First-Hand Accounts of the European Holocaust

First-Hand Accounts of the European Holocaust

Ari Mandel and Josh Wolk


These books are first-person testimonies from survivors of the World War II European Holocaust. Most, but not all, of the survivor stories were written by Jews. The ability of students to meet survivors will soon end, so these accounts take on
even greater historical and educational significance. The reviews are ordered by publication date.


The books reviewed are:

  • Smoke Over Birkenau, Seweryna Szmaglewska
  • Five Chimneys, Olga Lengyel
  • The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank
  • Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl
  • Night, Elie Wiesel
  • Auschwitz, Miklos Nyiszli
  • I Cannot Forgive, Rudolf Vrba and Alan Bestic
  • Auschwitz and After, Charlotte Delbo
  • Eyewitness Auschwitz, Filip Müller
  • Survival in Auschwitz, Primo Levi
  • Smoke Over Birkenau, Liana Millu
  • There Is a Place on Earth: A Woman in Birkenau, Giuliana Tedeschi
  • Europa, Europa, Shlomo Perel
  • A Gypsy in Auschwitz, Otto Rosenberg
  • People in Auschwitz, Hermann Langbein
  • A Lucky Child, Thomas Buergenthal
  • At the Mind’s Limits, Jean Amery
  • First One In, Last One Out, Marilyn Shimon
  • The Survivor, Josef Lewkowicz with Michael Calvin
  • Lipstick in Auschwitz, Miriam Nick Smoke Over Birkenau, Seweryna Szmaglewska (Holt, 1945)
  • Seweryna Szmaglewska was a Polish Catholic writer and journalist arrested in 1942 and imprisoned at Auschwitz-Birkenau. She survived and was liberated in January 1945. Her account of the camp was published in Polish in 1945 making it one of the earliest first-hand descriptions of the extermination process to reach the public. She later testified before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal where her book was entered into the trial record as evidence. Her account focuses on daily life in the women’s section of Birkenau. She explores the routines, the hunger, the selections, and the constant visibility of death. The title of the book refers to the smoke rising continuously from the crematoria that prisoners could see from across the camp. This account shaped the historical and legal understanding of the Holocaust in the years following the war. Its use at Nuremberg gives it a significance beyond testimony alone.
  • Five Chimneys, Olga Lengyel (Original English edition, Ziff-Davis, 1947)
  • Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz is a memoir by Olga Lengyel, a Jewish woman from Transylvania who survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Lengyel was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 along with her parents, husband,
    and two young sons. Upon arrival, her children and parents were immediately murdered in the gas chambers. Lengyel was assigned to the women’s section of the camp where she endured forced labor, starvation, disease, and constant terror. The title of the book refers to the crematoria at Auschwitz, whose chimneys continually released smoke from the bodies of murdered prisoners. In her memoir, Lengyel describes the daily life of female prisoners and the brutal system that governed the camp. She recounts the roles played by prisoner functionaries,
    including kapos, as well as the complex moral choices people faced in order to survive. The book also describes the medical experiments and mass killings carried out by the Nazis. Published shortly after the war in 1947, Five Chimneys was one of the earliest detailed accounts of Auschwitz written by a survivor. Lengyel later devoted much of her life to Holocaust education and remembrance. Her memoir remains an important testimony about the experiences of women in Nazi concentration camps.
  • The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank (Original English edition, New York: Doubleday, 1952 with an introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt)
  • The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank was originally published in The Netherlands in 1947 as The Annex (Het Achterhuis). Anne Frank was a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl who hid from the Nazis with her family and others in Amsterdam during occupation by Nazi Germany. Anne’s diary documents life in hiding ranging from the food they ate to the interpersonal dynamics within the Annex. The diary serves as a historical document, but also a deeply personal narrative that brings to life the fears of a young person amidst the Holocaust. Anne was captured in a Nazi raid on the secret annex in August 1944 and she died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in either February or March 1945.
  • Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl (Original English edition, Beacon, 1959)


Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl combines memoir and psychological reflection based on the author’s experiences in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who was deported to camps including Auschwitz, Dachau, and other Nazi labor camps between 1942 and 1945. Much of his family perished in the Holocaust, including his parents and pregnant wife. In the first section of the book, Frankl describes daily life in the camps,
including forced labor, starvation, disease, and the constant presence of death. He recounts how prisoners struggled to maintain hope and dignity under brutal conditions. Frankl observed that, while prisoners could not control their circumstances, they could still choose their attitude toward suffering.
The second part of the book introduces Frankl’s psychological theory known as logotherapy, which argues that the primary human drive is the search for meaning in life. According to Frankl, individuals who were able to find purpose, whether through love, faith, or future goals, were often better able to endure the extreme hardships of camp life. First published in 1946, Man’s Search for Meaning became one of the most influential psychological and philosophical works of the twentieth century. It offers both a personal account of survival and a reflection on how humans can find meaning in even the most tragic of circumstances.

