfall of the White
Rose movement, focusing on the last six days of protagonist Sophie Scholl's short life.
The use of film as a medium through which to come to a greater understanding of history has been argued extensively, as has its place in the classroom. The arguments for and against the use of film as historical texts have been eloquently stated. As Hirsch and
Spitzer (1996) write,
[vjisual evidence, in particular, is problematic. Cinematic and photographic
images can be falsified and manipulated, they can be shown out of context
and used for propaganda purposes, they can be remade and re-enacted.
Because we tend to believe that what we view in a photograph or on the
screen is true, we must be particularly careful to "read" and interpret visual
images carefully (p. 149).
Conversely, as Rutschmann (2007) writes, "this is a form of history in its own right, a form of recreating history within the context of the never ending debate among historians; whether film is less suited, as suited, or more suited [than written or oral history] to providing us with possibly a deeper understanding of the past" (p. 372). As well,
Rosenstone (1995) argues,
the strength of this sort of work is not analysis or theory, not the combining of
detail into a powerful, logical argument, but the evocation of emotion, the
etching of individual character, the magic ability of verbal and visual memory 30
to bring an earlier world and earlier selves into the present, where they can be
experienced, shared, and even admired (p. 373).
Film as a pedagogical tool has great potential for student engagement and learning.
However, as counselled above, its power to elicit emotional response and to bring the past into the present should perhaps be countered or supplemented with oral and/or written accounts of the history to be studied. What Sophie Scholl - The Final Days does, however, thus strengthening the case for its use in the classroom, is provide students an accessible, unforgettable experience of this brave female resister. As Lane (2006) writes, "Sophie
Scholl: The Final Days may sound like a history lesson, but don't be fooled. It's a horror film" (p. 90-91).
It is also important for an educator to be conscious and aware of the impact of the media used to teach about the Holocaust. Like any other text, film is 'read', and it is imperative that an instructor be well versed in the film he or she will show to the students, and that he or she will anticipate the reactions, being prepared to discuss the issue at hand - that is, the Holocaust - without relying solely on a film to convey those messages. Hamner and Keller (2000) write: "effective multimedia education requires historical contextualization, the skills of multi-literacy, and engaging pedagogical presentation in the classroom" (p. 475). In other words, in order for film to be an effective medium to convey historical facts, it must be used in conjunction with other forms of education and perhaps incorporated into a broader study of the Holocaust.
Films like Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List must be carefully scrutinized, for as
Bernstein (1999) cautions, "Schindler's List has become 'for the present generation the most important source of historical information affecting popular perception of the 31
Holocaust" (p. 74). This over-reliance on film as an historical and educational medium is the plague of a generation acclimatized to the immediacy and lack of emotional connection needed to view television, film and a version of history desensitized by Hollywood. While film is a valid means to reach an extraordinarily large audience, Holocaust filmmakers are, regrettably, often required to sacrifice some of their desires to be historically accurate in order to make a film that will sell.
The Italian film La Vita e Bella [Life is Beautiful] (1997) offers a prime example of the misrepresentation of the Holocaust on film. Nominated for seven Academy Awards and the winner of best foreign language film, the film grossly misrepresents the Auschwitz concentration camp and has offended survivors who lived through the horrors of Auschwitz
(Hoberman, 1999). Further, the power of images such as these means that viewers are being misinformed about the historical realities of the Holocaust.
What would inspire a filmmaker to make light of such a tragic event? As Hirsch and
Spitzer (1996) write, "Many of them want to draw audiences in, and hope to use the medium of film to teach and reveal. Yet they also want to respect memory, to communicate the difficulty of understanding, to avoid telling the story with a happy ending which may be inappropriate to the subject matter" (p. 156). This misrepresentation, in turn, results in a skewed public memory of the Holocaust. Seeing historically inaccurate representations of the Holocaust and relying on them as though they were genuine has resulted in a distinctly
"Hollywood" version of the events surrounding the Nazi genocide. This creates a two-fold dilemma. First, when beginning a unit of study on the Holocaust, educators must realize that their students may already have been exposed to these Hollywood representations of events. It is the job of the educator, then, to dispel common misconceptions about the 32
Holocaust—including the over-simplified talk of 'six million victims'—and to make the
Holocaust relevant to the lives of his or her students.
In contrast to La Vita e Bella (19997), Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005) depicts the final six days of Sophie Scholl's life and documents her resistance efforts and subsequent arrest, interrogation, trial and execution. While the film deals with the
Holocaust in an understated way—there are no scenes of camp horrors, evacuations, ghettoes or corpses—it nonetheless demonstrates the impact of the Holocaust on the average young German citizen. Considering, then, the use of this film in the classroom,
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005) can inspire relevant, accessible connections between the life of the viewer and the historical events documented by the film. Students may be more likely to find connections to their own experiences of injustice in Sophie Scholl's
"unadorned, controlled, and workaday" (Lane, 2006, p. 90-91) reactions to the horrors of
Nazi-ruled Germany which is the subject of this investigation.
Film, however, is certainly not a stand-alone medium. In order to impress upon students the gravity of the experiences of those affected by the Holocaust, and to ensure that students make the connections between these experiences and their own, an interdisciplinary study of the Holocaust should incorporate visual, textual and historical media.
Young Adult Literature and the Holocaust
For some, the term Holocaust literature itself is a problematic term. For the purposes of this study, I will use the term Holocaust literature to include literature written by survivors and non-survivors alike and to include fictional and non-fictional texts. While these may not necessarily fit every definition of Holocaust literature, it is unwise to 33
introduce the Holocaust through canonical literature such as Primo Levi's Survival in
Auschwitz or The Drowned and the Saved, because of their disturbing content. The primary books studied—Jesper, Lisa, Number the Stars and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose—are each written by authors who are not themselves survivors of Nazi atrocities. Introducing students to the Holocaust through themes of resistance and survival, then, allows students the opportunity to pursue further reading about the Holocaust without shocking them with too many graphic details without the necessary historical background in which to contextualize them.
Literally hundreds of books have been written about the Holocaust that are suitable for young people. Looking through catalogues and bibliographies of these books, a teacher would be overwhelmed by the sheer number of books available to them. Without a prior knowledge of Holocaust literature - something impossible to expect or desire from the average history or literature teacher - choosing the right novels to study would be a daunting task.
How, then, should a teacher go about choosing the right book? In "Choosing
Holocaust Literature for Early Adolescents", Shawn (as cited in Totten & Feinberg, 2001) outlines eight guidelines for choosing appropriate texts. While the age group suggested in the title is slightly younger than the one this thesis focuses on (secondary-school aged students), her guidelines are nonetheless still appropriate.
Her first suggestion for choosing literature for young students is that the literature must be developmentally appropriate. Related to this, the visual aspects of the text— including illustrations, art reproductions and photographs—must set an appropriate tone in 34
relation to the text. They should also be appropriate in content for the age of the reader. It is important to note that age appropriateness will vary for each individual student and thus it is imperative that teachers are well acquainted with not only their students' reading levels but also their maturity and sensitivity. Shawn also notes that books "should accurately reflect the time, mood, and place and be respectful of the people they portray" (p. 141).
Shawn's third criterion indicates that the book should reflect the reality of the historical period being portrayed and be entrenched in the historical context. Fourth, the books must not overwhelm the reader, striving instead to present "limited, recognizable human experiences, fostering empathy, compassion, involvement, and identification with the victims and survivors of the Holocaust" (p. 147). Next, Shawn advocates for the selection of literature that emphasizes the Jewish experiences during the Holocaust including reference to the richness of Jewish identity and culture separate from the experiences of genocide and marginalization.
Continuing with Shawn's selection criteria, then, books appropriate for young readers should "include acts of religious, spiritual, [and/or] armed resistance" (p. 149).
Finally, and perhaps most importantly when considered in the context of this study, Shawn recommends that the texts chosen for young readers "have the potential to motivate students to examine their own lives and behaviors, providing a bridge from the world of the
Holocaust to the present, and promoting opportunities to explore universal issues and themes evoked by the unique stories of the Holocaust" (p. 151).
While this is certainly a tall order to fill for a first-time teacher of the Holocaust, these guidelines are nonetheless helpful in choosing books for a classroom. However, even with these guidelines, a teacher must have an intimate knowledge of the novels they are 35
choosing and of their students. As Totten (2001) aptly comments, "[p]rior to using a work, teachers must ascertain whether a piece is developmentally appropriate for use with his/her students. The most effective way to accomplish this is by reading the material prior to using it" (p. 161).
Another means of determining the appropriateness of texts for students has been discussed by Kimmel (as cited in Tal, 2004) who suggested that there are different levels of
Holocaust literature for children, likening these levels to Dante's famous representation of the concentric circles of Hell. In her essay, "How Much Should We Tell the Children?:
Representing Death and Suffering in Children's Literature about the Holocaust", Tal (2004) poses one of the key questions for the study of this literature. She offers an excellent analysis of Kimmel's metaphor:
[i]n the outermost ring are the resistance novels of World War Two, in which
young people, usually non-Jews, take an active role in the movement to save
their homeland. Next come the refugee novels, which, because they
document successful escape attempts, are basically optimistic. The third
category includes the novels of occupation and hiding. Even closer to the
inferno are the heroic novels presenting the stories of Jewish resistance in the
ghettos or with the partisans. [...] Lastly, he discusses the novels that
confront the concentration camps and mass murder (p. 2).
This analysis, however, suggests an implicit hierarchy in that resistance novels are gentler, softer than those novels depicting life in the concentration camps and thus somehow less important than the others. I would argue, however, that these novels serve an essential purpose for today's students. Often, resistance literature is a student's first introduction to 36
the field of Holocaust literature—as it was for me—and creates a desire to pursue other examples of Holocaust literature.
Reader Response Theory & Holocaust Literature
Contemporary students are well versed in experiencing and reacting to various multimedia texts including film and literature. Educators, then, must help to guide students through their experiences with literature while considering the pedagogical implications of the texts.
According to Spiegel (1998), there are "four basic assumptions of reader response theory: Stance is important; readers make meaning; this meaning is personal but also grounded in text; and, because readers themselves make meaning, multiple interpretations of text are constructed" (p. 41-42). Essentially, this means that reading is not merely a passive act, but that the reader and the text are engaged in a consensual transaction, whereby the reader both brings perspectives to and takes ideas from a particular text. As Spiegel says,
[t]he making of meaning from reading is a dynamic, reflective, introspective
process. Readers don't discover "the" meaning in a text. [...] [N]ow the reader
has replaced the text as the most central element in reading (Purves, 1985).
Meaning is made by the reader, not found (Probst, 1981). Nor is meaning
given to a reader by another person (Farnan & Kelly, 1993). Meaning is
constructed, interpreted, and revised by readers themselves, not by literary
critics, professors, or even authors (p. 42). 37
By incorporating Holocaust fiction into a history classroom, the teacher's role then, becomes a guide to the students' perceptions about the Holocaust before, during, and after their reading and to prompt discussion about the historical period the text represents, so that the meaning created by the student is not distorted by prejudices or inaccurate preconceived notions. However, as Richard Probst (1994) cautions, "Our [teachers] first task, if we accept that position, is to make sure that the literature has the chance to work its effects upon the readers, to make sure that we don't get in the way" (p. 37) In other words, it is imperative that the educator allow the reading to work its magic on the students, to guide but not instruct and to allow the student to form his or her own opinions and garner his or her own information from the text. As well, it may be prudent for the educator to lead the class in an exercise discussing and exposing the assumptions and biases the students bring with them to the text (Kessler, 1991).
