BOSTON—This year, both the National Council for the Social Studies and the National Council of Teachers of English held their annual conferences simultaneously in Boston for thousands of educators from across the U.S. GenEd and the GenEd Teacher Fellows (graduates of the GenEd Teacher Fellowship program in Armenia) provided numerous conference workshop sessions. Subjects included, “Teaching Indigenous Genocide,” “Diana Apcar, The Little Mother of a Nation,” “The Hidden Connections Between the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust,” “Genocide Education Through Literature,” “The Stories We Tell: The Armenian Genocide Captured in Memoir” and “Armenian Bird Letters: Discovering Our Shared Humanity.” GenEd also offered attendees teaching resources and consultation at its exhibit booth through the NCSS conference.
GenEd, the Armenian Museum of America (AMA) in Watertown, Massachusetts, and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) in Belmont, Massachusetts, joined forces to lead a full-day workshop, “Understanding the Armenian Genocide through Primary Sources and Memoirs,” as part of the NCSS and NCTE conference programming. Through multiple speakers and perspectives, educators gained tools to effectively use primary sources, including “survivor objects,” written and video testimony, literature and photographs, to help students understand the impact of genocide on survivors and their descendants over generations.
The morning session at the AMA included presentations by GenEd’s Education Director Kerri Flynn and GenEd Teacher Fellows Jackie Kemper, Jessica DePanphilis and Justin Bilton. The session included background about the Armenian Genocide, the damaging long-term effects of Turkey and Azerbaijan’s denial of the genocide and the most recent genocide in Artsakh. The speakers presented lesson plans using memoirs and personal histories as well as Armenian cultural features and artifacts. Longtime Armenian American school principal (emeritus) Houry Boyamian spoke about her father Karnig Panian’s memoir Goodbye Antoura, and teachers were given copies of the book. A tour of the museum was provided by AMA’s Berj Chekijian, and Executive Director Jason Sohigian provided an overview of the museum’s history and educational services.
In the afternoon, participants travelled to NAASR, a nonprofit membership organization, which is one of the world’s leading Armenian Studies centers and home to one of the largest research libraries in the Armenian diaspora. Teachers enjoyed an Armenian lunch and heard from Director of Academic Affairs Marc Mamigonian, Executive Director Silva Sedrakian and Library Curator Ani Babaian about Armenian Studies in the U.S., the history of NAASR and its archives. They also attended a session by Education Coordinator Sara Cohan on “Denial of the Armenian and Artsakh genocides in open source sites and how to give youth agency by teaching them how to correct denialist language on Wikipedia” and took a guided tour of the building, uniquely designed to reflect the dynamic nature of Armenian culture and architecture and NAASR’s library and bookstore. Teachers were also given a copy of the book The Burning Tigris by Peter Balakian.
Earlier in November, GenEd also provided workshops and resources to teachers from all over Texas at the Texas Council for the Social Studies annual conference taking place in Round Rock. GenEd Education Director Kerri Flynn led a workshop introducing teachers to GenEd’s “Armenian Bird Letters” lesson which uses an art activity to engage students in learning about Armenian culture and the Armenian Genocide. GenEd Teacher Fellow Marci Ward led the workshop, “Humanizing History: Reclaiming Narratives of Hard Historical Topics.”
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