Julissa Gonzalez, 11, sits pitched forward in front of a large computer screen. She is being led through an animated scenario about picking sports teams. “Girls can’t play Basketball,” say a group of computerized bullies. Touching her finger to the screen, she chooses to take a stand and support the two girls excluded from the basketball game.
Emanuel Castillo, 12, sits nearby. He shifts his body side to side, framing his face for the perfect digital picture. Click. He erupts with laughter, as his face emerges on the head of an animated body in a similar scenario to Gonzalez’s. This time a book bag has been stolen from a fellow student. Will he be a bystander or an upstander? The choice is his. He chooses to take a stand and tell an adult.
“Are you enjoying the game?” I ask. “Yes,” he says. “It’s funny because this stuff really happens.”
Castillo and Gonzalez are two of 60 students from Donald J. Marquez School visiting the newly opened Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie, IL. The games they are playing are part of the Miller Family Youth Exhibition. The space, designed for children aged eight to 11, uses interactive stations and a park-like setting to offer an experiential approach to lessons of tolerance and responsible citizenship. Only one aspect of the exhibition—a touch screen television displaying stories of local Holocaust survivors—presents content explicit of the Holocaust. Upstairs are more traditional and mature exhibits aimed at adults.
“This space is unique worldwide,” said Noreen Brand, director of education for the Museum. “I don’t believe there is anything like this anywhere in the world.”
And indeed it is unique. Neither the U.S. Holocaust Memorial in Washington DC nor Museum of Jewish Heritage and Living in New York City utilizes interactive technology akin to Skokie’s that nurtures the skills needed to confront injustice.
Using voice recognition software, touch screen computers and interactive video games developed exclusively for the museum—think the physicality of Dance Dance Revolution with frogs and a moral message of being an upstander, not a bystander—kids explore their impact on conflict situations. The museum hopes young visitors leave having found their voices and being able to stand up for others.
“I think some museums take an approach that a youth exhibition and a Holocaust museum can tell a story—and that is just as important,” said Alexis Storch, the museum’s youth exhibit educator. “Our museum takes a different approach. It is not just about remembering the past, but it is also thinking about the steps taken that got to it.”
Supporting a 2005 Illinois law that requires every public elementary and high school to include the Holocaust and other acts of genocide in its curriculum, the museum hopes this exhibit will improve upon what kids will learn in the classroom. The museum expects that it will reach 250,000 schoolchildren throughout Illinois and the Midwest annually.
The Miller Family Youth Exhibition aims at “Teaching kids about respect and how to be an active citizen,” Storch said. “If we provide social and emotional learning, then kids will be better equipped to take on the study of the Holocaust at a later age.”
Continue in second column
Brand believes that giving children the time and space to reflect is critical to the experience of the exhibition. The space allows no more than 20 students at a time. And with each group there must be one docent—who has completed 23 weeks of training, two chaperones and two volunteers. The adults in the room help the children understand the broader implications of the exhibit.
Diane Levin, a professor of early childhood education at Wheelock College in Boston, and the author of Teaching Young Children in Violent Times: Building A Peaceable Classroom said that stories like those attached to the Holocaust must be told with an adult. “There must be a supportive entity,” Levin said. “Kids don’t integrate knowledge like adults do.”
The Marquez students were among the first classes to explore the museum’s education center, which was opened officially on April 19. In a grand opening ceremony, 12,000 people gathered around a prominent collection of adults, ranging from President Bill Clinton to Elie Weisel, who spoke to the museum’s emphasis on children and preventing future acts of hatred.
“Genocide is a marriage between insecure people and ruthless demagogues,” Clinton said.
Governor Pat Quinn preceded him, saying, “It is our duty to teach children to be righteous, to stand up against evil and to never forget.”
Tony Molina, 11, takes a piece of tracing paper, and a brown colored pencil and begins his own self-portrait with words. Along the walls of the space are hundreds of words visitors can transfer onto paper by rubbing them with a crayon or pencil. Molina has chosen his: courageous, respectful, explorer, universal, leader, supporter, boy and man.
“Why are you an explorer?” I ask. “I like exploring things, looking around and seeing what they mean,” he said. Respectful: “Because I respect my teachers.” Universal: “My parents are from Mexico.” Boy and man: “Because I am a boy right now but later on I will turn into a man.” He is not sure what the rest of the day will hold, but so far this is his favorite part of the exhibit. He has yet to try the video game.