Along with the meaning a reader gleans from a text, the perspectives he or she brings to that text are also important. When teaching about the Holocaust—particularly in
Canada, a country relatively unaffected by the Nazis' racism—it is important to take into account the cultural background of the reader. As Sipe (1999) notes, "literary texts may act
as mirrors and windows. For children with a similar culture [to the protagonist of the story],
a book may act as a mirror, allowing them to see themselves in the story. For children from
a different culture, a book may act as a window, allowing them a vicarious experience of what another culture is like" (p. 122). In Canada's case, many secondary-school students
will have little to no firsthand knowledge of the horrors of genocidal regimes. In this case, then, most texts will act as mirrors, allowing students to understand an historical event from
the point of view of another culture. 38
Thus, literature itself can act as a means to intercultural and historical meaning- making. As Krasny (2007) writes, citing Dewey, "literature can animate in readers both the affective and the imaginative necessary to the 'sympathetic and dignified regard for the sentiments of others'" (p. 429). Considering this, then, in the context of Holocaust education, literature presents itself as an ideal pedagogical tool by which to introduce students to the history of the Holocaust and its victims. Literature also has the power to enable students to reflect on their own behaviours by comparing and contrasting them with the behaviours of characters. For students in classrooms in Canada today, oppression, violence and stigma are constant realities. Perhaps the situations they find themselves experiencing are not on par with the incidents faced by those living during World War II in
Europe, but they are nonetheless impactful situations that shape the way adolescents live and behave in their world. For many students the phenomenon of bullying is a real event, whether they are the victims, perpetrators or witnesses to the violence.
Bullying
For some students, the constant anxiety associated with the ever-changing rules of
popularity and acceptance can be as important and integral to one's life both in school and
out as the rules that dictate other social processes and acceptable behaviours. Gender roles
seem to be of particular importance as teenagers interact academically and socially. These
gender roles and the associated disconnect from them (either deliberate or unintentional)
create many situations in which students may feel bullied. For girls, especially, the
pressure to act in a particular way, simultaneously flaunting and suppressing their
femininity (as will be discussed later) can cause intense anxiety and lead to conflicting
power relationships. As discussed earlier, the means through which girls harass other 39
girls—through acts such as rumour spreading, gossip, and social exclusion—have been termed indirect aggression or psychological bullying.
The increase in rates of bullying has also sparked an increase in scholarship on the role gender plays in these actions (Osier, 2006; Smith, Cowie, Olaffson & Liefooghe,
2002; Yubero & Navarro, 2006). What is emerging from this research is that most girls
bully differently from most boys, who are more likely to be engaged in physical
confrontations or threaten their victims with physical harm. As Elinoff, Chafouleas and
Sassu (2004) note, "the National School Safety Center (1995) reported that boys are three
to four times more likely than girls to engage in physical bullying. Furthermore, males are
far more likely than females to be the victims of physical bullying as well. [...] Female
bullies typically engage in behaviors that are more subtle, covert, and manipulative (NSSC,
1995; Olweus, 1991)." Osterman, Bjorkqvist, Lagerspetz, Kaukianen, Landau, Fraczek
and Caprara (1998) cite several Finnish studies which indicate that girls, at least in that
country, "use indirect aggression significantly more than boys from age 11 onward" (p. 1).
As well, Bjorqvist (1994), posits that females are equally as aggressive as males, but that
they use indirect aggressions rather than physical aggressions to solve conflicts. Due to the
tacit nature of these behaviors, they may more easily escape the attention of school
personnel" (p. 891). This form of bullying has been termed psychological bullying.
As Gini (2006) notes, there is "a strong influence of group behavior on an individual child's behavior in bullying situations" (p. 52). This is consistent with the idea that "some students may bully simply as a response to peer pressure or perhaps to gain popularity"
(Elinoff et al., p. 894). Brown and Gilligan (1992) note that "at adolescence, girls can become more readily disconnected from what they are feeling, distanced from their own 40
desires and pleasures, and therefore, ironically, more reliant on others who tell them what they want and feel and think and know" (p. 169). As Simmons (2002) notes, "[t]he closer they edge toward the center of the clique, the more some girls are urged to silence their own authentic voices" (p. 175). This reliance on others' opinions and disconnection from one's authentic voice is articulated by Gretchen Wieners, a character in the film "Mean Girls"
(2004) who says "Well, I mean you wouldn't buy a skirt without asking your friends first if it looks good on you."
The need for approval from friends on even minute decisions can force girls into an uneasy place where their own voice is lost and their identity becomes collective. The inherent problem with these group dynamics, unfortunately, is the power relations that come into play when popularity becomes the end goal of the battle. To parents, teachers and outsiders, these relational conflicts may seem silly or inconsequential but, as Wiseman
(2003) explains, "these aren't trivial issues; they lay the groundwork for girls faking their feelings, pretending to be someone they're not, pleasing others at their own expense, or otherwise sacrificing self-esteem and authenticity" (p. 74). Thus, the approval of friends (or potential friends) becomes the driving force in a teenage girl's life, causing her to seek their approval not just through appearance but through personality as well. Girls may adopt the mean girl persona and act accordingly in order to gain popularity.
According to Wiseman (2003), the mean girl or Queen Bee "appears omnipotent"
(p. 25). Her actions are subtle, but deliberately manipulative. Simmons (2002) terms them
alternative aggressions, a combination of "three subcategories of aggressive behaviour:
relational, indirect, and social aggression" (p. 21) Relational aggressors seek to harm their
victims through acts that damage relationships "or feelings of acceptance, friendship or 41
group inclusion" (Simmons, p. 21). Indirect aggression allows the aggressor to bully without directly confronting her target. Perhaps the least obvious of the alternative aggressions, indirect aggression "makes it seem as though there has been no intent to hurt at all" (Simmons, p. 24). For example, indirect aggressions such as teasing may be couched in laughter allowing the perpetrators to indicate that the fault somehow lies with the victim for not getting the joke, or for being too sensitive.
Brown and Gilligan (1992) note that '"Whispering", "telling secrets", "making fun of, and "laughing at" others are ways to prevent girls from risking too much or acting in ways that are too threatening, too different" (p. 45). This foreshadows Simmons' discussion of the culture of silence girls are forced to adopt which will be discussed later.
Finally, social aggression "is intended to damage self-esteem or social status within a group" (Simmons, 2003, p. 21) through acts like gossip, rumour spreading or exclusion from group activities.
Unfortunately, literature on bullying prevention and eradication tends to focus on deterrence of physical bullying. A recent publication by the Ontario Ministry of Education,
Bullying - We can all help stop it, references social bullying but does not include recommendations for its prevention or abolition. Olweus (1997) has indicated that there are different subtypes of bullies and victims. He suggests that typical victims are passive, that is, their behaviours suggest weakness and "signal to others that they are insecure and worthless individuals who will not retaliate if they are attacked or insulted" (as cited in
Elinoff, Chafouleas & Sassu, 2004, p. 894). In the same article, Olweus also references the proactive victim "who is both anxious and aggressive, and who often irritates the other students, thus provoking negative behaviour" (p. 894). These profiles suggest that 42
character traits somehow make the bullied responsible for their own victimization and places the victim in the setting of the one referred for counselling or 'treatment'. It would appear that it is easier to blame the victim than to address the deeper causes of bullying in our society.
Because psychological bullying is not as easily identified, and its victims are often afraid of further stigma, and thus are afraid to report their bully, it is sometimes difficult for concerned educators to prevent these acts from happening. Unlike more physical acts of aggression, indirect aggression can 'fly under the radar' until it escalates into a more overt conflict. In fact, victims of these types of bullying are often blamed for the situations they find themselves in and are treated as the problem, rather than focusing on the bully.
Demonstrating this, articles on the eradication of bullying argue for continuing attention to the victim. While this is admirable, advocating that, for example, "victimized students may benefit from social skills or assertiveness training" (Elinoff et al, 2004, p. 893) without making recommendations for the treatment of the bully blames the victim for their weakness and thus assumes that they were easily preyed upon. Simmons (2002) is vocal in her opposition to these tactics:
Assertiveness training is the new "it" program for girls, mostly at the schools
that can afford it. The lion's share of these ventures focuses on the link
between physical and verbal self-defense. But getting girls to punch a
padded perpetrator that looks like an oversized marshmallow misses the
point when it comes to alternative aggressions. Anyone can punch a pillow.
It's a lot harder to confront rumor spreading, ganging up, or your best friend
(p. 284). 43
Is giving girls a physical outlet for their anger an effective way to deal with the scourge of alternative aggressions? If, as Brown and Gilligan (1992) discuss, the heart of the issue lies with the silencing of girls authentic voices, the solution should then aim to reclaim those voices and girls' ability to confront their aggressors passively.
By examining the related themes of resistance and bullying through a feminist lens, a dangerous double standard can easily present itself. Automatically defining any group of girls as a clique creates a dangerous correlation. It is important to note here, in conjunction with the other strands of this thesis that resistance efforts and oppositional movements also find strength in numbers and in relationships between their members.
As Simmons (2002) and Wiseman (2003) both articulate, there are groups of girls who get along famously, who don't engage in the relational aggressions common to 'the clique'. And, of course, there are girls who do participate in physically violent acts of bullying. To essentialize the female experience and to view groups of women as cliques does a grave injustice to the leagues of women who devote themselves, in groups or singularly, to the pursuit of various causes for which they carry strong convictions. Certain institutions socialize girls who are meek, quiet and 'well behaved'. However, we alternately revere and defile those who go against the norm. We admonish assertive, outspoken women as bitches yet when those assertive tendencies are applied to causes society deems worthy, we call women with these same traits heroes. These conflicting messages no doubt confuse adolescent girls struggling to find their voices. In order to empower girls to find and share their voices, societal structures concerning "appropriate behaviour" must be carefully examined. 44
As Sophie Scholl and the other members of the White Rose, or the Danish resistance fighters opposed Hitler's barbarity, is there not a way to resist the dangerous world of psychological bullying? Here, it is imperative to note that direct correlations between
Hitler's reign of terror and situations of psychological or even physical bullying are simplistic at best, and dangerous at worst. The Queen Bee is not a Nazi. The harassment unpopular girls face, while real, is not equivalent to the persecution Hitler forced upon the
Jews of Europe and his other victims. The purpose of this chapter is to help educators encourage students to uncover the connections they can make between their own lives and the historical events they learn about. 45
Chapter Three
Studying High School Students' Perceptions on Bullying and the Holocaust
Thursday, August 2, 2007 - Warsaw, Poland
One of the ideas I managed to garner from the Warsaw Uprising Museum (with the substantial help of the guidebook I purchased in the Museum shop) that I found particularly intriguing was the fact that many schools and universities (though officially closed by the occupying Nazis) managed to continue to operate underground. The idea of teaching and learning as a form of resistance to an oppressive political power fascinates me. I wonder if there are underground schools operating in other parts of the world- China, for example - and what they look like. Knowing that underground educational facilities were able to operate and disseminate information gives me hope that in our, above-ground, state sponsored educational system we can inspire in our students the ability to think critically about their world. Perhaps, though, the 'state's' involvement in our educational system will be to the detriment of this plan. Perhaps the very fact that the schools were underground during the Warsaw Uprising meant that they were able to be successful in teaching students moral and ethical frameworks through which to evaluate the world around them. 46
According to Hatch (2002) "qualitative research seeks to understand the world from the perspectives of those living in it" (p. 7). The first step in creating my research methodology was to develop questions which would guide my research and inform my methodology. From my literature review and my own wonderings, I developed a research question that would serve as a guide by which to conduct my research: how can Holocaust education inform issues of social justice and moral education, with particular attention paid to the growing rate of psychological bullying amongst female adolescents?
Accordingly, in order to uncover what students think about the topics related to this thesis, it was important that their opinions and ideas be solicited. Thus, I conducted a qualitative investigation that allowed students to express their opinions and thoughts through a directed discussion group. After conducting a literature review of relevant primary and secondary sources, and reviewing several relevant studies, I developed a protocol to guide my research.
Method
Once my research question became clear, the next step was to develop the field research protocol that would hopefully yield answers to my question. I wanted to speak with students in a Canadian high school, to assess their knowledge of the topics researched in this thesis and to seek their recommendations for solutions. Thus, I developed a series of questions designed to elicit and support informal dialogue and discussion within a classroom setting. This discussion fits the description of a formal interview, which are
[...] sometimes called "structured", "semistructured," or "in-depth" interviews.
They are structured in the sense that the researcher is "in charge" of leading the
interview, there is a set time established for the interview, and they are most 47
often recorded on tape. They are semistructured because, although researchers
come to the interview with guiding questions, they are open to following the
leads of informants and probing into areas that arise during interview
interactions (Hatch, 2002, p. 94).
