Can learning about the Holocaust be spiritual? Reflections on a teaching and learning experience with Primary School children. Issue 3 (3rd July 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wills, Ruth Joy
• Is Part Of: International journal of children's spirituality. Volume 23:Issue 3(2018)
• Page Start: 248
• Page End: 259
• Publication Date: 2018-07-03
• Subjects: Holocaust -- auschwitz -- spirituality -- History -- critical pedagogy; Moral education -- Periodicals; Religious education -- Periodicals; Spirituality -- Periodicals; Children -- Religious life -- Periodicals; 155.25
• DOI: 10.1080/1364436X.2018.1459510
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1364-436X

Abstract

Abstract: In April 2017, I spent a week in Poland researching the Holocaust in Europe. Most notably, I visited the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. Following the visit, I facilitated three History lessons with 10- and 11-year-old children on the role of Auschwitz in the Second World War. As the sessions unfolded, the spiritual themes of meaning, identity and remembering emerged from the children's responses; therefore, this article forms a reflection on how the lessons impacted the children's spiritual lives. It also considers how the History curriculum might include a critical dimension to pedagogy. In particular, it explores how issues such as theology, morality and the role of representation open up a space for critical questioning. I suggest that such questioning is also spiritual. Thus, the self-awareness and criticality inspired might contribute to transformation – of both the teachers and learners and the world around them.