Genocide Education

[Hovik]

Intervening In Genocide Case: The Massachussettes Case

INTERVENING IN GENOCIDE CASE: THE MASSACHUSSETTES CASE
By Christopher Loh/ Staff Writer

Watertown TAB & Press, MA
Jan 13 2006

A concerned group of Armenian-Americans has filed a motion to intervene
in a lawsuit concerning the state's curriculum and teaching of the
1915 deportation and murder of 1.5 million Armenians from Turkey
during World War I.

Controversy swirls around the event as people argue whether or not
it constitutes genocide.

The maternal 98-year-old grandmother of Geri Lyn Ajemian, director of
Instructional Services at Marlborough Public Schools, is a descendant
of the killings.

"I have a special interest and training in history and history
education," said Ajemian, who holds a doctoral degree from Harvard
University on the philosophical foundations of history. "In my
doctoral dissertation, I focused on the habits of mind, the methods
of inquiry and the central concepts that structure history as an
academic subject. These same guiding principles 'frame' the state
curriculum frameworks."

Ajemian said she felt "compelled" to lend her experience in curriculum
development and her understanding of the frameworks to the intervening
motion.

The group filing for intervention includes Boston University President
emeritus Dr. Aram Chobanian, Geri Lynn Ajemian, Zori Babroudi a
student at Lincoln-Sudbury High School, Armine Dedkian, Loretta
Gelenian, survivor John Kasparian, Shaunt Keshishian, a student
at Lincoln-Sudbury High School, Heather Krafian and the Armenian
American Assembly.

The lawsuit filed by Lincoln-Sudbury High School history teacher
Bill Schechter and senior Ted Griswold against the state regards
the Department of Education's curriculum guide concerning inclusion
of the Turkish perspective in the teaching of the 1915 slayings of
approximately 1.5 million Armenians during their deportation from
Turkey.

Griswold, founder of the high school's American Civil Liberties Union
chapter, and Schechter argue the Turkish perspective should be included
in teachings.

Malick Ghachem, lawyer for Griswold and Schechter, said he has filed
a complaint against the group's motion to intervene.

Arnold Rosenfeld, a lawyer representing the intervening group, said
they will respond to Griswold's and Schechter's objection, at which
point the judge should respond.

"The judge can schedule an oral argument," Griswold said. "But that
is not required, but it's up to him."

"Under the rules of the court and case law, somebody who has an
interest in the case can file a motion to intervene, you have to show
certain requirements to intervene," Rosenfeld said.

These requirements include the ability to not impede in the case's
progress as well as present the interests of another party not
already represented. In other words the interests of the state do not
necessarily represent the interests of the Rosenfeld's group and the
Armenian American Assembly.

Rosenfeld said that the group he represents, along with the Armenian
American Assembly, all have an interest in the case.

"Because the Armenian Genocide, that's required to be taught under
state law, shouldn't be taught improperly," he said.

Rosenfeld said along with the motion to intervene, the group, in
conjunction with the attorney general's office, has filed a motion
of dismissal.

"We're preparing our response by Feb. 6," Ghachem said. "There will
most certainly be an oral argument on the motion to dismiss."

"The plaintiffs [Griswold and Schechter] are suggesting in their
claim that the state has to include the Turkish point of view, which
is that it [the Armenian genocide] didn't happen," Rosenfeld said,
"which we think doesn't make any sense."

Rosenfeld said the group's argument to dismiss the case is well
founded.

"Essentially there is no First Amendment right on their part,"
Rosenfeld said of Griswold and Schechter. "They've manufactured a
case where one doesn't exist. We're very confident that the motion
to dismiss will be successful. We have an excellent legal argument,
and so does the attorney general's office. I don't think they have a
legal argument at all. I think it's manufactured. It's based on what
they'd like the law to be, but it isn't."