To document the comments made by participants, I took detailed fieldnotes, using
Senge's (1994) method, I divided my note page into two columns. In the right column I recorded factual information - actual responses given by participants, key words that were repeated in answers and information about the characteristics of the focus group. In the left hand column, I recorded my personal reactions to the participants' answers including follow-up questions that arose from participants' responses to my original questions, my feelings about what we were discussing and ideas I had for further research projects or inquiries. I also used the left-hand column of my paper to record instances where I felt confused or particular insights I had when participants responded to my questions. For example, when one participant's response to one of my questions directly paralleled the work of the researchers I had based this research project on, I noted the direct link in the left-hand column. This allowed me to quickly make connections when analysing the data I had collected. While discussing the film clips and topics with the participants, my left-hand column recorded the impressions I got from participants—eye rolls when they thought a question was too simplistic; chuckles when Lindsay Lohan appeared onscreen in a mini skirt; comments like "cat fight!" when two girls begin to argue, etc.—as well as noting reluctance or eagerness to answer my questions. I also noted when a participant expressed a particularly profound idea, or one that I thought would be exceptionally useful for the purposes of my study. As discussed by Senge (1994), this fieldnote taking method 48
facilitates the researcher's ability to make connections between what participants are saying and the researcher's own knowledge and previous research.
Participants
The participants in this study were 14 Grade ten students, six females and eight males, attending a public high school with an enrolment of approximately 900 students.
Some students at the school (though none of my participants) relocate here from other public schools because of the emphasis placed on academic aptitude, as well as the school's athletic programs. The school is located within an urban catchment area which is predominately populated by white middle class families. Thus, my sample can be classified as homogeneous, that is, "made up of individuals with similar characteristics or experiences" (Hatch, 2002, p. 98).
The participants I interviewed were drawn from a class of tenth grade students enrolled in a mandatory Canadian History course in which students had been introduced to the historical events surrounding the Holocaust, but through a specifically Canadian lens.
By the teacher's own admission, the class had primarily focused on a military history of
World War II.
Participants were solicited through their Canadian History teacher and were informed that participation in the discussion group was completely voluntarily and that their participation would not impact their grade in the course. This research was approved by
York University, the District School Board and the principal of the school. The participants were required to obtain parental consent before attending the discussion group, as all were under the age of majority. Participants also provided their own individual assent to their participation in the discussion group. 49
Materials
Prior to coming to the discussion group, participants were asked to read a section I drew from Dumbach and Newborn's (2006) Sophie Scholl and the White Rose about the
White Rose resistance movement and particularly Sophie Scholl's role in these actions (see
Appendix A). Later, the group participated in a discussion, which was organized around clips from two films, Mean Girls (2004) and Sophie Scholl - The Final Days (2005). Both film clips feature a female protagonist dealing with a conflict. Both are also set in schools;
Mean Girls within a high school, and Sophie Scholl at the University of Munich. The most striking similarity between the two film clips, however, is that they each include the protagonist involved in distribution of leaflets which advertise their position on the conflict concerning the characters in each film.
Before beginning the formal discussion, the participants were given a set of ground rules for group discussion and a list of guiding questions from Fountas and Pinnell (2000)
(see Appendix B). This handout was instrumental in the creation of a safe space for dialogue and demonstrated effective statements which might facilitate their discussion.
After reading the Dumbach and Newborn piece, discussing the Fountas and Pinnell handout, and interspersed with the viewing of the film clips, participants were questioned about their perceptions of and personal experiences with the topics discussed in this thesis—Holocaust education and specifically how they felt their own classroom experience dealt with the theme of resistance. They were also questioned about their knowledge of bullying and gender: specifically their own personal definition of what constitutes bullying and how it is perpetuated within their realm of experience and how those experiences differ based on gender. 50
Finally, students were given a set of writing prompts designed to solicit connections between the texts used as part of the research project—the reading from Dumbach and
Newborn and both films—between these texts and other texts read outside the research project. Students were also asked to make connections between the research texts and situations they had experienced (see Appendix B).
Procedure
The discussion was divided into three sections, segmented by the thematic material considered in each section. First, the participants were questioned about their definitions of bullying and how gender influences those behaviours. Next, the discussion moved to a guided conversation about Holocaust resistance. Finally, the participants were asked to describe the female protagonists of each film and to compare and contrast their decisions, methods and messages.
I asked participants to preliminarily define bullying and to comment on differences they saw between the tactics girls and boys use when bullying others of the same gender.
Participants were asked to comment on reactions of bystanders to bullying, encouraging them to recall their own seen and lived reactions to bullying. The idea of resistance was briefly discussed as a means to end bullying and other forms of social injustice. Once this segment of the discussion reached a natural end, the session progressed to discuss the manifestations of gendered experiences of bullying.
The participants watched a short excerpt from Mean Girls (2004), in which the main character, Regina George, plasters the school with slanderous posters about other girls as revenge against a humiliating episode she experiences, then participants were led through a set of guided questions meant to elicit responses on the content of what they have read and 51
viewed. The participants were asked to comment on what they had seen in the film and to relate the experiences depicted in the film to events from their own lives.
Following this discussion, the participants watched the opening scenes of Sophie
Scholl: The Final Days as an introduction to a discussion of Holocaust resistance. These scenes depict the hours leading up to Scholl's eventual arrest, including the dramatic minutes at the University of Munich where Scholl and her brother, Hans, covertly distribute copies of their final leaflet. The scene culminates with the Scholl siblings' detainment by the rector of the university and their handing over to the Gestapo. The scenes from both films viewed by the participants are similar in that they depict a young woman, acting of her own volition, spreading a particular message. Once the students had viewed the film clip, they were questioned about their knowledge of Holocaust resistance, and experiences within their own lives that call for resistance efforts.
Finally, students were asked to discuss the protagonists of Mean Girls and Sophie
Scholl: The Final Days. They were asked to provide adjectives to describe each character and then questioned about the choices made by each girl and how their actions in response to those choices were instrumental in their approaches to conflict.
Results
First, participants were asked a seemingly simple but potentially complex question: what is bullying? This question was posed first to assess the atmosphere of the participants and to gauge the prior knowledge participants brought with them to the discussion.
In response to this question, a wide range of answers were presented. One female participant noted that bullying is, in essence, a manifestation of superiority (real or imagined) on behalf of the bully over the bullied. One male participant stated that bullying 52
occurs when an individual or group carry a joke too far, hurting another's feelings. Another male commented on the physical and mental implications of the word bullying, suggesting that bullying can be both physical and emotional simultaneously. A female participant identified physical attributes as the determinants for the targets of bullying, explaining that those who wear glasses, have a physical imperfection or are of a racial minority (which is physically identifiable) are the prime targets for bullies. Expanding on this, another female participant commented that as a high school student, one's interests (which deviate from the
'norm', for example academic pursuits instead of sports) can also identify an individual as a particular target, effectively stating that physical features are not the sole deciding factor when one is a target for bullying.
Next, participants were questioned about gender differences in manifestations of bullying. I posed the question "How do you see boys and girls bullying differently?"
Participants responded first by commenting on the difference in group dynamics that present themselves when considering these two groups and their experiences with bullying.
First, one male participant commented on the fact that he has seen a boy individually target another boy while, in his experience, girls will operate in a group to target an individual girl. A female participant commented on the different techniques she had observed female and male bullies employing, echoing her classmate's comments on question one and indicating the male bullies she had encountered used physical techniques to intimidate their targets whereas female bullies relied on mental manipulation. One female participant reflected on the effectiveness of the psychological techniques employed by female bullies, commenting that "they know just what to say" and calling their practices "mind games".
Finally, another male participant observed that girls not only operate in groups, but 53
commented on the specific composition of those groups, noticing that these groups tend to be composed of close friends with the leader of the group.
To introduce the related concepts of bystanding and resistance, I asked the participants to reflect on how people react when they encounter bullying as a target, a victim or a bystander. Most participants indicated that they and others have acted as bystanders when faced with situations of bullying. When asked why they didn't react in another way, one male participant commented on the initial shock he felt when he realized what was happening with his friends. Another female participant mentioned that she felt that it was simply easier to act as a bystander.
To conclude this introductory discussion and to bring together the various topics of discussion, I asked participants to consider whether they thought it would be easier for girls or boys to resist episodes of bullying. Reiterating a previous comment, one female participant thought that boys would have an easier time resisting bullying since male bullies tend to rely on individual confrontations rather than the group bullying girls use and thus it would be easier to stand up to one individual rather than several bullies.
Following this introductory discussion, the first multimedia text was introduced.
Participants watched a five-minute clip from the film Mean Girls (2004). This DVD clip came from a chapter entitled "Regina's Revenge" and showed the Queen Bee of a high school clique enacting her revenge on other members of her clique. She convinced the principal of the school that the other members of the clique had started a nasty rumour about her. While the other members of the clique are being reprimanded by the principal, Regina papers the school with posters riddled with rumours about other female members of the 54
school community. At one point in the scene, Regina takes a handful of posters and flings them into the air around her.
Once participants had seen this clip, I asked participants to reflect on what they had viewed and describe any connections they saw between the film clip and episodes from their own lives. One male participant saw the film as an analogy for group dynamics.
Another female participant mentioned that she had seen the "manipulation of status" at play in the film also at work in her own school. Many participants commented on the techniques the female bullies used to dominate others, specifically mentioning the use of passive- aggressive techniques such as writing rumours in a secret book. Other participants commented on the power dynamics present in the film clip, using phrases like "at the top" to describe the characters.
To return to a previous point, I had hoped that some of our discussion might support my suspicion, echoed by Wiseman (2003) and Simmons (2002) that much of adolescent girl behaviour can be viewed as a performance enacted to attract the attention of adolescent boys. In fact, originally, I considered speaking only with female students. However,
Wiseman's (2003) work led me to think that adolescent girls engage in relational aggressions because they believe that boys expect, even want, them to act this way and I had hoped that a discussion including both boys and girls would allow me to observe these processes in action. I had hoped that the boys of the class would indicate that girls' treatment of other girls was incomprehensible or better yet, ridiculous, prompting the girls to analyze the motivation behind their actions. However, while conducting my research, one boy yelled "cat fight!" when Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams' characters appear poised for a physical altercation on screen in Mean Girls (2004). This comment was met by 55
appreciative laughter by many of the other boys in the class, indicating to me that they were eager to reinforce stereotypical "Girl World" and "Boy World" roles.
Once participants had finished responding to these questions, the second film clip was shown. This clip from Sophie Scholl: The Final Days depicted the final hours of the
White Rose resistance movement, showing Hans and Sophie Scholl engaged in distributing the sixth and final leaflet on campus at the University of Munich. A particularly poignant moment in the clip comes when Sophie Scholl pushes a stack of leaflets off the balcony of the atrium of the University, causing the leaflets to spill over the edge and flutter to the floor below, a scene reminiscent of Regina George's distribution of posters in Mean Girls.
Following the viewing of this clip, participants were questioned about resistance, both as a topic of study within the broader study of history and as a mechanism active in their own lives. When asked "what are some issues in your life that you might have to resist?" participants responded with anecdotes about parental regulations that they deemed
"unfair", and commented on ageism they see at work against them as teenagers.
In response to the question concerning the study of resistance as a subtopic within the in-school study of history, participants noted that their study of the Holocaust did not include mention of resistance efforts during World War II. When further questioned about the importance of including resistance as a subtopic of study within an historical analysis of the Holocaust, participants showed interest in the idea of adding this topic to the curriculum.
One female participant commented that the study of resistance can be influential when considering the political landscape of our country saying that learning about resistance
"shows how even Germans resisted] their own leader." Another male student thought that learning about resistance could help to create a more accurate picture of the progression of 56
history, commenting that "[we] focus so much on the bad things Germans did [during
World War II. Learning about resisters can help us] remember Germans more positively."
The discussion then moved to a conversation about the characters they had viewed, participants were invited to describe each of the female characters they had been introduced to (Mean Girls' Regina George and Sophie Scholl) and to comment on the similarities and differences between the two.
In describing Regina George, participants commented on her desire for power. One female participant commented on the importance placed on status and popularity in high school, noting that Regina's behaviour is relatively typical. One male participant muttered something under his breath, and upon questioning summed up his opinion of Regina George in one word, "bitch."
