Social Justice Education includes curricula that actively addresses “the dynamics of oppression, privilege, and isms, recognizing that society is the product of historically rooted, institutionally sanctioned stratification along socially constructed group lines that include race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability. Working for social justice in education means guiding students in critical self-reflection of their socialization into this matrix of unequal relationships and its implications, analysis of the mechanisms of oppression, and the ability to challenge these hierarchies.”
–Marilyn Cochran-Smith, professor of teacher education at Boston College
The Swastika Counter Project advocates for social justice education to deepen student understanding about the history of antisemitism, the Holocaust, and the circulation of the swastika. We also advocate for helping students understand the historical and contemporary links between antisemitism, white supremacy, racism, and other mechanisms of oppression.
Currently, educators can access lesson plans online about the Nazi swastika and various hate symbols. Below, we contribute to such efforts by offering a small collection of social justice lesson plans and assignments that engage directly with the Swastika Counter Project. These educational resources have been specifically designed for middle school, high school, and college classrooms. Educators are welcome and encouraged to adopt and adapt these educational resources for their students, giving proper accreditation to contributing scholar-teachers as needed.
CONTENT WARNING:
- The lessons may introduce students to topics, prejudices, and instances of white supremacy that they did not previously know about. Teachers must take care to ensure that students understand that even though stereotypes are designed to be easily believed, they are not complete truths about a group of people. It is also important that teachers cultivate a classroom environment open to questions and wonderings but that do not offer ideas and explanations at the expense of the identities of classmates, particularly those targeted by the hate symbols and speech.
- As teachers consider how they want to use these lessons in their classrooms, they must also reflect on how students who are already marginalized because of their racial, ethnic, and/or religious identities will continue to be marginalized by the content of the lesson and ensuing classroom discussions. Some students might welcome the opportunity to learn more about themselves and/or have their classmates learn more about what it’s like to hold particular identities. Marginalized students should never be singled out to offer their opinions and perspectives on course content. Consider talking with students and their caregivers in advance of the lessons.
- The content of these lessons can activate feelings of fear, anger, hopelessness, shame, guilt, sadness, disappointment. Teachers should take care to work through their own feelings in viewing the images and text collected by the Swastika Counter Project and how they will introduce and share those images with students.
Are you an educator interesting in developing lesson plan(s) using the Swastika Counter Project data and/or website? If so, submit your own lesson plan(s) to be considered for publication on this webpage.
Simplified Summary
This educational resource page offers lesson plans that directly engage with the Swastika Counter Project and intend to spark meaningful discussions about social justice among middle school, high school, and college students. Developed by scholar-teachers, these resources aim to encourage students to reflect on themselves, analyze how oppression works, and learn to challenge unfair systems in society. Educators can use these lesson plans in their classrooms, making sure students understand the complexities of stereotypes and creating a welcoming learning environment for everyone. It’s important for teachers to think about how these lessons might affect students who are minoritized and to handle any strong emotions that come up when discussing sensitive topics. The lesson plans cover various topics, including but not limited to using poetry to resist, promoting fairness through transformative justice, and learning how to engage in peaceful rhetorics. These lesson plans equip educators with resources for tackling difficult social issues in their classrooms; however, other teachers can submit their own lesson plan or module to be consider for publication on this website.