Night, Elie Wiesel (Original English edition, Hill and Wang, 1960)

Elie Wiesel’s Night is one of the most widely read Holocaust memoirs and recounts his experiences as a Jewish teenager during the Nazi genocide. Wiesel grew up in Sighet, a small town in Transylvania that was then part of Romania. In 1940 the village became part of Hungary and in 1944, when he was fifteen, German forces occupied Hungary and quickly began deporting Jews to concentration camps. Wiesel and his family were sent to Auschwitz, where his mother and younger sister were immediately murdered in the gas chambers. Wiesel remained with his father and endured forced labor, starvation, brutality, and constant fear of death. The memoir follows his movement from Auschwitz to the Buchenwald concentration camp as the Nazis evacuated prisoners during the final months of the war.
Throughout the narrative, Wiesel describes the physical and psychological trauma of camp life, including the breakdown of moral norms among prisoners struggling to survive. The book also explores Wiesel’s crisis of faith as he witnesses immense suffering and cruelty. His relationship with his father becomes the emotional center of the story as they try to survive together in the camps.
Published in 1956 in Yiddish and later translated into many languages, Night became one of the defining literary accounts of the Holocaust and is widely used in schools to teach about genocide and memory. After reading Night in its original Yiddish, I understand why the versions meant for mass consumption were heavily edited. Setting aside the length, the Yiddish version is more than 800 pages, the content, style and references are way too Jewish for a non-Jewish audience, and way too subversive and racy for the Orthodox world. I suspected few religious Jews could appreciate his yeshiva boy style, while not being scandalized at references to sex, or confronting God, or some Jews for not being “ideal victims.”

Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account, Miklos Nyiszli (Original English edition, Crest, 1961)

Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account is the memoir of Miklos Nyiszli, a Hungarian Jewish doctor who was deported to Auschwitz in 1944. Upon arrival, Nyiszli was selected to work as a pathologist for the notorious SS doctor Josef Mengele. Because of his medical training, Nyiszli was forced to assist Mengele with examinations and autopsies related to the doctor’s experiments on prisoners. This position allowed Nyiszli to witness many aspects of the camp’s operations, including
medical experiments and the functioning of the crematoria. Although his role gave him slightly better living conditions than most prisoners, Nyiszli remained a prisoner under constant threat of death.
His memoir describes both the horrors of the camp and the moral dilemmas he faced while being forced to participate in the Nazi system. Nyiszli’s testimony provides a rare perspective on the camp from the viewpoint of a prisoner who worked within the medical system of the camp administration. The memoir remains an
important historical source about the activities of Nazi doctors during the Holocaust.

I Cannot Forgive, Rudolf Vrba and Alan Bestic (Sidgwick and Jackson, 1963)

Rudolf Vrba was a Slovakian Jew born Walter Rosenberg in 1924. He was deported to
Auschwitz in 1942 where he worked in various parts of the camp including the section where arriving transports were processed. In April 1944, he and fellow prisoner Alfred Wetzler successfully escaped from Auschwitz. After their escape, Vrba and Wetzler compiled a detailed thirty-page report documenting the layout of the camp and the systematic mass murder taking place there. The Vrba-Wetzler Report was delivered to Allied governments and Jewish leaders. Vrba spent the rest
of his life as a scientist and pharmacologist and died in 2006. His memoir was written with journalist Alan Bestic. I Cannot Forgive recounts Vrba’s two years inside Auschwitz and the planning and execution of the escape. This book addresses the role of bystanders and the failure of international institutions to respond. It questions the moral responsibilities of governments and organizations that received evidence of genocide and did not act.

