Education

Educational reforms include such interventions as rewriting history text books, retraining teachers, desegregating schools, and the implementation of affirmative action policies.

The Brown v. Board of Education decision in the United States is an example of a reform that had a direct effect on education but which also can be thought of as an institutional reform. In South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended several reforms, including the integration of the TRC’s findings into school curricula. In SA, teachers are now required to teach about apartheid and human rights. They are also to use more interactive and student-centered strategies. The Facing the Past project in the Western Cape is an example of a non-governmental effort to provide the training and resources for teachers to effectively meet these new reforms.
  • Reclaiming Dignity
    (South Africa)

    With the end of apartheid, South Africans are no longer expected to adhere to certain traditions and yet they choose to adhere to others. Here we reflect on episodes from memoirs and literature to appreciate how much of transitioning involves acknowledging past indignities and attempting to right them.

  • Surrendering Freedom, Confronting the Past
    (Germany)

    In his book, They Thought They Were Free, American journalist Milton Mayer uses interviews with ten "typical" Germans who lived under the Third Reich during the 1930s and 40s, to hypothesize on why they were not only willing members of the Nazi party, but even embraced racist values and policies. And in Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich's 1967 book, The Inability to Mourn, the husband and wife psychoanalysts believed that Germany had not yet truly confronted this painful history.

  • "Never Again": A Challenge to the International Community
    (General)
    Nearly ten years after the Rwandan Genocide world leaders gathered at the Stockholm International Conference to discuss how to prevent something like Rwanda from ever happening again.
  • "Putting the past behind us"
    (Germany)

    "Collective amnesia" began to form in Europe after World War II. In this reading, Historian Tony Judt argues that "Without such collective amnesia, Europe's astonishing post-war recovery would not have been possible."

  • Education and the "Three R's" of Transitional Justice: Reconstruction, Repair and Reconciliation
    (General)
    In the period following genocide or mass violence, education is often overlooked as a key component of a successful strategy to repair and reconstruct. This reading looks at the significance of education in transitional justice, as well as the approach Facing History and Ourselves has taken in three different countries.