"Inclusion of Turkish denials of the Armenian Genocide within state
curriculum guides would not, as the plaintiffs claim, provide a more
objective foundation for the teaching and learning of history within
our school classrooms," Ajemian said. "Instead, it would present a
distorted view of the nature of historical inquiry and the factual
record of events in 1915."

http://www2.townonline.com/watertown/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=407737

[Hovik]

Genocide in Sudan: What the University of California can do

US SANTA CRUZ CURRENTS
January 16, 2006
Vol. 10, No. 20

Genocide in Sudan: What the University of California can do
By Adam Rosenthal, Jason Miller, and Adam Sterling

In 1944, Polish lawyer Raphel Lemkin, in response to the Holocaust
that took the lives of 49 family members, coined the term genocide to
describe a crime against humanity so horrific that it needed its own
definition and code of governing laws.

While Lemkin's efforts led directly to increased awareness about the
crime, scarcely a decade has since passed without the perpetration of
a major genocide. Today, genocide is once again occurring before our
very eyes, in the Darfur region of Sudan, and once again, we are
looking the other way.

Since early 2003, Sudanese troops and government-sponsored militias
have carried out the coordinated and targeted killing of the black
African population in Sudan's Darfur region. For the first time in
history, the U.S. Congress, State Department, and Executive Branch
have all declared that an ongoing massacre amounts to genocide and
that the Sudanese government is directly responsible.

To date, 400,000 people have been slaughtered, 2.5 million more have
been driven from their homes, and 70 percent of all Darfurian villages
have been destroyed. Furthermore, a systematic policy of rape has
maimed and humiliated scores of Darfurian women, while the
government's blockade of humanitarian aid to the displaced has left
over 3 million in danger of starvation.Why should the students of UCSC
care about the genocide in Darfur in a world where billions are
afflicted by disease, poverty, and conflict? New York Times columnist
Nicholas Kristof explains, "=80¦there is something special about
genocide. When humans deliberately wipe out others because of their
tribe or skin color, when babies succumb not to diarrhea but to
bayonets and bonfires, that is not just one more tragedy. It is a
monstrosity that demands a response from other humans. We demean our
own humanity, and that of the victims, when we avertour eyes."

Today, the University of California is in a unique position to
influence the course of this crime. As a result of the combined
efforts of thousands of UC students, the UC Board of Regents will meet
at UC San Diego on January 19 to consider a process known as
divestment, which would entail the removal of over $100 million of
foreign investments tied up in companies that directly or indirectly
facilitate government-sponsored genocide in Sudan.As the students of
the University of California, it is our responsibility to ensure that
our university does not continue to passively condone
genocide. `Silence in the face of atrocity is not neutrality; silence
in the face of atrocity is acquiescence," explains Pulitzer Prize
winning author and Harvard professor Samantha Power.

On Thursday, January 19, the over 188,000 students of the University
of California must come together and provide a voice to the millions
of Darfurians who have lost theirs. Join the thousands of students,
faculty, and staff that have expressed their concern by signing the
_petition for divestment. (http://www.ucdivestsudan.com/%20) And if
you are inspired to join us in San Diego this Thursday, please contact
student organizers for the divestment campaign at
[email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) .

Adam Rosenthal, a law student at the UC Davis is the student Regent
for the University of California. Jason Miller, a medical and
doctoral student at UC San Francisco, and Adam Sterling, a African
American Studies major at the University of California Los Angeles,
are the cochairs of the University of California _Sudan Divestment
Taskforce._ (http://www.ucdivestsudan.com/)

[Hovik]

The Armenian Assembly Has Put Together An Outstanding Legal Team To Protect "the Arme

THE ARMENIAN ASSEMBLY HAS PUT TOGETHER AN OUTSTANDING LEGAL TEAM TO PROTECT "THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CASE"

Arminfo
16 Jan 06

Washington, DC - The Armenian Assembly, having filed a motion in
December to intervene in the pending Massachusetts lawsuit brought
by the Assembly of American Turkish Associations (ATAA), firmly
responded to those seeking to deny and rewrite history in Massachusetts
classrooms, by filing a motion to dismiss in the matter of Griswold
v. Driscoll ("the Armenian Genocide case").

