Texas Teachers Learn about the Ten Stages of Genocide and the Armenian Case

Oct 12-14 – At the 2018 Texas Council for the Social Studies conference in Houston, the Genocide Education Project presented a session about the Ten Stages of Genocide, with a focus on the Armenian Genocide and comparative examples of other genocides of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Teachers from throughout Texas fill the room at GenEd’s session on the Ten Stages of Genocide at the TCSS teachers conference

Teachers gained an understanding of the “10 stages” formula, created by genocide scholar Gregory Stanton. Beginning with prejudice, the stages grow in severity until mass killings are enabled. As the first modern-era genocide, the Armenian case provides an ideal example by which to understand the stages including the final stage, denial, which perpetuates the effects and damages of the original crime generation after generation. By knowing the stages of genocide, citizens are better equipped to identify the warning signs and stop the process from continuing.

“We were very gratified by the reception we received from Texas teachers,” said Roxanne Makasdjian, GenEd Executive Director.  “In addition to the overflow audience at our workshop, many visited our exhibit booth for one-on-one consultations and resources.”

Some of the comments from teachers:
“This was the best session I’ve attended so far at TCSS! I liked it because of the personal connection, and I got a lot of great resources and learned about something I didn’t know a lot about.”
Sarah Wiseman, AP World History teacher, Frisco,TX
“I thought it was great and I really appreciated the insight into the Armenian Genocide and how it sets the stage for all the genocides to follow. We’re not doing it justice when we don’t teach it as part of our WWI instruction, even if we do teach it as part of a separate genocide theme unit.”
Jonathan Mikulas, 10th grade World History, Frisco, TX
“This was may favorite course. Y’all were so informative. All your lesson plans are really well laid out.”
Kelsey Sexton, World Geography & World History Teacher, Katy, TX

Belton, Texas teacher, Rebecca Kidder, shared a photo of the “Memorializing Genocide” project using paper tulips created by GenEd. 

Workshop attendees received numerous teaching materials, including lesson plans, posters, classroom videos, as well as the The Promise film DVDs, which GenEd distributes to teachers at all its workshops on behalf of the producers. (Check out the “Concepts of Resistance” lesson and Study Guide for The Promise.)