When describing Sophie Scholl, participants commented that they found Scholl to be "unassuming", and not a likely candidate for the acts of resistance in which she was involved. Another female commented that she was not "the model fit" for the idea she had conceived of to fit the term resister. Many participants termed her courageous.
When comparing and contrasting the two characters, participants commented that both were young females, around the same age and that both were dedicated to disseminating a particular message. Participants also discussed the fact that both Regina and Sophie were goal-oriented and willing to do whatever it took to make their point known. In comparison, participants noted that George was "outspoken" while Scholl "kept to herself. Participants were also quick to comment on the moral justifications for each girl's actions, commenting that Sophie was "good" and Regina "bad". Others called 57
Regina's actions "selfish", and mentioned that while Sophie's actions were intended to
"help other people", Regina "doesn't care what she does to people".
Finally, participants were asked to reflect on the choices made by each character and comment on their actions in relation to these choices. Participants first commented on the ultimate choice faced by Sophie Scholl, to support or resist Nazism. When questioned about which choice would have been easier for Scholl, one female participant thought that to resist the Nazi regime was the easier choice, explaining that "if you are really against something, going along with it would be the harder choice". Next, participants discussed the choice faced by both Regina George and Sophie Scholl, who each decided the way in which they resisted or supported the conflict with which they were faced. One participant suggested that Sophie Scholl could have gotten involved with the Nazi party and attempted to enact change from the inside.
Once our oral discussion had come to a natural end, students were asked to complete a written response to the events of the day at home and return these responses to me the next day. This activity was conceived to provide an opportunity for reflection and to allow participants who may be uncomfortable sharing their ideas and feelings out loud a chance to offer their opinions in a more private format. As mentioned previously, the response rate to this portion of the discussion was less than desired; only six of the fourteen focus group participants responded with written answers to the prompts. Length of participants' responses varied widely, as did the content and form of responses. Participants were informed that there were no word limits to inform their responses, nor were their responses necessarily restricted to written format, that they could create visual or audio or mixed- media responses as well. However, all participants chose to respond with written responses. 58
One participant contributed a two-page single-spaced typewritten essay response, while another wrote less than a single page, hand-written. For the most part, responses were approximately one typewritten page in length and addressed each writing prompt individually.
The first prompt addressed by participants asked them to consider connections between the two film clips viewed during our discussion (from Mean Girls and Sophie
Scholl: The Final Days). One male participant commented that both protagonists were trying to "get a message (good or bad) out." Another male mentioned that the actions of the protagonists and "the bullying between the both [sic] time periods are the same except the consequences are much different." Another female participant's response commented that
"both girls used methods of approach to meat [sic] a certain goal or objective" that had been previously planned. Finally, one male participant expounded:
with two films so abstract in content and meaning, at first, it is a difficult
concept to grasp that two film clips of these very different natured films can
be related. However, after watching it was very easy for me to see the
striking resemblances of one another. Putting aside the obvious differences
of time periods, location and fact versus fiction, it is obvious that both
Regina George (Mean Girls) and Sophie Scholl (The Last Days of Sophie
Scholl [sic]) both had the set purpose to inform a broader population of
others about an issue. Whether the issue is in the form of a slam book filled
with gossip, and hatred, or the complete take over and take down of a
country. 59
The second writing prompt asked participants to analyse connections between the reading assigned (see Appendix A) and the film clips. Most participants commented solely on the connection between the reading, which was taken from a book documenting the actions of the White Rose resistance movement, and the related film clip from Sophie
Scholl: The Final Days (2005). One female participant commented
The reason behind drawing the connection between the two is the reading
explains the message Sophie and the White Rose gave for freedom of rights,
and not to be essentially "bullied" by the Nazi oppressions. To take a stand.
And that was displayed in the film.
The third writing prompt offered participants the opportunity to discuss connections between texts. Participants were asked to draw connections between the texts, both film and written, studied and other books or films they had read or seen. Only one participant chose to respond to this prompt, comparing Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005) to
Schindler 's List (1993). He wrote,
The movie [Schindler's List] itself, dealt with a German man, who was in
fact a Nazi himself, disagreeing with the Nazi rule (connecting to Sophie
Scholl) and attempting to save as many Jews as he can and give them the
rights they deserve. [...] I personally think this connects to the film Sophie
Scholl and the reading because it, while not being the same approach, still
shows the strength and power of a person's right and how no-one [sic]
should be bound by others who tell you that their way is the only way, and
that we each should have our voice and be free of persecution [...] 60
Finally, the fourth prompt asked participants to comment on connections between what was documented in the film clips and reading and episodes from the participants' own lives. One male participant commented on a situation in which he was bullied as a younger student. Another male participant spoke in the abstract, writing:
Bullying and possible oppression in different manners shown in these films
and readings and in life should not be tolerated. [...] When it comes to actual,
direct bullying and attacking someone's beliefs, way of living etc.. .1 believe in
taking action to say it is physically and mentally wrong [...]
Following the discussion I held with my research participants, I spent many days trying to make sense of what they had told me and how their responses could inform the themes and topics upon which I was trying to elaborate. Much of what the students told me revolved around a dichotomy of sorts, a somewhat narrow framework of 'good' vs. 'bad'.
Sophie Scholl and her actions were good, because the students saw her cause as admirable and her results as positive. Conversely, Regina George was bad because her motives were not as pure. After reading Gilligan, Lyons and Hamner (1990), and Noddings (2003, 2006) and thinking about the frameworks of moral decision making that are presented in those texts, it became apparent that students were asking for a curriculum which speaks to their sense of right and wrong and appeals to their developing senses of social and moral justice.
In particular, female participants referenced issues of social justice more frequently than their male counterparts. One female participant said, "I myself believe life should be lived to the fullest while still following a set of guidelines and rules set out by a government in power." This unspoken desire for a curriculum that fills these voids indicates that 61
students are ready to take responsibility for their actions, and are looking for role models upon whose experiences they can draw. 62
Chapter Four
Moral Education
Day 24 - Wednesday, August 8 - Gniezno
We spent some time yesterday evening discussing the research projects we will each prepare, individually or in groups, for presentation at the colloquium in February (the next time we will all be together as a large group). This morning, we fleshed out those projects and spent more time discussing how we will make these projects reflective of the intense learning we have done on this trip. I have certainly done what I set out to do on the very first day in Stuttgart/Hohenheim. I have decided that Holocaust education is something I will remain passionate about and an area of academic work where I feel I can make a significant contribution. My project will look at the theme of resistance as it is presented in narratives for younger readers and how that theme can be used to teach students lessons that are relevant to their own lives - particularly when it comes to bullying and multiculturalism. I am excited to begin the research for the project, and to find ways to incorporate this research into my Master's thesis. 63
In response to Mushaben's (2004) four stages of historiographical development, I commented that through the inclusion and acceptance of female narratives as integral cogs in the wheel of Holocaust history, the standard study of history may move towards the final, meta-stage of development, which Mushaben notes, "reassesses the broader parameters of history as socially constructed through gender, race and class, along with new forms of female agency" (p. 149). When considering the phenomenon of psychological bullying, including and accepting the female role in this cycle may move the study of bullying towards a parallel meta-stage. As Simmons (2002) notes, "Our culture refuses girls access to open conflict, and it forces their aggression into nonphysical, indirect, and covert forms.
Girls use backbiting, exclusion, rumors, name-calling, and manipulation to inflict psychological pain on targeted victims" (p. 3).
The students I worked with were all too familiar with the methods used by 'mean girls' to torture their victims. One student commented that "Girls tend to think of a more intelligent ways [sic] to get back at somebody, by playing mind games". Another referenced the bullying she had seen within her school, comparing it to Mean Girls, and saying "you pretty much see stuff like that all the time". There seemed to be a note of derision in their responses, as if the girls were scornful of the behaviour of other girls in their school. Extrapolating from this contempt for the status quo, then, it seems as if girls are ready to change the way girls treat each other in their schools.
However, popular culture has made the mean girl into the alpha female, the powerful object of idolization and adoration. How, then, can educators help their female students to reject these unfortunate strictures confining them at every turn? I argue that a study of female Holocaust resisters, within a curriculum devoted to moral education (as defined 64
below), can inspire young girls to embrace their power for good. In this chapter, I examine moral education curricula and how a syllabus like this would impact a study of history and literature aimed at reducing psychological bullying in contemporary high schools.
Featured prominently in a moral education curriculum as described above would be narratives of female Holocaust resisters, as an exemplar for moral decision making.
Women like Sophie Scholl or even Matas' (1987) Lisa, albeit a fictional character (among hundreds of others) living in Europe during Hitler's reign were faced with a choice. Each decision carried with it the potential for devastating consequences. For most, taking the road of least disruption and supporting (at least on the outside) the Nazis' efforts to overthrow the fragile systems of democracy in place in Germany and the rest of Europe would have been the apparent choice. For those brave resisters, however, who chose to sabotage those efforts, a distinctly moral choice was made, one which is at least at first glance, the difficult choice, with potentially disastrous results. This indicates that a connection between the abstracted moral choices of female Holocaust resisters and the concrete lived moral choices being made by female bullies and victims must be elucidated to students in order for them to make connections between the two.
Moral Education in Theory & Practice
Moral education curricula have existed for hundreds of years. In its early stages, moral education was dominated by the Church and through religious education; the idea of strict, virtues-based instruction formed the basis for the progression towards current moral education practices. As McKenzie (2004) notes, "A perceived increase in social problems experienced by children and youth, accompanied by advances in psychological theory [...] 65
resulted in a marked increase in ESM [Emotional, Social and Moral] education in schools in the 1990s" (p. 83).
In some circles the term character education has been used interchangeably with moral education, however as Althof and Berkowitz (2006) note, "moral education is the attempt to promote the development of children's and adolescents' moral cognitive structures (moral reasoning stages) in school settings" (p. 496). Comparatively, they define character education as "the inculcation of desirable habits" (p. 497). Noddings (2006) notes that character education "attempt[s] to teach virtues, including responsibility, directly. The virtues are explicitly defined, taught, and monitored. Rewards and punishments are used to induce conformity. To child-centered thinkers, these methods are questionable." (p. 140).
McKenzie (2004) also comments on the realities of character-based instruction, saying:
Generally embracing indoctrination as an educational practice (e.g. Ryan 1996;
Wynne 1995) , proponents of character, civic, or citizenship education aim to
inculcate students with core values such as 'courtesy, honesty, responsibility,
fairness, and obedience to legitimate rules and authority' (Lickona 1997, 6)" (p.
83).
McKenzie further describes the realities of character education instruction by examining the strategies used in classrooms focused on character education, including:
role modeling, moral discipline, democratic classroom environments,
cooperative learning, service projects, drama, literature, emphasizing a
strong work ethic, encouraging moral reflection, teaching conflict resolution,
involving parents and the community; and encouraging character
development through awards, quotes, pledges, and guidelines (p. 83-84). 66
When considering these types of pedagogical practices, character education seems a desirable, and even admirable practice. However, as McKenzie continues, "Critics of character education contend that both the precepts and methods of character education are flawed. The view that there is a common core of values is contested, as is the underlying suggestion that values, such as honesty or justice, are universally understood to mean the same thing" (p.84).
Many theorists note that moral education is what this thesis strives to promote.
Althof and Berkowitz (2006) demonstrate this clearly by writing: "Moral education focuses on the development of justice reasoning, and [...] reasoning about interpersonal care" (p.
496). Dummett (1986) comments, "Moral education has the purpose of helping students not only to analyse moral rules but to face the large decisions in life and cope with very practical daily problems, some of them apparently trivial but raising real moral questions"
(p. 12). McKenzie (2004), referencing key theorists for this study, notes, "Moral education
[...] seems to be gaining momentum, both through the cognitive-developmental approach of
Kohlberg and through the more recent contributions of others, such as Gilligan (1993) and
Noddings (1984; 1992)" (p. 83).