"The Armenian Assembly has put together an outstanding legal team to
confront the challenge in this case, as well as any others that may
be brought in the future," stated Assembly Board of Trustees Vice
President and Counselor Robert A. Kaloosdian, who along with Board
of Trustees President Carolyn Mugar, are co-chairing the Assembly
committee managing this legal initiative. "We have dedicated ourselves
to the study, research and affirmation of the Armenian Genocide,
not only in Massachusetts, but across the country, as evidenced by
the creation of the Armenian National Institute (ANI). The Assembly
helped publish a comprehensive guide on the Armenian Genocide in
the U.S. Archives thoroughly documenting with official testimony the
1915 atrocities. Together with ANI, the Assembly continues to actively
promote Genocide education and curriculum, including most recently, the
new Genocide curriculum adopted in New Jersey," Kaloosdian continued.

[Kharpert]

Armenian Genocide and Holocaust survivor descendants for genocide education in schools

In the face of repeated acts of genocides well into the twenty-first century, the descendents of the first and second large scale genocides of the twentieth century, the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust have teamed in Ottawa, Canada to promote the genocide education in the schools of Ottawa.

GENA (Genocide Education Never Again, for more information visit www.GENA.ca) is an initiative of Mr. Ze’ev Kalin, previous chairman of the Holocaust committee in Ottawa. In 2005, Mr. Ze’ev Kalin and Mr. Vahe Balabanian, the president of ACFO (Armenian Cultural Foundation of Ottawa, for more information visit http://welcome.to/acao ) met each other at a rally on the Rwandan genocide and since, they became friends.

This year in commemoration of the 61st anniversary of Auschwitz, GENA held a performance of “And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank “ by the Students of Ashbury College in Ottawa. The performance ran from January 18 to January 26. On the nights of January 19, 20 and 21 both the Holocaust and Armenian Genocide books were on display side by side. At the end of the play Mr. Ze’ev Kalin announced the striking similarities between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust and invited the audience to look at the books on both the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide on display.

The Armenian Genocide display was organized by the Armenian Students Association of Ottawa (for more information see www.asaottawa.ca), who earlier in the week under the leadership of Victoria Cop, the president of ASA, had won the second prize, for their display on “Focus Armenia” in the “International Week 2006” at the University of Ottawa (for more information see www.uottawa.ca/international/week.html). Members of the ASA, Maria Vardanyan, Mihran Egavian and Tikran Nadjarian were at hand to distribute information on the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide and GENA to the audience. The ASA members together with Mr. Vahe Balabanian were at hand to answer questions by the audience on the Armenian Genocide. They were encouraged by the audience to pursue the just cause of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey.

[Tongue]

Turkish Historian for Teaching Armenian Genocide History at US Schools

PanArmenian.Net/ The Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) announced today that it plans to file a friend of the court brief in response to a lawsuit filed by two public high school teachers, one student and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations challenging a Massachusetts statute allowing for the teaching of the Armenian Genocide. The AAA formed a legal commission to that end. "We devoted ourselves to studying the Armenian Genocide and efforts to prove the fact not only in Massachusetts, but also throughout the nation," Assembly Board of Trustees Vice President Robert A. Kaloosdian said. The AAA has provided a reference book on the Genocide, based on documents and official evidences, to the US archives. The AAA continues struggling for the genocide history to be taught at state schools. A decision to do that was passed by the authorities of New Jersey state. The Turkish party insists that school children, according to the principle of freedom of speech, should also be provided with reference books on the Armenian Genocide denial policy. In the opinion of Turkish historian of Michigan University, ethnic Turkish Fatima Muge Gocek, who sent a letter to the Wall Street Journal over the trial in Massachusetts, "the suit resulted from the efforts of the Turkish state on behalf of organizations and several persons." «I do not accept this move, as when teaching there is no need to present all viewpoints over a historical event. The pupils has to decide on his viewpoint himself. Historical facts should be presented at school,» Gocek said. «We should not only teach children at school, but also teach them how to become a good person. We should do it by means of historical facts, including by studying the Armenian Genocide,» she added, reported RFE/RL.

[Hovik]

The Genocide Education Project Reaches Out To California Students And Teachers

PRESS RELEASE


The Genocide Education Project
51 Commonwealth Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118
(415) 264-4203
[email protected]

https://www.GenocideEducation.org

https://www.TeachGenocide.org

Contact: Raffi Momjian - [email protected]


THE GENOCIDE EDUCATION PROJECT REACHES OUT TO CALIFORNIA STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

http://www.genocideeducation.org/pr/2006/06_23_2006.htm

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - The Genocide Education Project concluded a series of
workshops over the last two months targeting junior high and high school
students and teachers throughout California. Developed by a team of educators,
Sara Cohan, Armen Sedrakian, and Hasmig Tatiossian, the interactive workshops
provided a vehicle for students and teachers to learn about the Armenian
Genocide in more depth, and also how it relates to current human rights issues.


