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April 17, 2013 1

Bringing Holocaust Education to Alaska

Echoes and Reflec­tions staff trav­eled to a remote area of Alaska to deliver the program’s first pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment pro­gram in the state. The Echoes and Reflec­tions pro­gram has now offered pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment in 47 US states and Dis­trict of Colum­bia. The pro­gram has pro­vided edu­ca­tional resources on the Holo­caust to over 18,000 edu­ca­tors and com­mu­nity members.

Deb­o­rah Batiste, Project Direc­tor for Echoes and Reflec­tions, trav­eled from her office in Mary­land to Kodiak, Alaska to con­duct an in-person train­ing pro­gram that would be broad­cast by video-conference to other remote loca­tions so that addi­tional edu­ca­tors could take advan­tage of this pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment opportunity.

Nine­teen local edu­ca­tors attended the train­ing pro­gram in per­son and an addi­tional six edu­ca­tors par­tic­i­pated vir­tu­ally from addi­tional loca­tions at vil­lage schools on Kodiak Island.

Dur­ing the April 15th pro­gram, Deb­o­rah Batiste mod­eled active and col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing as par­tic­i­pants in Kodiak and those edu­ca­tors in remote loca­tions explored Les­son 4: The Ghet­tos from the Echoes and Reflec­tions Teacher’s Resource Guide and learned how to incor­po­rate visual his­tory tes­ti­mony from Holo­caust sur­vivors, res­cuers, and lib­er­a­tors into their teaching.

LeeAnn Schmelzen­bach, lit­er­a­ture teacher at Kodiak High School reflected on the program.

“I know the cost and dif­fi­culty for train­ers to come to our schools, but I also know the intense ben­e­fits such train­ings pro­vide for our teach­ers and, in turn, our stu­dents. This par­tic­u­lar train­ing was so help­ful. The resources that you were able to place in our hands are going to help me change the way I teach my stu­dents, and it will help me pro­vide more per­spec­tives for my stu­dents to view the Holocaust.”

 

A leader in Holo­caust edu­ca­tion, Echoes and Reflec­tions pro­vides com­pre­hen­sive pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment for mid­dle and high school edu­ca­tors and mul­ti­me­dia resources suit­able for history/social stud­ies, English/language arts, fine arts, social sci­ences, reli­gion, and other con­tent areas. The com­bined resources and exper­tise of three world lead­ers in education―the Anti-Defamation League, USC Shoah Foun­da­tion, and Yad Vashem―have resulted in a robust edu­ca­tional pro­gram to help US sec­ondary edu­ca­tors deliver accu­rate and authen­tic Holo­caust edu­ca­tion to today’s students.

To learn more about Echoes and Reflec­tions and upcom­ing pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, visit www.echoesandreflections.org

Some pro­grams are avail­able via video-conferencing. To learn more about these pro­grams, con­tact: echoes@adl.org.

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January 18, 2013 1

ADL Workshop Cultivates Ally Behavior Online

Over the past few years the media has cov­ered many sto­ries about cyber­bul­ly­ing and its detri­men­tal effects on youth.  The research, and our own expe­ri­ences, make it clear that cyber­bul­ly­ing hurts the youth tar­geted and cre­ates a neg­a­tive expe­ri­ence for those who wit­ness the behav­ior.   We also know that youth are often tar­geted online because of their iden­tity, includ­ing their weight, real or per­ceived sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion, gen­der expres­sion, reli­gion and race.

To help address issues of cyber­bul­ly­ing, ADL’s AWORLD OF DIFFERENCE® Insti­tute cre­ated Cyber­ALLY®, a half-day (3-hour) or full-day (6-hour) inter­ac­tive train­ing for mid­dle and high school-age youth that pro­vides prac­ti­cal infor­ma­tion and oppor­tu­ni­ties for skill-building.  Cyber­ALLY sup­ports youth in devel­op­ing per­sonal strate­gies for pro­tect­ing them­selves against cyber­bul­ly­ing as well as act­ing as cyberallies—preventing and tak­ing action against cyber­bul­ly­ing and social cru­elty in online forum.

