Professor works with local teachers about Holocaust, genocide lessons

An effort is underway to bring greater attention to genocide issues in local schools.

C.P. Gause, professor and chairman of the department of educational leadership and counseling at Southeast Missouri State University, has been meeting with middle- and high-school administrators since he returned from a summer conference at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

There, he not only learned about the Holocaust, which cost an estimated 6 million Jewish lives, but why so many bystanders let the mass-extermination campaign occur.

"It's not just about the Anne Frank story; it's not just about the Holocaust," Gause said. "It's about our actions against injustice. It's about our actions against genocide."

That is why he decided to work with educators in the Bootheel region to incorporate the training he received.

He said his hope is to make sure the materials are worked in to existing language arts and social-studies courses at schools where the Holocaust is taught or introduced at schools where it isn't.

"The Holocaust can be used as a platform, but we really need to think about genocide in a larger (context)," he said.

During the weeklong Belfer National Conference for Educators in July, 183 participants from around the country toured the Holocaust museum's permanent exhibition, along with special exhibitions such as "Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration & Complicity in the Holocaust."

They also were given lesson plans that extend to teaching about other genocide-related issues, such as slavery in the United States, the Trail of Tears and atrocities in Rwanda.

Ultimately, Gause said he would like the greater emphasis on these issues to help students understand how such actions affect people around the world, and so they never happen again.

It's something he had begun working on in the Greensboro, North Carolina, area, before he accepted his position at Southeast in 2015.

There, he was an associate professor of higher education and director of graduate doctoral studies at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.

"I want to do the same thing in the local area," he said.

Gause encouraged any teachers or principals who are interested in learning more to call him at (573) 651-2417 or email cpgause@semo.edu.

ljones@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3652