Quebec’s First School Guide to Genocide Education is Now Available in English

The official launch of the English guide ‘Studying Genocide’ took place on April 27, 2023 at the Montreal Holocaust Museum. A year after the official launch of the original French version of the guide, this pedagogical tool is now available in English for teachers and students across the province in Quebec.

Years of work and close collaboration between the Armenian National Committee of Quebec, the Foundation for Genocide Education and a number of other collaborators have turned this project into a reality.

In attendance at the launch were MNA Sona Lakhoyan Olivier and former MNA David Birnbaum and a representative for MNA Elisabeth Prass, members of community organizations (PAGE Rwanda and the Armenian National Committee of Quebec), as well as the many consultants and academics who contributed to the creation of the guide. Georges Lemieux, director of the intercultural department of the Education Ministry of Quebec was also in attendance, as well as his team, the two lead researchers and authors of the guide, Professor Sivane Hirsch from UQTR, and Professor Sabrina Moisan from the U de Sherbrooke, the team from The Foundation for Genocide Education, who initiated this enormous undertaking over six years ago, and the educational team from the Montreal Holocaust Museum, which lent its expertise and resources to the guide.

To date, over 400 teachers across the province of Quebec have followed training workshops to initiate them to the ‘Studying Genocide’ guide. The aim of these workshops is to introduce high school teachers to the main concepts of the guide, and to discuss how to teach this sensitive subject to their students. The feedback from teachers with regards to the guide has been overwhelmingly positive.

Furthermore, a number of teachers have shown interest in wanting to teach the Armenian genocide in particular. In fact, during the teacher workshops, the Armenian genocide comes up as one of the top three genocides that teachers are interested in covering in their classrooms (the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide being the other two). The teacher training workshops continue to remain popular with many more educators eager to sign up for the training workshops.

To consult guide visit: www.education-genocide.ca