We recently con­ducted a research eval­u­a­tion of Cyber­AL­LYto assess the effec­tive­ness of the train­ing pro­gram and gain insight into areas for improve­ment.  Funded by Cir­cle of Ser­vice and Microsoft, we con­tracted with an eval­u­a­tion research firm, TCC Group, to design and con­duct the eval­u­a­tion.  With TCC Group, we iden­ti­fied in research terms the out­comes we hoped to achieve with Cyber­ALLY:  1) aware­ness and knowl­edge about cyber­bul­ly­ing, 2) demon­stra­tion of respon­si­ble and eth­i­cal online behav­ior, and 3) abil­ity to be a CyberALLY.

The data analy­sis shows highly sta­tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment in all three out­come areas, indi­cat­ing that the Cyber­ALLY pro­gram is effec­tively equip­ping stu­dents to take action against cyber­bul­ly­ing. The stu­dents showed the great­est improve­ment in the out­come “the abil­ity to be a cyber­ally.”  Some spe­cific find­ings include: 93% of stu­dents indi­cated that they learned dif­fer­ent strate­gies for respond­ing to cyber­bul­ly­ing and online bias and 81% indi­cated that “all kids my age should par­tic­i­pate in this work­shop.”  By chang­ing the cul­ture from one of pas­sive bystanders to one of active cyber­al­lies, we can change the way stu­dents inter­act online. In all, the results of this eval­u­a­tion have shown that ADL is con­tribut­ing to fur­ther­ing the  over­all goal of fos­ter­ing increased cyber-civility and a cul­ture of e-safety among our youth.

For spe­cific strate­gies on how you can be a cyber­ally and address bias and bul­ly­ing online, visit www.adl.org/combatbullying.

 

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January 11, 2013 0

The Trouble With Make Me a “Stereotype”

Appli­ca­tions for smart­phones and tablets have become an emerg­ing seg­ment of the online and enter­tain­ment indus­try.  As with videos, blogs and social net­work­ing plat­forms which came before, Apps are now being cre­ated that some con­sider funny, but which  actu­ally cross the line from humor­ous to offen­sive.  Recent exam­ples include two free apps on Google called “Make Me Asian” and “Make Me Indian,” that allow users to edit pho­tos in ways which play on racist stereo­types. Users of the app can darken skin color, change eye shape to an “Asian” slant or add eth­nic acces­sories like an Amer­i­can Indian head­dress.

Young chil­dren often make fun of Asian Amer­i­can class­mates by pulling their eyes to make a slant or play “Indian,” com­plete with head­dress or a “war-cry.” As adults, this is the very kind of think­ing we try to chal­lenge in our chil­dren.  We want them to under­stand and respect dif­fer­ent cul­tures, not belit­tle or ridicule them or make assump­tions about all mem­bers of a group based on com­mon stereo­types.  We teach them that every­one has dif­fer­ent phys­i­cal fea­tures, qual­i­ties and char­ac­ter­is­tics that have noth­ing to do with the groups to which they belong.

Stereo­types make over­sim­pli­fied gen­er­al­iza­tions about peo­ple or groups with­out regard for indi­vid­ual dif­fer­ences. The prob­lem is that these gen­er­al­iza­tions soon become beliefs about groups which form  the build­ing blocks for prej­u­dice and dis­crim­i­na­tion, fea­tures of life that have seri­ous impli­ca­tions for us all.  Apps like “Make Me Asian” and “Make Me Indian” and a score of oth­ers built on this con­cept play on per­ni­cious stereo­types that mar­gin­al­ize indi­vid­u­als and groups. Though the global com­mu­nity is racially and eth­ni­cally diverse, these kinds of apps pro­mote the kind of think­ing that being white is the norm and every­thing else is defined as “other.”

As a soci­ety, we spend much of our time inter­act­ing through our mobile devices, but when we choose so-called enter­tain­ment that rein­forces these kinds of stereo­types, we have to con­sider whether we might be con­tribut­ing to the per­pet­u­a­tion of the inci­vil­ity that lim­its everyone’s opportunities.

The Anti-Defamation League strives to remain vig­i­lant of emerg­ing issues in our dig­i­tal world and com­mu­ni­cates reg­u­larly with many of the major com­pa­nies on issues that are raised by the community.

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