Unfortunately, many Canadian provinces, including Ontario are following the example of the United States and are adopting character education programs, such as those seen with increasing prevalence in the US, for all students. The Ministry of Education for the Government of Ontario (2006) released a document entitled Finding Common Ground outlining their guidelines for "Character Development in Ontario Schools, K-12". While the document focuses on character development in name, many of the methods described can certainly be applied to teach moral reasoning. Indeed, as McKenzie (2004) notes, "The 67
end objectives of character education, moral education, social skills training for specific problems, and social-emotional education are often quite similar; as are many of the methods used to achieve these objectives. The most striking difference between the various categories of approaches seemed to be the theoretical assumptions and stances on which they are based" (p. 88). In the aforementioned curriculum document, Ontario's Ministry of
Education comments that "Character cannot be taught in the abstract, solely as a course of study. Students become engaged by engaging - as learners and as members of the community" (p. 4). Thus, a multidisciplinary lesson incorporating literature study, historical research and a link to moral education and anti-bullying education, as recommended by this study, fits with the Ministry's mandate.
Echoing this need for a multidisciplinary approach to incorporating morality into the curriculum, Noddings (2006) advocates a four-part model for moral education, encompassing "modeling, dialogue, practice, and confirmation" (p. 113) and posits that "a broad education in the arts and literature of other nations might have an antiwar effect" (p.
48).
"Us" vs. "Them"
The anthropological concept of the Other applies keenly here. By definition, the
Other is a negative term:
Othering is a way of defining and securing one's own positive identity
through the stigmatization of an "other." Whatever the markers of social
differentiation that shape the meaning of "us" and "them," whether they are
racial, geographic, ethnic, economic or ideological, there is always the 68
danger that they will become the basis for a self-affirmation that depends
upon the denigration of the other group (Uhlrich, 2003, online).
While understanding an exotic Other may help dissuade nations from war, understanding the way in which we create the Other among those who are within our own country, or more specifically, our own school, can help to dissuade the dangerous practice from occurring.
Buber (1923) discusses Othering in his text / and Thou. He indicates that each person chooses to view the world in one of two ways: in an I-Thou relationship or in an I-It relationship. An I-It relationship views other entities in one's world (including other people) as mere 'things, not allowing for dialogue with these 'objects". Conversely, an I-
Thou relationship identifies others as dialogic partners. Buber identifies the former means of living in the world as an 'experience' and the latter as an 'encounter' and implores us to make use of this encounter-based mode of engaging the world in order to be truly human.
Through an examination of modern society, Buber notes that almost all of our societal structures including politics, economics and public institutions are grounded in perpetuating
I-It relationships. This view of the world leaves the individual feeling alienated within modern society and from the other "Its" that inhabit it.
The implications of the discussion contained within this philosophic text when considered in context with this study are numerous. Moral education curricula should be created with the intention of fostering an I-Thou relationship with those around us and with the intention of creating a desire to encounter Others rather than experience them. The students I spoke with for this thesis were well acquainted with the concept of the Other, but in a more abstracted sense. Interestingly, the comments received by students seemed to construct the bully or enemy as the Other instead of the victim. This potentially means that 69
my participants empathize more strongly with the victim, indicating that they themselves have experienced Othering.
Considering the phenomenon of the Other in the context of interpersonal relations and bullying, it is clear that by dichotomizing individuals into those who are "in" favour and those who are not, a dangerous climate is created for violence in many forms. Female
Holocaust resisters were certainly considered Others in their society but it is hoped that by researching and studying the lives of Others, including female Holocaust resisters, students will find connections to their own lives and realize the danger of creating the Other in that which is so familiar.
When speaking with research participants, the concept of the Other presented itself as an ideology that is keenly felt among high school students. Participants noted that they had witnessed first-hand instances where students were Othered and bullied because of physical differences from a standardized and socially accepted 'norm'. One participant noted that victims of bullying are "usually [...] minorities, disabled people, etc."
From this quote, we come to realize that high school students construct the Other among their peers by virtue of their physical appearance. Wiseman (2003) connects this accepted view of beauty to media influence, writing,
when I ask girls what a stereotypical "beautiful" woman looks like, they answer
the same way, regardless of race or ethnicity: She has to be thin, with long hair,
good teeth, and big breasts. [... Girls know] that the girls in magazines are
airbrushed and probably have fake boobs, but it doesn't stop [them] from
comparing herself to them and feeling inadequate (p. 80) 70
Participants also noted how media influences how girls feel about their bodies and how those inadequacies are exploited by female bullies when talking about the film Mean Girls, viewed as part of our guided discussion.
The defamiliarization of individuals also creates a rift in the fabric of the community, whether that community is geographic, religious or societal. In the case of the formation of cliques, and when speaking in terms of popularity and the potential for bullying, this divide is felt keenly by all citizens. One female participant talked about the group dynamics at play within her own school: "You pretty much see stuff like that happen all the time. When your [sic] friends with someone and you get mad at one person, you get all your friends to be mad at them to [sic]." From this comment, we can assume that this participant has experienced an Us vs. Them dichotomy at play, perhaps even as a perpetrator.
"Good" vs. "Bad"
Participants in my study were able to identify with both characters studied in our discussion group. Students were well acquainted with the Regina Georges of their worlds, though no participants indicated an empathetic understanding of her actions. Several students empathized with Sophie Scholl, expressing interest in her methods and admiration for her goals. During our oral discussion, many students used the word "bad" to describe
Regina George, her motives and her actions. The same students called Sophie Scholl
"good", indicating their sense of morality was engaged by the actions of the characters they studied. One male student referenced both characters and their intentions, saying "they both had a purpose for what they were doing. The difference being Sophie had the purpose of goodness, while Regina had the intent of doing more harm." 71
Krasny's (2007) work on animating moral imagination, as cited earlier, suggests that empathetic identification through literary experiences may counteract the defamiliarization that characterizes modern society. Krasny draws on psychological and philosophical theories of mind and consciousness to support her claim that "images and emotional responses emerging from the literary experience contribute to a developing sense of self and an expanding moral consciousness" (p. 434). She offers a strong case for the inclusion of literature in the moral education classroom as a means through which to encourage students to develop their own moral compass through responses to events which affect the lives of literary characters. In his written response, a participant from our discussion group said "I believe in taking action to say it is mentally and physically wrong to demise [sic] someone's moral [s], simply because a person thinks it is funny, or acceptable to lower someone else, so they can be at the top."
When considered in the context of moral education, the power of literature to animate students' sense of moral reasoning is particularly relevant. Examining the texts referenced earlier, we see that each presents students with a situation in which a moral dichotomy of right vs. wrong or good vs. bad is too simplistic. The situations faced by protagonists like Lisa, Jesper or Sophie Scholl are complex and morally ambiguous and will compel students to reflect on the choices these protagonists make in response. This supports the inclusion of Holocaust resistance literature in the moral education curriculum, since asking students to compare their experiences with moral decision making with those of fictional characters may inspire them to reflect more critically on their own moral reasoning practices and to change their behaviours when presented with opportunities to call on their sense of morality when making decisions. 72
Closing the Divide
Noddings (2006) references moral education practices as a means to create societal inclusion and to create a sense of shared responsibility among students, parents, teachers and community members. She argues that that sense of shared responsibility dissolves when we segregate societies:
At every level of human society, we seek to fix blame for acts and events that
members of the society - at the given level - deplore and want to prevent.
The prevailing response is to pursue prevention through rules, procedures for
detecting and fixing blame, and the infliction of penalties. This approach to
the prevention of unwanted acts has never been very effective, and often it
makes things worse. The persons, groups, or nations that perpetrate or
support unwanted acts and events continue to violate the rules and sometimes
do so more violently (p. 112).
Thus, Noddings also advocates for the study of resistance and resisters and especially the study of female resisters as a means to promote moral decision making. She writes,
Accounts of female leadership in peace movements are powerful and
important. [... they] provide positive examples of the virtues that might well
characterize those who seek a moral equivalent of war. Young women, as
well as young men, need to be prepared for the psychological pressures that
may lead them to support war. It is useful to know that we have had heroic
foremothers in the struggle to end war (p. 46-47).
While students in today's Canadian high schools may not be facing the decision to condone or resist war, there are myriad other forms of violence, including psychological bullying, 73
that impact teenagers' lives. Through exposure to the stories of women like Sophie Scholl, and the women of the Danish resistance, educators can hope to instil the ability to make choices based on moral frameworks of justice and caring.
Frameworks of Morality
Specifically examining the ways in which girls employ the values fostered by moral education, Lyons (1990) notes that there are two frameworks of moral decision making that are at play in girls' decision making processes, "a morality of justice and a morality of care"
(p. 32). She writes, "Each moral voice implies or articulates a particular conception of relationships—relationships of equality and fairness, or relationships of responsiveness and interdependence" (p. 32). Lyons spoke with many girls at the Emma Willard School and questioned them about their interpretations of the word morality. For two students, Beth and Rebecca, morality meant something different, demonstrating the two frameworks Lyons presents:
For Rebecca, morality is a code of beliefs, a measure of personal integrity
that is tied to abiding by rules, which can in turn become the basis for
judging whether something is right or wrong. Her code is personal, not
necessarily anyone else's. For Beth, morality is something that has to do
with questions that can have drastic effects on life—like the dropping of a
bomb—and yet is tied to ideas about responsibility, which in turn have to do
with everyday things like failing to do one's homework because that might
bog other people down and wouldn't be helping them. For Rebecca, morality
has to do with following one's code; for Beth, it has to do with helping 74
people, being sure to do something so that others will not be hurt or hindered
(p. 34).
If these dual morality frameworks are at play when girls make decisions, the study of Sophie Scholl is an interesting one. In her actions, we can see a confluence of both these worldviews; the idea of justice was obviously crucial in her decision to join the resistance movements against the Nazis. However, one cannot examine Scholl's actions outside of the context of a framework of caring for others. Her compass indicated to her that the atrocities committed by the Germans against their victims were immoral and her action against them was the correct moral choice. The students I spoke with also felt Sophie's moral compass was on track, calling her choices "right", "good", and "brave". When describing her personality, too, adjectives that implied caring were common. In contrast, words used to describe Regina George were harsher and more judgemental, including adjectives like
"power hungry" and "selfish".
In the second leaflet published by the White Rose, the resisters commented on the nature of the crimes being committed by their country's ruler and his followers:
We want to cite the fact that since the conquest of Poland three hundred
thousand Jews have been murdered in that country in a bestial manner. Here
we see the most terrible crime committed against the dignity of man, a crime
that has no counterpart in human history. For Jews, too, are human beings—
no matter what position we take with respect to the Jewish question—and a
crime of this dimension has been perpetrated against human beings
(Dumbach & Newborn, 2006, p. 190-191).
Thus, the framework of caring is easily apparent in the words of the resisters themselves. 75
The actions of the White Rose, however, speak clearly to the framework of justice.
In their final leaflet—only ever realized in draft form, since the White Rose was brutally stopped by the Gestapo before it could be completed and distributed—the members of the
White Rose call the German people to act for justice, writing:
Will all Germans be sacrificed to the forces of hatred and destruction?
Sacrificed to the man who persecuted the Jews, who eradicated half the Poles
and who wanted to annihilate Russia? Sacrificed to the man who took away
your freedom, peace, domestic happiness, hope, and joy, and instead gave
you soaring inflation? This will not, this must not happen! Hitler and his
regime must fall so that Germany may live. Make up your minds [...] And
once you have decided: act! (Dumbach & Newborn, 2006, p. 205).
Thus, the actions of the White Rose, as embodied by Sophie Scholl effectively link the two frameworks of morality referenced by Lyons (1990). This indicates that a study of the actions of Holocaust resisters, and specifically female Holocaust resisters may appeal to the frameworks of morality held (even subconsciously) by female students.
Resistance as Moral Action
When discussing resistance, especially with children and young adults, it is easy to comment solely on examples of passive resistance that have presented themselves throughout history since some feel that teaching students about episodes of violent resistance will somehow instantaneously spill over to the playground; curricula are full of discussions of Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Gandhi and the like. However, as
Noddings (2006) notes, 76
The question still remains whether pacifism is always the right way to
approach conflict. Martin Buber, who generally opposed the use of force or
violence, admonished Gandhi when the latter suggested that Jews might have
resisted the Nazis nonviolently. Buber pointed out that nonviolent resistance
to people who intend to destroy you only helps them to accomplish their
purpose (p. 47).