At John Muir Middle School in Burbank, Hasmig Tatiossian, Southern California
Regional Assistant Coordinator for The Genocide Education Project, conducted
workshops throughout April for over 600 students, engaging them in discussions
about the problem of genocide. She presented a comparative perspective to the
Armenian Genocide, and together with the students, explored actions they can
take in response to modern-day genocides.

John Muir social sciences teacher, Glenn Jaffe, was very satisfied with the
workshop for his students, saying the "same presentation should be done yearly
at Muir." Mim Oettinger, Assistant Principal of Instruction at Muir, found
most beneficial ‘the fact that other genocides, both past and current, were
discussed and students were informed that they were responsible to take action
to prevent genocides.’

In San Francisco, The Genocide Education Project presented two workshops to
high school students at the Holocaust Center of Northern California, during its
"Day of Learning" program on April 30th. Hasmig Tatiossian conducted one of
the first workshops focused on the Armenian Genocide and the Rape of Nanking
which was part of the "Generation to Generation" theme. The second workshop,
conducted by Armen Sedrakian, focused on armed resistance during the Armenian
Genocide with a particular focus on Musa Dagh.

In Fresno on May 13th, The Genocide Education Project held a joint seminar on
genocide for more than 100 high school students, with Dr. Matthew A. Jendian,
Professor of Sociology at Fresno State University. The three-hour seminar
included discussions about the Armenian, Cambodian, Rwandan and Darfurian
genocides. It also contained crucial lessons regarding the responsibility of
individuals when genocide occurs. The seminar was organized by the Fresno
Chapter of the Armenian National Committee and funded by the Bertha and John
Garabedian Foundation.

Earlier this spring, The Genocide Education Project conducted several
successful workshops in San Diego, Los Angeles and Glendale, California
targeting educators. Positive feedback included comments like those of
teacher Karen Bennett, "Please keep up the work you are doing! This
information needs to be kept alive in our schools!!" and teacher/curriculum
coach Nancy Witt, "A very worthwhile day – I have already thought of a way to
incorporate this in class."

"Genocide education is imperative, especially at a time when such a crime is
not just a historical reality, but is part of our contemporary reality as seen
in Darfur," said Raffi Momjian, the Executive Director of the organization.
"The opportunity to work directly with students and teachers over the last few
months was truly rewarding, as their passion for the subject was palpable in
all the workshops."


#####


The Genocide Education Project is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3)
organization that assists educators in teaching about human rights and
genocide, particularly the Armenian Genocide, by developing and distributing
instructional materials, providing access to teaching resources and organizing
educational workshops.




----
Please feel free to forward this e-mail to anyone interested in this topic.

To be added to our E-news list:
E-mail [email protected] and list the e-mail account(s) to add
or go to http://www.genocideeducation.org/registration.htm

To be removed from our E-news list:
Reply to this e-mail with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject field.

[Hovik]

Winning Collaboration On Armenian Genocide Teacher-training

PRESS RELEASE

The Genocide Education Project
51 Commonwealth Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118
(415) 264-4203
[email protected]

https://www.GenocideEducation.org

https://www.TeachGenocide.org

Contact: Raffi Momjian ([email protected])


WINNING COLLABORATION ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE TEACHER-TRAINING

http://www.genocideeducation.org/pr/2006/07_13_2006.htm

San Francisco, CA - The Genocide Education Project and Facing History and
Ourselves continue to build a strong partnership in training U.S. teachers
about the Armenian Genocide. During the past school year the two organizations
assisted each other with four workshops located between Detroit, Michigan and
San Francisco, California. Plans are in the works for at least three workshops
this fall.

