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ABSTRACT
The article explores how video-testimony can be effectively harnessed for education in various contexts: classroom, and public remembrance spaces including museums, in a localized manner to develop empathy, critical thinking, and civic engagement in students and the methodological culture of educators. The article focuses on the testimonies of the USC Shoah Foundation and the possibilities testimony-based materials offer for education in general and Holocaust education in particular, based on educational evaluation research results and decades of practice. Localization and student-engagement are approached through Hungarian case studies via the work of local educational NGO Zachor Foundation. The article argues for the importance of local contexts and localized educational materials and underscores the power of video testimonies as multimedia sources in delving into and dissecting historical, social, and psychological processes, revealing their intricate nuances and how they can be used by to educate youth toward a more informed and compassionate global citizenry.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Mangául Figueroa, ¡Hay que hablar!: Testimonio in the everyday lives of migrant mothers, 559–572; Toliver, Can I get a witness? Speculative fiction as testimony and counterstory, 507–529; Stephen, The Trajectory of Holocaust Memory: The Crisis of Testimony in Theory and Practice; de Jong, The Witness as Object: Video Testimonies in Holocaust Museums.
2 For more on the collections in the VHA, refer to https://sfi.usc.edu/what-we-do/collections.
3 Wineburg Historical thinking and other unnatural acts: Charting the future of teaching the past.
4 Smith, The Trajectory of Holocaust Memory: The Crisis of Testimony in Theory and Practice, 25–26; de Jong, The Witness as Object: Video Testimonies in Holocaust Museums.
5 In an early study by USC Shoah Foundation about the efficacy of IWitness prior to the inclusion of activities and resources, use of clips without context confirmed anti-Jewish beliefs. Chesley Beaver, USC Shoah Foundation Report on IWitness, One Academy Pilot, Los Angeles, CA (2010). Also see Dara Horn's recent essay in the Atlantic: Horn, D. (2023, April 3). Is Holocaust Education Making Anti-Semitism Worse? The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/05/holocaust-student-education-jewish-anti-semitism/673488/.
6 In 2015 a study about the nature of Holocaust and civics education was commissioned by the Research Institute for Education Development (OFI). It was a wide research study led by Ariosz Research Institute with over 1300 school principals, over 2500 educators and over 1500 students surveyed. In addition, more than 100 teachers participated in in-depth interviews with evaluators. OFI was closed and the research project remained incomplete, however, some of the findings were disseminated in Hungarian: https://ofi.oh.gov.hu/sites/default/files/attachments/a_holokauszt_az_iskola_es_a_tanar_0.pdf.
7 For more information on the status of Holocaust education in Hungary, refer to the resources on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance country page on Hungary: https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/member-countries/hungary.
8 Immordino-Yang and Damasio, We Feel Therefore We Learn: The Relevance of Affective and Social Neuroscience to Education, 3–10; Immordino-Yang, Emotions, Learning and the brain: Exploring the educational implications of affective neuroscience.
9 Wiedeman and Kim, Promoting Civic Learning Through a Distributed Partnership Model Grounded in Story and Music.
11 Marta Miklikowska, “Empathy Trumps Prejudice: The Longitudinal Relation Between Empathy and Anti-immigrant Attitudes in Adolescence,” American Psychological Association, 2017.
12 Lauren-Owen, “Empathy in the Classroom: Why Should I Care?” Edutopia, https://www.edutopia.org/blog/empathy-classroom-why-should-i-care-lauren-owen.
13 Soulard, Stewart, Larson and Samson, Dark Tourism and Social Mobilization, 820–840.
14 See for example, Echoes and Reflections National Study, https://echoesandreflections.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/College-Survey-Summary-Article-September-2020-a.pdf and Gandel Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness in Australia Survey 2021, 26.
15 As part of its work, Zachor has worked with external evaluators and scholars to evaluate the impact of their methodology: Idilko Barna, Eotovos Lorand University, “Countering Xenophobia, Racism and Antisemitism through testimony” Report for European Commission, 2022; Hetfa Research Institute: “Research of the efficiency of methods and tools in history teaching among high-school students,” (In Hungarian) Forthcoming 2024; Csaba Jancsák. “Inclusion of Digital materials in History Teaching” (in Hungarian). https://mta.hu/tantargy-pedagogiai-kutatasi-program/mtaszte-elbeszelt-tortenelem-es-tortenelemtanitas-kutatocsoport-107238.
16 USC Shoah Foundation IWitness (iwitness.usc.edu).
17 The IWALK application is available free of charge on Apple Store; Google Play Store.
18 Spiegel Ernő és a 'Birkenau-ikrek' (Ernő Spiegel and the 'Birkenau-twins').
19 ‘Hol tanultál hősnek lenni?’ ('Where did you learn to be a hero?').
20 Educational Responses to the War in Ukraine.
21 Ma and Munter The spatial production of learning opportunities in skateboard parks, 238–258; Kelton, Ma, Rawlings, Rhodehamel, Saraniero, & Nemirovsky Family meshworks: Children’s geographies and collective ambulatory sense-making in an immersive mathematics exhibition, 543–557; Marin, & Bang Look it, this is how you know: Family forest walks as a context for knowledge-Building about the natural world, 89–118; Sterponi. Clandestine interactional reading: Intertextuality and double-voicing under the desk, 1–23
22 Creswell, & Creswell. Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
26 Davies and Barnett, ‘The Palgrave handbook of critical thinking in higher education’ and Hitchcock. For further definitions of critical thinking see https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766 (Downloaded 14.09.2023).
27 In Hungary, as with other European contexts, aligning with the OECD Learning Compass is increasingly important in curriculum and public educational spaces in order to receive accreditation. OECD. The Future of Education and Skills – Education 2030, 2018. https://www.oecd.org/education/2030/E2030%20Position%20Paper%20(05.04.2018).pdf (Downloaded 10.09.2023).
28 Findings are from the various evaluation research findings including: (1) evaluation of the CXRATT program (Countering Xenophobia, Racism and Antisemitism through Testimony funded by the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme of the EUROPEAN COMMISSION in 2018; (2) Research of Efficiency of History Teacher Methods and Tools among Secondary School Students (2023).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Andrea Szőnyi
Andrea Szőnyi is the Director of Hungarian educational NGO Zachor Foundation for Social Remembrance, founded in 2007. She is also International Education Consultant to the USC Shoah Foundation and the author of several multimedia and digital, testimony-based educational materials and programs including professional development programs for teachers in Hungary and abroad. She is an International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) delegate and the 2023 chair of IHRA’s Education Working Group.