Speaking in the context of anti-racism education, Short (1999) discusses the importance of teaching against the "the tendency towards bystander behaviour and conformity to the peer group" (p. 52-53). He writes,
one would expect higher levels of non-conformity in societies where
(appropriate) non-conformity is widely recognized as a virtue. One means of
creating a society of this kind might be through the teaching of history.
Specifically, we should consider the merit of reconceptualising, or at least
broadening, our notion of a hero so that students are encouraged to laud acts
of non-conformity (on condition that such acts are compatible with natural
justice) (p. 56-57).
Thus, Short's recommendations echo the ones presented here, indeed, he also advocates for the inclusion of historical resisters—in his terminology, rescuers—in a study intended to encourage students to act morally. His disappointment that educators are not taking full advantage of these types of opportunities is apparent:
The Holocaust, of course, offers considerable scope for teaching about
heroism in the context of non-conformity, but recent research [...] into the
way the subject is taught indicates that full advantage is not being taken of 77
this opportunity (Short, 1995). It was found that some teachers did not raise
the issue of rescuers with their pupils and those who did tended to discuss
only the exploits of Oskar Schindler. The vast majority of textbooks also
made no mention of rescuers. In a follow-up study, a group of 14- and 15-
year-olds was asked, among other things, if there were any heroes in the
Holocaust (Short, 1999). Predictably, some mentioned Schindler, but most
said either that there were none or claimed that the Jews themselves were
heroes simply for having survived. Individual acts of rescue [...] should
form an integral part of any course on the Holocaust (Short, 1999, p. 58).
Thus, Short effectively brings together the strands of research noted here: the teaching of history, and, specifically, the history of the Holocaust's many heroic resisters/rescuers as a means to influence non-conformist behaviour in the face of moral dilemmas discussed herein through the specific example of bullying.
And Now, to Act
Throughout this chapter, I have elucidated connections between the choices made by female Holocaust resisters and the choices made by some female high school students today. None of the students I spoke with indicated that they had acted as resisters in the face of bullying, since they felt powerless to stop something they felt was part of the status quo for high school. However, the students did reference the fact that when faced with bullying, they were initially shocked. By the end of our discussion, and in their written responses, students did indicate that the choice to stand up for their own rights was something they felt was important, and that the lessons gleaned from history did have valid connections to their lives. 78
What must be clarified, however, is that these connections should not be seen as an attempt at 'cannibalizing' the past to serve the purposes of the present. There is a valid argument in noting that in merely stating the connections between the past and the present, we run the risk of somehow invalidating the experiences of the past by projecting them forward to serve our own purposes. It is thus imperative to note that it is not my intention to over simplify the connection between the past and the present, nor to use the past as a pedagogical tool without considering the potential for oversimplification. I do, however note literature and film's potential to open the door to further reflection on life's choices in the face of moral dilemmas. A more extensive intervention and a longitudinal study of participants views and actions is needed to more fully demonstrate the effectiveness of integrating an interdisciplinary approach to Holocaust study as a vehicle for anti-bullying education.
Further, it is also important to note that while students may intellectually understand the need for resistance to psychological bullying, their actions do not always reflect this knowledge. The realm of interpersonal relationships is a complex one, and there are many factors at play in a conflict situation. Peer pressure and cultural ideologies also impact students' actions and merely responding to literature will not necessarily change these deep seated doctrines. Students are well versed in discussing literature, but merely reading books will not necessarily change the culture of aggression that haunts high school corridors and middle school playgrounds.
The decision to resist immorality in any form, in any age, is a moral choice that female students must have the courage to make. Without an understanding of the choices made by their foremothers, students lack the moral compasses that will guide them to 79
challenge the authority of the clique. Narratives that feature the heroism of female
Holocaust resisters can offer students a gateway to the past, and clarify the admirable choices made by women who found themselves face to face with adversity. 80
Chapter Five
Interdisciplinary Education
February 14, 2009 - York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Being reunited with the Learning from the Past, Teaching for the Future students has been such a lovely experience. Spending almost a month together struggling with some of the most difficult questions history has presented to us made us such a tight-knit group.
It was so wonderful to see our friends from Germany and Poland and see how the projects we all began developing in Gniezno have progressed.
We spent the day today listening to each others' presentations and hearing about the research, interviews, designs and writing that we have spent time with for the past six months. It was fascinating to see how our trip has influenced so many different projects.
I presented what will eventually become my Master's thesis, a proposed study that will examine how learning about resistance during the Holocaust, through narratives, can inform anti-bullying curricula. [...] Afterwards, many of my colleagues commented on how much they had enjoyed my presentation, and how I had made them think about what we had learned together on our trip in a different way.
A friend and I shared a conversation about how history was taught in our high schools, and her description of history classes in Germany made me think about how I was taught in Newfoundland. I became even more frustrated that history (and, indeed, all other subjects) are taught as individual disciplines without elaborating on the connections that can be made between the subjects. Out of this frustration, though, came somewhat of a 81
dream. I would love to see schools abandon the teaching of subjects as abstracted disciplines and embrace an interdisciplinary approach.
Thinking like this made me remember my grade 2 teacher, Mrs. Bowering, and how our "units " of study encompassed all subjects. When we learned about outer space, for example, our math word problems dealt with distances in space, and travel among planets.
We read books about outer space, astronauts and aliens, and we learned about the science of planets and atmospheres. I remember being so enamoured with each unit that my career plans changed endlessly that year (from astronaut to scientist to palaeontologist to computer technician) depending on our unit of study in class.
Of course, whenever I think of interdisciplinary education, I immediately think of my undergraduate program. I was lucky enough to spend three years studying at Renaissance
College, a leadership program at the University of New Brunswick Fredericton.
Interdisciplinary education forms the cornerstone of that program and influences every aspect of the curriculum. In retrospect, I learned almost as much about education there as I did about leadership.
I wonder if there is the potential for this type of interdisciplinary study within the current secondary school culture. 82
An interdisciplinary study of the Holocaust (including of course, the study of female resistance efforts) could conceivably create an environment conducive to both learning and community building within the secondary school classroom. This can create a culture of caring, which in turn can generate a framework of morality characterized by caring, as referenced by Lyons (1990), and discussed in Chapter Four.
Throughout my research, the students I worked with were able to find connections between the experiences of female Holocaust resisters and their own lived experiences through the texts they studied. The participants in my study were reluctant to talk about literature in their history classroom, and were not well versed in film discussion or with relating historical concepts to their own lives. By their own admission, as Grade Ten students, this had not been part of their experience with any of their in class activities.
However, once our discussion was underway and in particular within their written responses, students responded to this multi-disciplinary activity with insight and careful reflection. In particular, students were engaged by the relation of the experiences of history to their own lived experiences. This indicates that the students responded well to an interdisciplinary exploration of the connections between female Holocaust resisters and contemporary females' experiences with psychological bullying.
Defining text broadly, then, to encompass literary texts, films, museums and historical sites, historical documents, artistic representations, etc., students are able to find connections between texts, between texts and the world and, perhaps most importantly when considered in connection to the work outlined in this thesis, between texts and themselves. I believe that the incorporation of many varied texts into the classroom, and 83
including tenets and methods of moral education paves the way for an interdisciplinary study of the past and its potential for creating a better future. Indeed, it seems that the major researchers and theorists consulted for this paper are each advocating for an interdisciplinary approach to study, without ever committing to the terminology.
In Gilligan, Lyons and Hamner's (1990) book Making Connections, the authors state
"all real intellectual pursuits and learning take place with exchanges of information and ideas. We do not learn in a vacuum" (p. 295). In Happiness and Education, Noddings
(2003) advocates for "the establishment of classrooms as caring communities in which all students are included and respected" (p. 184). In Critical Lessons: What Our Schools
Should Teach (2006), Noddings criticizes the lack of continuity in high school education:
"The only justification for much of what is taught in secondary school is that it is needed or required at the next level of schooling" (p. 285). It appears that each of these authors is arguing the same point; an overhaul of our current educational pursuits is in order. A turn toward an interdisciplinary approach to education can help students feel connected to both their own education and to the people sharing that educational journey with them, that is to say, their classmates and peers, and the teachers and administrators of their schools, something each of these authors would no doubt embrace.
Interdisciplinary Education in Theory & Practice
Perhaps exactly what is meant by an interdisciplinary approach to educating is not sufficiently clear. Burton (2001) outlines several qualities necessary for "effective interdisciplinary programs", noting that these programs "(a) have carefully conceived design features: scope and sequence, a cognitive taxonomy to encourage thinking skills, 84
behavioral indicators of attitudinal change, and a solid evaluation scheme; and (b) use both discipline-based and interdisciplinary experiences in order to have staying power" (p. 18).
As noted in other chapters of this thesis, many scholars advocate for the inclusion of literature in history study (Totten, 2001; Tal, 2004; Shawn, 2001; Kessler, 1991) —in itself, an interdisciplinary approach to the teaching of both subjects. As Ehlers (1999) notes,
History is created when facts are connected to prior knowledge in order to
interpret the cause or significance of an event. These skills which may come
more easily in literature (perhaps because they are more consistently
practiced), can also lead to a more meaningful interaction with historical
materials. [...] When we utilize the experiences of our students as both
readers of history and literature and as historians and storytellers, we
empower them to engage in the interpretive process that is much more likely
to create both memorable images and true depth of understanding (p. 6).
This is certainly an impressive vote of confidence for the combination of history and literature in the classroom. However, merely combining two disciplines does not necessarily create an interdisciplinary experience. As Smith and Karr-Kidwell (2000) note,
"an interdisciplinary curriculum is a holistic approach that links the disciplines by emphasizing relationships and connections" (p. 3). Burton (2001) references the term saying, "interdisciplinary implies: finding authentic interactive connections between the disciplines that will make a difference in teaching and learning" (p. 21). What we must take from this research, then, is the very important role the facilitator/teacher plays in shaping the experience had by the participants as they interact with the curriculum. 85
As outlined in the report "Teacher Teaming in Relation to Student Performance",
Spraker (2003) discusses interdisciplinary teacher teams and their composition and involvement in disseminating interdisciplinary curricula:
Generally, three to five teachers blend their talents and knowledge across
disciplines to provide integrated or thematic curriculum or instruction, often
as project-based learning [italics added] [...] Teaming has been a school
restructuring strategy away from departmentalized junior highs and is
intended to better meet both the academic and psychosocial needs of young
adolescents (online).
Thus, the curriculum itself is not the only interdisciplinary structure in students' lives; the very teachers themselves and the composition of the teaching staff interacting with students is interdisciplinary. Through this, both students and teachers can conceivably hope to
"[find] authentic interactive connections between the disciplines that will make a difference in teaching and learning" (Burton, 2001, p. 18).
As Smith and Karr-Kidwell (2000) write, "an interdisciplinary curriculum is a holistic approach that links the disciplines by emphasizing relationship and connections" (p.
2). An interdisciplinary approach to Holocaust education should incorporate history and literature but also include tenets of moral education, aiming to reduce a culture of aggression that is perpetuated in schools.
This certainly seems to echo Noddings (2003) when she writes, "Teachers have to work toward the establishment of classrooms as caring communities in which all students are included and respected. Young people today often experience harassment from their peers, and this problem should be discussed openly in class meetings, but without specific 86
references or accusations" (p. 184). This idea is also reminiscent of observations made by
Gilligan, Lyons & Hamner (1990) at the Emma Willard school:
Not only did Emma Willard faculty review and "balance" their curriculum to
respond to the inclusion of women within it, that is, to guarantee that women
were included (for example, in the novels assigned in reading, in the
examination of history of the social features of people's lives as well as the
political features), but teachers also became more attentive to their practices
in support of student learning: in listening to questions students ask and in
reflecting on their own responses; and in trying out diverse approaches, such
as cooperative learning, in math classes and on the playing field (p. 65).
Both authors seem to be advocating for "helping students [to] make connections and [to] integrate their knowledge of specific disciplines into the larger world" (Smith & Karr-
Kidwell, 2000, p. 3). Why, then, do neither of these authors openly advocate for nor specifically outline an interdisciplinary curriculum?
Project-Based Learning
Interdisciplinary curricula can be overwhelming for educators to approach.