The latest event in San Francisco was hosted by Facing History and Ourselves
and served approximately twenty teachers from all over California. The
participants attended a week long institute on the Armenian Genocide on the KZV
Armenian School campus, where they had an opportunity to learn effective
teaching strategies and hear from lecturers including world renowned scholar
Dr. Richard Hovannisian. The Genocide Education Project provided a two hour
seminar on geopolitical conditions in the 1800s that fueled the Genocide and
also hosted a viewing of the documentary "The Genocide in Me" by Araz Artinian.

This institute followed two all-day workshops organized by the Genocide
Education Project and sponsored by the Los Angeles Unified School District,
during which Facing History and Ourselves provided a session on moral decision
making and genocide. The workshops in Los Angeles will continue on a
semi-annual basis for two more years.

Coming up in December, The Genocide Education Project will offer a lecture
titled "Teaching about Genocide in the Age of Genocide" at the National Council
for the Social Studies (NCSS) conference in Washington D.C. This clinic was
developed in collaboration with Facing History and Oursleves, the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the educational organization, Choices, at Brown
University.

The director of the Northern California office for Facing History and
Ourselves, Jack Weinstein, a member of the advisory board for The Genocide
Education Project noted, "I've been working with The Genocide Education Project
for over ten years now, and look forward to our continued collaboration through
this relationship." Weinstein continues to stress that "together, we can reach
out to more schools, teachers, and students, further ensuring that the history
and lessons of the Armenian Genocide will be a part of social studies courses
across the country."

For more information about The Genocide Education Project's upcoming events
with Facing History and Ourselves please visit:
www.teachgenocide.org/workshops_events.


####


The Genocide Education Project is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3)
organization that assists educators in teaching about human rights and
genocide, particularly the Armenian Genocide, by developing and distributing
instructional materials, providing access to teaching resources and organizing
educational workshops.






----
Please feel free to forward this e-mail to anyone interested in this topic.

To be added to our E-news list:
E-mail [email protected] and list the e-mail account(s) to add
or go to http://www.genocideeducation.org/registration.htm

To be removed from our E-news list:
Reply to this e-mail with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject field.

[Hovik]

Bringing the dangers of the Holocaust, genocides to youth

Bringing the dangers of the Holocaust, genocides to youth

By Harpreet Dipak
Western News (London, Ontario)
Aug 17th, 2006

Imagine being a high school teacher having to speak to your students about
the atrocities of the Holocaust, or the Armenian and Rwandan genocides. It's
a tremendously overwhelming experience since the magnitude of such events
can't be easy to explain.

This past week, 40 teachers from across Canada have been taking part in the
third annual General Roméo Dallaire Genocide Institute at Western, sponsored
by the Holocaust Literature Research Institute at Western. Through forums,
guest speakers and special sessions, educators hope to gain valuable
teaching techniques they can bring to their classrooms.

For General Dallaire, the Force Commander of UN Assistance for Mission
Rwanda, the Institute carries an ambition aimed at helping teachers apply
certain methodologies and ways of teaching.

"We want to awaken students to how the international community and, on the
other side, extremism, can lead to crimes against humanity of horrendous
levels," Dallaire explains. He portrays the institute as an information tool
that is part of a larger ideology of respect for others and avoidance of
conflict.

Recognizing the complexities of the content being brought to students in
today's classrooms, Dallaire says for teachers, the five-day institute
offers time for discussion, questions and plenty of reflection. Participants
have an opportunity to develop their current skills and learn new methods
through classroom-based activities.

Mike Farley, a Grade 12 World Issues teacher at Western Tech in Toronto,
says this past year his students have been learning about the atrocities of
genocide.

"We looked at the genocide in Rwanda and that had a very powerful affect on
me and the students, so I thought I'd like to learn more about genocide in
general...the institute seemed like a good fit," says Farley.

To teach his class, he used tools from a resource kit including an online
simulation called PAX Warrior. This model recreates the environment during
the genocide and students make various decisions, ironically, as General
Dallaire. Farley also showed the Dallaire documentary Shake Hands with the
Devil to help his students understand the scale of events.

Once the intensive one-week training is complete, the challenge will be for
the teachers to applying these new methods when they return to their
classrooms in the fall. Farley already anticipates alternative ways he will
approach his curriculum.

"When I've been teaching about Rwanda, I kind of went into it completely
blind. It was very interesting, but I didn't really have any background in
studying it at all," he says. "Here I am sitting through this week with some
of the foremost experts in genocide, including General Dallaire."

