Law requires genocide education in schools
By Maura Kelly Lannan
Associated Press
Saturday, August 6, 2005
CHICAGO — Illinois public schools are required to teach about
genocides around the world under a bill signed Friday by Gov. Rod
Blagojevich.
The measure, which took effect immediately, expanded the previous
requirement that elementary and high school students learn about
the Holocaust to include lessons on genocides in Armenia, Bosnia,
Cambodia, Rwanda, Sudan and Ukraine.
School districts have the entire academic year to meet the law’s
requirement, State Board of Education spokeswoman Becky Watts said.
“As we teach our kids the important lessons of history, we have
to be sure that they understand that racial, national, ethnic and
religious hatred can lead to horrible tragedies,” Blagojevich said
in a statement.
Glenn “Max” McGee, superintendent of schools in the Chicago suburb
of Wilmette and a former state schools superintendent, said learning
about genocide and other tragedies should be part of the curriculum.
“I think it is important for boys and girls to learn about these
tragic events so that maybe they can make contributions that will
truly change the course of history in the future,” he said.
But McGee worried the requirement could become an unfunded mandate
from the state.
“I hope and trust that the state Board of Education will provide
resources and some training in teaching these and it won’t fall in
the district’s lap to develop units,” McGee said.
The law says the State Board of Education may give instructional
materials to districts to help them develop classes. Local school
districts would set specifics on the classes for each grade level.
The state board’s curriculum and instruction division, which is
responsible for learning standards, was researching what curricula
exists and which ones would be most helpful to schools to teach about
genocides, Watts said.
No decision has been made yet about whether the board will recommend
a curriculum or help schools access parts of one by providing online
resources, she said.
Schools will teach a unit on genocide and the lessons can last for
different lengths of times, she said.
The genocides students will learn about include Rwanda, where about
500,000 people, most of them from the country’s Tutsi minority, were
killed in 100 days by a regime of extremists from its Hutu majority
in 1994. In July 1995, as many as 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys
in the U.N.-protected Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica were killed in
Europe’s worst massacre since World War II.
In the Darfur region of Sudan, war-induced hunger and disease have
killed more than 180,000 people and driven more than 2 million from
their homes since rebels from black African tribes took up arms in
February 2003, complaining of discrimination and oppression by Sudan’s
Arab-dominated government.
Richard Hirschhaut, project and executive director of the Illinois
Holocaust Museum and Education Center, praised the bill.
“The new law affirms the continuing relevance of applying the universal
lessons of the Holocaust to the tragedies of genocide in our world
today,” he said in a statement.
The measure was sponsored by state Rep. John Fritchey, D-Chicago,
and state Sen. Jacqueline Collins, D-Chicago.