Combining disciplines that have historically seemed at odds with each other can be tricky to navigate. While my research project did not study the benefits of project-based learning, interdisciplinary curricula can benefit from incorporations of project-based learning (Cheng,
Lam & Chan, 2008; Harada, Kirio & Yamamoto, 2006; Nation, 2008; Fleming, 2000).
A concise definition of project based learning (PBL) comes from Cheng, Lam and
Chan (2008). They write: "In project-based learning, students work on academic tasks in small groups. The task can be in the form of an investigation or research on a specific topic. 87
The topic being studied usually integrates concepts from multiple disciplines or fields of study" (p. 206). A more elaborate description of PBL comes from Harada, Kirio and
Yamamoto (2008) who write,
issues, themes, or problems form the core of PBL and require in-depth
exploration. [...] students develop ownership [of their project] in two
important ways. They first select topics that are personally relevant to them.
[...] instructors take on the role of facilitators and coaches. They do not
relinquish control of the learning situation but share it with their students, (p.
14).
Immediately, the connections to the strands of research explored in this thesis become apparent. Bringing students together with their peers and their teachers can help to alleviate tensions and imbalances of power. The Buck Institute of Education comments that
"[PBL] Creates positive communication and collaborative relationships among diverse groups of students" (online). The potential for this type of interdisciplinary pedagogy in connection with anti-bullying endeavours can have a major impact on the success of such endeavours.
Of course, merely putting students together in groups will not immediately solve all the problems associated with bullying and indirect aggressions elaborated upon in this study. Group work can be an incredibly complicated and delicate balancing act. As Cheng,
Lam and Chan (2008) remark,
it is difficult for group members to resolve interpersonal problems during
cooperative activities. Project-based learning is a teaching strategy that
requires collaboration among students in small groups and its positive effects 88
on student learning are hinged on both the nature of group composition and
the quality of group processes (p. 206).
However, introducing project-based learning as a component of an interdisciplinary curriculum can be a powerful tool to promoting acceptance (Sommerville & McDonald,
2002).
Collaborative learning can also add dimension to a multidisciplinary, multicultural curriculum. As Harada, Kirio and Yamamoto (2008) note, "With our increasingly diverse student population, PBL takes on greater importance because it builds on students' individual strengths and allows them to explore their interests in the structure of a defined curriculum" (p. 14). Thus, project-based learning, as a component of an interdisciplinary educational approach, can bring students of diverse cultural backgrounds together and have the potential to alleviate tensions between students.
Interdisciplinary and Intercommunity Education
One key element of interdisciplinary education, and one of the greatest arguments for the method is the fact that it includes not only the traditional players in the educational space (teachers, students and administrators), but also opens the door to parental and community involvement. In fact, in Mary Beth Henning's (2003) article, "From 'Creative
Juice' to 'Pioneer on an Iceburg [s/c]': Teachers' and Administrators' Perspectives on their
34-year-old Interdisciplinary Curriculum", the district has success with their interdisciplinary approach due, at least in part, to the fact that "Parents are highly involved in this district, and in the year this study began, the district won a "What Parents Want
Award" from a national organization [SchoolMatch]" (p. 5). Thus, a school community which invites and welcomes parental involvement presents itself as an ideal candidate for a 89
foray into interdisciplinary education. Noddings (2006) writes eloquently on the subject of parental involvement, citing the common trend in elementary schools which requires parental signatures on homework agendas or homework lessons to be submitted. As
Noddings notes, however, that there are as many levels of parental involvement in homework as there are families. She writes:
Some parents take an active, even authoritarian, role in their children's
homework. They specify when it will be done and insist on reviewing the
results. [...] This is done for the child's good, of course, but some of us have
serious doubts about the effects of such efforts to control children and their
futures. [...] Other parents, as suggested previously, do not supervise
homework. They may ask how it's going, whether help is required, whether
anything interesting is being learned, whether the load is too heavy, and so
on, but the responsibility belongs to the student. [...] There are also parents
who are either too tired or just uninterested. Some are so poorly educated
that they cannot help. Some are intimidated by teachers and schools. They
are embarrassed when they don't understand the assignment. [...] How can
these parents and teachers be helped? (p. 125).
I believe that these parents and teachers (and, of course, most importantly students) can be helped through interdisciplinary study. Parents can be called upon as educators in both formal capacities, such as bringing their understanding and/or knowledge of a particular topic to the classroom and in informal capacities, such as the dinner table conversation
Noddings (2003) writes about in Happiness and Education. The Ontario Ministry of
Education (2008) calls upon 90
all partners in education - students, teachers, principals, supervisory officers,
parents, guardians, secretaries, custodians, school council members, bus
drivers, trustees, business and community leaders, members of social service
agencies and faith communities to join with us in nurturing the best of the
human and universal qualities that [its] graduates need to be successful in our
increasingly interconnected and interdependent world (p. 9).
To connect this to the themes discussed throughout this thesis, it is interesting to comment on collaborative education when considered in connection with themes of moral education and Holocaust education. Moral education struggles do not take place solely within an individual. Moral frameworks are not conceived and developed in isolation.
Interdisciplinary educational practices can include groups which help to foster moral development and behaviour.
One of the other important possibilities of interdisciplinary education is the potential to incorporate those groups often marginalized by traditional pedagogical approaches.
Interdisciplinary education has the potential to revitalize the way classroom activities are constructed, including interpersonal dialogue and discussion as a cornerstone of the method.
As well, anti-discriminatory education has the potential to be integrated with many other subsections of the curriculum. As the Ontario Ministry of Education's report on Equity and
Inclusive Education (2009) suggests, "Our schools should be places where students not only learn about diversity but experience it" (p. 15). By integrating antidiscrimination into all aspects of the curriculum, and approaching topics from an interdisciplinary perspective, those students who have been traditionally excluded by conventional educational practices may find room for their own voices to influence curricula and learning practices. 91
Recently, the Toronto District School Board found itself embroiled in a particularly volatile debate over the value of creating an Afro-centric school focused on championing the rights and values of black students whose lack of success in traditional schools presented astonishing statistics. (Dragnea & Erling 2008; Alcoba, 2008; Carter, 2008). This proposed school sparked debate, one side of which argued that a return to segregationist policies could not serve the purposes hoped for by the school's advocates. Perhaps instead of separating those marginalized students, a focus on interdisciplinary tactics could have served to integrate them into the mainstream classroom and, in doing so, also benefit the students who are not part of the minority group by incorporating stories and teaching practices relevant to and inclusive of the histories and memories of those students who are traditionally left out of existing curricula. As Dragnea & Erling (2008) note in their report for the Toronto District School Board, "the realities and experiences of Black students are absent from the curriculum in Ontario and Canada in general. This absence contributes to their subsequent disengagement from their schooling experience" (p. 5). Perhaps a re- engagement with school could be possible if these students found themselves and their histories represented more accurately in their school curricula.
Interdisciplinary education opens doors to alternate forms of assessment and measuring achievement. Instead of placing the focus on "standardized test scores, dropout rates, graduation rates, behavior, admission to College and Universities, etc" (Ontario
Ministry of Education, 2008, p. 7) interdisciplinary education can offer evaluation schemata which meet the needs of the students involved while still fulfilling the outcomes of the government legislated curriculum. 92
Interdisciplinary Moral Education
On a related note, the Ontario Ministry of Education (2008), in the context of the implementation of a character development initiative within K-12 schools in the province, notes that such an endeavour "requires an integrated, cross-curricular approach to learning"
(p. 5). It would appear that moral education presents itself as an ideal candidate for inclusion in an interdisciplinary study.
A key word one sees frequently when discussing moral and/or character education is
'inclusive'. Ontario's Ministry of Education launched an inclusive education initiative in
2009, citing UNESCO's mandate that:
Inclusive education is central to the achievement of high-quality education
for all learners and the development of more inclusive societies. Inclusion is
still thought of in some countries as an approach to serving children with
disabilities within general educational settings. Internationally, however, it
is increasingly seen more broadly as a reform that supports and welcomes
diversity among all learners (p 6).
It is interesting to examine the phrase 'inclusive education' and to consider educational strategies that are inclusive not only of all students, but of all pedagogical practices. The same Ontario Ministry report cites Ostermann (2000) who indicates that a sense of belonging or community "is associated with a positive orientation toward school, class work, and teachers" (p. 331). Perhaps interdisciplinary educational practices will be more conducive to the creation of happy, healthy learning environments. If, as Osterman notes,
"being accepted, included, or welcomed leads to positive emotions, such as happiness, elation, contentment, and calm, while being rejected, excluded or ignored leads to often 93
intense negative feelings of anxiety, depression, grief, jealousy, and loneliness" (p. 327) one can conceivably conclude that a curriculum that promotes inclusivity can also promote anti- bullying efforts. In fact, Osterman cites a 1991 study by Jules which
documents the impact of cooperative learning on peer interaction outside of
the learning satiation preceding and following cooperative learning
experiences. Prior to the cooperative learning experience (five weeks, 25
periods of 40 minutes each) the researchers observed students interacting in
dyads, triads and cliques. At the conclusion, cliques were no longer evident,
friendship patterns had widened, and same race choices had declined (p.
350).
This provides a conclusive link between interdisciplinary education and the theme of anti- bullying, and with the concept of psychological bullying particularly the rejection and exclusion techniques practiced by Queen Bees and other female bullies.
You Can't Say You Can't Play
As discussed in Chapter Two, selecting pieces of Holocaust literature which are age appropriate is a complicated, but necessary endeavour. There are ways to create an interdisciplinary Holocaust education curriculum for students from kindergarten to grade
12. Picture books like Eve Bunting's (1980) Terrible Things, Rose Blanche by Roberto
Innocenti (1985), The Butterfly by Patricia Polacco (2000) or Maurice Sendak and Tony
Kushner's (2003) Brundibar meet Karen Shawn's (2001) guidelines for choosing appropriate Holocaust literature for younger readers. Innumerable non-fiction texts including Levine's (2002) Hana's Suitcase also present information about the Holocaust in a format that is accessible and appropriate for younger readers. 94
Moral education curricula can benefit from application to younger grades as well.
A rather extraordinary text presented itself to me very late in my research process, a book chosen somewhat randomly from a library shelf while searching for other sources.
Vivian Gussin Paley's (1992) book You Can't Say You Can't Play discusses the exclusive practices of her kindergarten students during unstructured play. The beginning of relational aggressions presents itself much earlier than middle or high school, it would appear. Paley notes,
By kindergarten, [...] a structure begins to be revealed and will soon be
carved in stone. Certain children will have the right to limit the social
experiences of their classmates. Henceforth a ruling class will notify others
of their acceptability, and the outsiders learn to anticipate the sting of
rejection (p. 3).
If Paley's observations are correct, and by kindergarten students are already practicing their ability to exclude and reject their classmates, a discussion of morality and anti-bullying with high school students could be too late to do any good. Paley's introduction of the "you can't say you can't play" rule with her kindergarten students enforces her belief that morality can be taught, as long as education begins early. Paley notes, "My discussion with first through fourth grades has convinced me of two certainties: The rule is essential and it must begin at this intuitive stage of learning [kindergarten]" (p. 87). Further, she writes,
"We must be told, when we are young, what rules to live by. The grownups must tell the children early in life so that myth and morality proclaim the same message while the children are still listening" (p. 110). 95
Walking into a middle or high school and instituting a rule like 'you can't say you can't play' would fail abysmally. Discussions of morality, included in interdisciplinary study, must begin much earlier while students are still receptive to the lessons they are receiving, and before permanent emotional and intellectual damage is wrought upon the victims of exclusion. As Paley (1992) and other researchers (Bright, 2005; Coloroso, 2002;
Olweus, 2003; Simmons, 2002; Veenstra et al., 2005; Wiseman, 2003) observe, "I am certain the children who are told they can't play don't learn as well" (Paley, 1992, p. 28).
Not only will academic pursuits be affected by students' experiences with bullying, but it stands to reason that their personal lives cannot emerge unscathed from these violent incidents. Thus, an introduction to the types of interventions outlined in this thesis must be commenced long before middle school, or even high school, as I promoted earlier in this thesis.