Although initially overwhelming, Farley has found the forums engaging and
has gained more confidence with his own knowledge and approach.

Aris Babikian, Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee of
Canada, has been working with the Armenian community to reach out and
sensitize the public to such tragedies. He credits the institute with
providing necessary training for high school teachers in accomplishing this.

"If teachers are not aware about the details, about the psychological,
social, collective and individual effects of these events on humans and
society, students won't be able to learn about this," says Babikian. He
hopes the program will expand in the future to reach a larger number of
teachers across the country.

Dallaire is hopeful the five-day training session, which wraps up August 18,
will allow the teachers to convey his own experiences of humanity,
consequence and strength to students across Canada for years to come.

"I think we're breaking new ground here in providing this capability...what
we hope is to be able to move it now to the next step, formalize our
structure and make it that much more available across the country," he says.

http://communications.uwo.ca/western_news/story.html?listing_id=21722

[Hovik]

ANCC Participates in Gen. Romeo Dallaire Genocide Institute Sessions

Armenian National Committee of Canada
130 Albert St., Suite 1007
Ottawa, ON
KIP 5G4
Tel. (613) 235-2622 Fax (613) 238-2622
E-mail:[email protected]

PRESS RELEASE
August 18, 2006

ANCC Participates in Gen. Romeo Dallaire Genocide Institute Sessions

Contact: Roupen Kouyoumjian

(613) 235-2622





Ottawa, August 18-The Armenian National Committee of Canada (ANCC)
participated in Gen. Romeo Dallaire Genocide Institute's 2006 teachers
genocide training sessions held between August 14 to 18 at the University of
Western Ontario in London, Ont.

The aim of the institute's annual sessions is to train teachers about the
moral lessons learned from the Holocaust, the Armenian, and the Rwandan
Genocides. This year the institute hosted 40 teachers from various Canadian
provinces.

On the first day of the weeklong sessions, Prof. Frank Chalk of Concordia
University of Montreal, Que., one of the pioneers on genocide studies,
looked at genocides from a historical perspective and addressed their
social, political and economic roots. During his presentation, Prof. Chalk
screened a documentary of which 20 minutes were devoted to the Armenian
Genocide of 1915 to 1921.

The rest of the week was devoted to the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust,
and the Rwandan Genocide. Morning sessions focused on building historical
framework of genocides while afternoon gatherings stressed classroom
application. There were four special sessions: genocide intervention, which
was facilitated by Gen. Romeo Dallaire; a session with a survivor of the
Holocaust; a session with a survivor of the Rwandan Genocide; and a session
on the Darfur calamity.

On Tuesday, August 15, Prof. Lorne Shirinian from the Royal Military College
in Kingston, Ont. presented the historical background of the Armenian Cause
and the Armenian Genocide, starting at the Congress of Berlin (1878), the
Hamidian Massacres of Armenians (1894 to 1896), the reform movement, the
Young Turks' coup d'etat, the Genocide of 1915, the Allied Powers' promises
and betrayal, and finally the Turkish Government's denial policy.

In the afternoon Dr. Sima Aprahamian, also from Concordia, lectured on the
pedagogy of teaching the Armenian Genocide and the applicability of its
lessons to today's genocides. Dr. Aprahamian screened a documentary on the
Georgetown Boys, a state of California prepared classroom documentary on the
Armenian Genocide and finally, Araz Artinian's "The Genocide in Me"
documentary which address the psychological effect of the genocide denial on
Canadian-born Armenians.




Pamphlets and literature related to the Armenian Genocide, among them a
special resources book prepared by "Facing History and Ourselves" were
distributed to the teachers.

During a reception on August 13, Aris Babikian of the ANCC (a partner of the
institute), welcomed the teachers and emphasized the importance of their
"noble mission to carry out the lessons learned from various genocides and
to spread the message of hope, tolerance and respect to human being,
regardless of their religion, race, or colour." Babikian, ANCC's executive
director, said that he was confident that the teachers would be the torch
carriers who would stamp out future genocides and "help avert other nations
from suffering racism, hatred, and xenophobia that the Armenians, Jews, and
Rwandans experienced."