Accordingly, I argue that the work outlined in this thesis is valid, and important, but it must be undertaken in conjunction with an interdisciplinary moral education curriculum spanning all grades and levels of schooling. Obviously, much study and classroom practice is needed to fully substantiate these claims, but I believe that based on the research outlined here—both conducted as field research for this thesis and the work of other scholars in many fields—can provide a basis for this further research.
Final Thoughts
I think it is important, in this concluding section, to comment briefly on some of the shortfalls of this study. Throughout my research, I have come to realize that while there are many connections between the topics discussed here, that is, the study of resistance in conjunction with moral education and anti-bullying endeavours, introducing this type of 96
curriculum once students are ready to discuss such potentially volatile topics as the
Holocaust comes much too late.
My discussion with students in grade ten served to reinforce this theory. I often felt the students were telling me 'what I wanted to hear' and not necessarily their true thoughts and feelings on the issues at hand. I felt this most keenly when speaking with female students. Their body language left me sensing that there was more buried beneath the surface. When students told me that they felt like Mean Girls over exaggerated the high school clique drama, I felt like they were leaving out important information. Not one student acknowledged the presence of cliques in their high school, and all tried to downplay the seriousness of bullying. While reviewing my data, I was reminded of Wiseman's (2002) work, and her comment that invariably, while speaking to middle school girls,
the following occurs: A girl, usually generically pretty and surrounded by four or
five girls, will raise her hand defiantly and say, "Ms. Wiseman, the girls in this
grade are not exclusive and we don't have cliques. People hang out with the
people they want to. We just all have our own friends." As she's speaking, there
are many expressions of disbelief and eye-rolling from the other girls in the room.
[...] Without exception, three things will be true about this girl: first, she'll always
be one of the meanest, most exclusive girls in the room; second, she honestly
believes what she's saying; and third, her parents will be in total denial about how
mean she is (p. 21).
While I did not have such an experience with the students I interviewed, I kept feeling like there was more to the story than they were telling me. I wondered if the power dynamics I had researched and experienced as a high school student myself were also at play in this 97
classroom. Wiseman (2002) writes, "[Something is] silencing the girls from telling the truth[....] The power of cliques silences them because those in positions of power won't take responsibility for their actions, and those not in positions of power fear the consequences of speaking out in public" (p. 23). In other words, those who are members of the 'in' group are not taking responsibility for their actions (i.e. bullying) and have created a culture of fear surrounding them. Those who are Othered by the in group are afraid to speak out against the clique for fear of retribution. This discord of communication further divides the community, with no one taking responsibility for the problems of the society or their resolution. Not only does this dynamic affect the social lives of adolescent girls, but perhaps also their academic lives. Further research would obviously be needed to substantiate these claims, but my own brief research experience has left me unsettled when I think that the clique may have the power to silence girls academically, socially, and perhaps also morally.
Thus, we come to the culmination, the very crux of the argument presented in this thesis. I believe that an interdisciplinary and multimodal approach to the teaching of
Holocaust history, incorporating literature and other media forms can also incorporate tenets of moral education, resulting in an increased awareness of the dangers of psychological bullying and an improved ability on the part of female students to resist these practices. 98
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Appendix A
The White Rose Reading
The White Rose resistance movement (five university students and a sympathetic professor, Dr. Kurt Huber) sought to break the German people of their complacency in the
Nazi's tortuous regime by publishing and distributing six (and drafting another, unpublished) illegal leaflets expressing their outrage with the essentially unquestioning attitude of the German population. The members of the White Rose, Hans Scholl, Sophie
Scholl, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graff and Christoph Probst called themselves
"Intellectual Workers". The White Rose students hated the degradation of their Germany under Hitler's Nazi party and advocated for the freedoms they had previously enjoyed.
Their leaflets were very popular with German people who did not agree with the Nazi
Party. Simply being caught reading one, though, could mean that the Nazi police, the
Gestapo, could arrest, punish or even kill the reader. Sophie Scholl and her brother, Hans
Scholl were the figureheads of the White Rose movement. On February 18, 1943, they were caught distributing leaflets at the university in Munich.
February 18 was a warm, springlike day in Munich. At a little after ten in the morning, Hans and Sophie left their apartment in Schwabing and strolled toward the university. Hans was carrying a large suitcase.
They arrived at the university before eleven, while lectures were still going on. The
Lichthof the large inner courtyard of the university with a glass-walled vaulted ceiling, was 109
empty of people. Suddenly Traute Lafrenz and Willi Graf came down the marble steps toward them; they had left a lecture early in order to get to a medical clinic in another part of town where they were both taking a course. They looked at Sophie and Hans, took in the suitcase, and probably were expecting an explanation. None was forthcoming. The four agreed to meet again in the evening.
On the streetcar, Traute told Willi she had a "strange feeling." Willi only shrugged his shoulders, but she knew he was concerned too. During the lecture at the clinic, he seemed nervous and didn't dose off.
After their friends had left the Lichthof, Hans and Sophie opened the suitcase. They took out batches of the leaflets written by Kurt Huber, and placed them in front of the doors of lecture halls, on windowsills, and on the vast stairways leading from the classrooms down to the main floor. They deposited about 700 to 1,800—estimates vary. When they finished, classes had not yet ended and they decided to leave the building.
They looked inside the suitcase and saw they still had some leaflets left. They went up the stairs to the upper floor beneath the vaulted ceiling, and there, from the balustrade, scattered the remaining leaflets down into the Lichthof.
At that moment two things happened: a middle-aged building custodian named
Jakob Schmid was suddenly standing beneath them, shouting up, "You're under arrestl" and at the same time, the lecture doors were flung open and students began pouring out.
The bellowing sound of Jakob Schmid's voice must have echoed through the vast vaulted chamber. Hans and Sophie rand down the stairs, clattering along with the other students, hoping to get lost in the crowd. But Schmid was dogged and determined; a good and loyal member of the SA and the Party, this was his chance. 110
Jakob Schmid caught up with the young man and woman. He shouted again,
"You're under arrest7" They stopped running and stood quietly; everything about them seemed to stop, to go limp, to be drained out.
As the horror-stricken students watched, Hans and Sophie were led without protest to Rector Wtist's office.
By now an alert had been sounded and all the exits of the university on both sides were locked. Students and faculty milled anxiously around in the great lobby, some were reading leaflets, others looking nervously away; Kurt Humber was among them.
Robert Mohr's Gestapo team was summoned from the Wittelsbach Palace; at last there seemed to be a breakthrough in the leaflet mystery.
Mohr gave the order to take Hans and Sophie to Gestapo headquarters; at that moment Hans pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, ripped it up into bits, and tried to stuff it down his mouth. They fell on him, and retrieved the fragments, piece by piece; it was the draft for a leaflet that Christoph Probst had written about peace a few days before.
Hans remained cool in spite of what had happened. It was a piece of paper, he said, given to him by a student he did not know; he hadn't even read it, he didn't know its contents, but felt it might in some way incriminate him.
Hans and Sophie were handcuffed and taken through the milling crowd to an unmarked car outside the entrance of the university. They looked neither right not left; there were people in that crowd who were their friends; they would not endanger them. Ill
From: Dumbach, A., & Newborn, J. (2006). Sophie Scholl and the White Rose. Oxford,
UK: Oneworld Publications. (Original work Shattering the German Night
published 1986):
Sophie and Hans Scholl stood trial four days after their arrest. They were found guilty of treason and executed by guillotine the same day. Other members of the White Rose
(Alexander Schmorell and Kurt Huber) were beheaded on July 13, 1943 and a final member, Willi Graf on October 12, 1943.
The Third Leaflet of the White Rose Resistance Movement
1942
Salus publica suprema lex [translation: Public safety is the supreme law]
[...]
But our present "state" is the dictatorship of evil. "Oh, we've known that for a long time," I hear you object, "and it isn't necessary to bring that to our attention again." But, I ask you, if you know that, why do you not bestir yourselves, why do you allow these men who are in power to rob you step by step, openly and in secret, of one domain of your rights after another, until one day nothing, nothing at all will be left but a mechanized state system 112
presided over by criminals and drunks? Is your spirit already so crushed by abuse that you forget it is your right - or rather, your moral duty - to eliminate this system? But id a man no longer can summon the strength to demand his right, then it is absolutely certain that he will perish. We would deserve to be dispersed through the earth like dust before the wind if we do not muster our powers at this late hour and finally find the courage which up to now we have lacked. Do not hide your cowardice behind a cloak of expediency, for with every new day that you hesitate, failing to oppose this offspring of Hell, your guilt, as in a parabolic curve, grows higher and higher.
Many, perhaps most, of the readers of these leaflets do not see clearly how they can practice an effective opposition. They do not see any avenues open to them. We want to try to show them that everyone is in a position to contribute to the overthrow of this system. It is not possible through solitary withdrawal, in the manner of embittered hermits, to prepare the ground for the overturn of this "government" or bring about the revolution at the earliest possible moment. No, it can be done only by the cooperation of many convinced, energetic people - people who are agreed as to the means they must use to attain their goal. We have no great number of choices as to these means. The only one available is passive resistance.
The meaning and the goal of passive resistance is to topple National Socialism, and in this struggle we must not recoil from any course, any action, whatever its nature. At all points we must oppose National Socialism, wherever it is open to attack. We must soon bring this monster of a state to an end. A victory of fascist Germany in this war would have immeasurable, frightful consequences. The military victory over Bolshevism dare not become the primary concern of the Germans. The defeat of the Nazis must unconditionally 113
be the first order of business, the greater necessity of this latter requirement will be discussed in one of our forthcoming leaflets.
And now every convinced opponent of National Socialism must ask himself how he can fight against the present "state" in the most effective way, how he can strike it the most telling blows. Through passive resistance, without a doubt. We cannot provide each man with the blueprint for his acts, we can only suggest them in general terms, and he alone will find the way of achieving this end:
Sabotage in armament plants and war industries, sabotage at all gatherings, rallies, public ceremonies, and organizations of the National Socialist Party. Obstruction of the smooth functioning of the war machine (a machine for war that goes on solely to shore up and perpetuate the National Socialist Party and its dictatorship). Sabotage in all the areas of science and scholarship which further the continuation of the war - whether in universities, technical schools, laboratories, research institutes, or technical bureaus. Sabotage in all cultural institutions which could potentially enhance the "prestige" of the fascists among the people. Sabotage in all branches of the arts which have even the slightest dependence on
National Socialism or render it service. Sabotage in all publications, all newspapers, that are in the pay of the "government" and that defend its ideology and aid in disseminating the brown lie. Do not give a penny to public drives (even when they are conducted under the pretense of charity). For this is only a disguise. In reality the proceeds aid neither the Red
Cross nor the needy. The government does not need this money; it is not financially interested in these money drives. After all, the presses run continuously to manufacture any 114
desired amount of paper currency. But the populace must be kept constantly under tension, the pressure of the bit must not be allowed to slacken! Do not contribute to the collections of metal, textiles, and the like. Try to convince all your acquaintances, including those in the lower social classes, of the senselessness of continuing, of the hopelessness of this war; of our spiritual and economic enslavement at the hands of the National Socialists; of the destruction of all moral and religious values; and urge them to passive resistance!
[...] 115
Appendix B
Ground Rules for Group Discussion
Respect everyone's opinion. This means giving the speaker your full attention; don't rustle your papers or fiddle with your chair. Look at the speaker and think about what they are saying. It's OK to disagree with what someone is saying, but don't attack his or her opinion. Wait until they are finished speaking and then politely offer your own opinion. THERE ARE NO RIGHT ANSWERS! Your opinion is just as valid as everyone else's. Don't be shy about sharing your thoughts.
The Language of Response I agree because... I disagree because... I also noticed... I don't understand what you mean. I think the author/film maker meant... I'd like to add that... Why do you think that?
(from: Fountas, I. & Pinnell, G. (2000). Guiding Readers and Writers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.)
WRITING ASSIGNMENT (DUE FRIDAY, MAY 30, 2008) Write as much as you want on any or all of the following questions. What connections do you see between the two films viewed in class? What connections do you make between the films and the reading? What connections are there between these texts (the films and/or the reading) and other books or movies you have read or seen? What connections do you make between the films and/or the reading and situations in your own life?