In addressing the other partners of the institute, Babikian said ANCC was
delighted to "see so many genocide victim organizations joining together and
cooperating to make Gen. Romeo Dallaire Institute such a success." He said
that it is "imperative that various victims of genocides stand together in
solidarity, to support each other and to send a clear message to the rest of
the world that the victim nations are standing on guard, and that they will
not stand by and let other nations fall victim to mankind's most heinous
crime."

It is vital that victim nations stand together and fight against the last
act of all genocides: the denial aspect, said Babikian. "Victim nations
should also be alert to notions of dividing the victims and of creating a
hierarchy of suffering among them thus shattering the solidarity of the
victims," the ANCC representative concluded.

-30-



Regional Chapters

Montréal - Laval - Ottawa - Toronto - Hamilton - Cambridge - St.
Catharines - Windsor - Vancouver

[Hovik]

First Web Class On The Armenian Genocide Launched

PRESS RELEASE

The Genocide Education Project
51 Commonwealth Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118
(415) 264-4203
[email protected]

https://www.GenocideEducation.org

https://www.TeachGenocide.com

Contact: Sara Cohan - [email protected]



FIRST WEB CLASS ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE LAUNCHED: WWW.LEARNGENOCIDE.COM

http://www.genocideeducation.org/pr/2007/01_10_2007.htm

San Francisco, CA, January 10, 2007 - The Genocide Education Project has
launched Genocide and the Human Voice: Nicole’s Journey, the first
online classroom about the Armenian Genocide.


Genocide and the Human Voice: Nicole's Journey uses contemporary
learning technology and methodologies to provide a stand-alone lesson
students attend online. Recognizing the limited amount of class-time
school teachers have compared to the many important and required topics
they must address, The Genocide Education Project created an opportunity
for high school teachers to introduce their students to the history of
the Armenian Genocide, without having to devote full class time to it.
This Internet lesson fulfills the World History curriculum requirements
of the 11 U.S. states which currently require instruction on this
important history. The online class is also designed to be used as
supplemental coursework for curriculum on Armenian Genocide.


"This online lesson brings the first genocide of the 20th century into
the education system of the 21st century," stated Sara Cohan, Education
Director with The Genocide Education Project. "We believe that the more
we make up-to-date, quality educational options available to teachers,
the more they will choose to include the Armenian Genocide in their
course curriculum."


Through the voice of Dr. Nicole Vartanian, Genocide and the Human Voice:
Nicole's Journey provides a background to the history of the Armenian
Genocide and the effects genocide denial on subsequent generations.
Based on Nicole's real life journey to her grandmother's village in
Eastern Turkey, the lesson illustrates the continued pain that genocide
brings and the fortitude of those searching for truth. After an
introduction to the history of the Armenian Genocide and Nicole's
grandmother's moving story of survival, the lesson walks students
through a series of emails that Nicole sent her mother describing her
many observations and thoughts as she undertook her journey.


The plan concludes with "The Eight Stages of Genocide," created by Dr.
Gregory Stanton, president of Genocide Watch, a non-profit organization
committed to predict, prevent, stop, and punish genocide and other forms
of mass murder. Using the events of the Armenian Genocide as a case
study, students learn the common stages of all genocides, providing a
global perspective on the subject.


Teachers use the website www.learngenocide.com to create an online
classroom, assigning students a private log-in name and password to
access the lesson plan section of the site. Once students have
completed the assignments, they are stored online for teachers to access
at a later date.


The readings and assignments are geared toward high school students and
mature middle school students. Each section includes an assignment
composed of short answer questions and a writing component. Students
read and listen to historical text, survivor testimony and a variety of
other material, giving them a better understanding of genocide and its
impact on a nation of people and its future.


Created by the award-winning web design company, Infivia Communication
Visuelle, of Montreal, Canada, the lesson employs the latest interactive
web features, including segments in which Nicole is heard reading her
emails to her mother, cell phone conversations, and other material,
engaging and suitable for high school students.



The Genocide Education Project is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3)
organization that assists educators in teaching about human rights and
genocide, particularly the Armenian Genocide, by developing and
distributing instructional materials, providing access to teaching
resources and organizing educational workshops.