Auschwitz and After, Charlotte Delbo (French edition, 1965. Original English Edition, Yale University Press, 1995)

Charlotte Delbo was a French writer and member of the resistance. She was arrested in 1942 and was deported to Auschwitz as part of a convoy of 230 French women. Of the 230 women only 49 survived. Delbo was later transferred to Ravensbrück before being released through a Red Cross negotiation in April 1945. She wrote her account of the camps immediately after the war but chose not to publish it until 1965, believing the story needed time after the war to be fully understood. She went on to write plays and essays and remained a committed voice against fascism until her death in 1985. Auschwitz and After is a three-part work that combines prose and poetry to recount Delbo’s experience in Birkenau. The story explores her transfer, death march, and the long years of psychological aftermath that followed liberation. The final section deals with the difficulty of returning to ordinary life and is one of the most powerful literary testaments of survivor trauma ever written. This account is significant because Delbo approached the Holocaust not only as a witness, but
also as a literary artist. The book supports interdisciplinary instruction across history and literature. Her poem “O You Who Know,” (“Vous qui saviez”) challenges the reader to consider the inadequacy of what they think they understand. “O you who know / Could you know that hunger makes the eyes sparkle? / While thirst makes them dim? / You who know, / Could you know that you can see your mother dead, / Without shedding a tear? / You who know, / Could you know how in the morning you crave death, / Only to fear it by evening?”

Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers, Filip Müller (Original English edition, Stein, 1979)

Eyewitness Auschwitz is the memoir of Filip Müller, one of the very few members of the Sonderkommando who survived the Holocaust. Müller was a Slovak Jewish prisoner deported to Auschwitz in 1942. Shortly after arriving, he was forced into the Sonderkommando, a special unit of prisoners compelled to work in the gas chambers and crematoria. Members of the Sonderkommando were forced to remove bodies from the gas chambers, extract gold teeth, and burn the corpses in crematoria. Because they witnessed the mass murder of prisoners, the Nazis regularly killed Sonderkommando workers to eliminate witnesses. Müller survived this position for three years, an extremely rare occurrence. In his memoir, Müller provides one of the most detailed first-hand descriptions of how the extermination process at Auschwitz functioned. He describes the arrival of transports, the deception used to send victims into gas chambers, and the mechanics of the crematoria.
The book is particularly significant because it reveals the psychological burden faced by prisoners forced to assist in the killing process. Müller’s testimony became an important historical source and was later used in trials against Nazi war criminals. His memoir remains one of the most powerful and disturbing eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust.

Survival in Auschwitz, Primo Levi (Original English edition, Summit, 1986)

Survival in Auschwitz, also known as If This Is a Man, is a memoir by Italian Jewish chemist Primo Levi about his imprisonment in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Levi was arrested by Italian Fascists in 1943 and deported to Auschwitz the following year. Upon arrival, most of the people on his transport were immediately murdered, while Levi was selected for forced labor. Levi spent approximately eleven months in
Auschwitz before the camp was liberated by Soviet forces in January 1945. His background as a chemist eventually allowed him to work in a laboratory, which slightly improved his chances of survival. In the memoir, Levi describes the harsh
realities of camp life, including starvation, disease, violence from guards, and the constant struggle among prisoners for survival. Unlike some memoirs that focus mainly on emotional responses, Levi carefully analyzes the social structure of the camp system. He explains how the Nazis created a brutal hierarchy among prisoners and how survival often depended on luck, resourcefulness, and small advantages. First published in Italy in 1947, the book is widely considered one of the most important literary testimonies of the Holocaust. Levi’s clear and analytical writing style provides readers with a detailed picture of the daily functioning of Auschwitz and the moral challenges faced by those imprisoned there.


Smoke Over Birkenau, Liana Millu (Original English edition, Jewish Publication Society, 1991)

Smoke Over Birkenau is a collection of short memoir stories written by Liana Millu, an Italian Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Millu was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 after being arrested for her involvement with the Italian resistance against Nazi occupation. Unlike many memoirs that follow a single chronological narrative, this book consists of several short accounts describing the lives of women prisoners in Birkenau. Each story focuses on a different individual and highlights the emotional struggles faced by women trying to survive in the camp. Millu writes about friendships, hopes, betrayals, and the desperate attempts by prisoners to maintain dignity in an environment designed to destroy humanity. The stories reveal how small acts of kindness or solidarity sometimes helped prisoners endure the brutal conditions of camp life. First published in Italy in 1947, the book was one of the earliest literary accounts of women’s experiences in Auschwitz. Millu’s writing combines personal memory with a reflective style that captures the emotional impact of life in the camp. The memoir remains an important contribution to Holocaust literature, particularly for its focus on the perspective of female prisoners.

There Is a Place on Earth: A Woman in Birkenau, Giuliana Tedeschi (Random House, 1993)

Giuliana Tedeschi was an Italian Jewish woman and mother of two from Turin who was a teacher and a writer. She was deported from Italy to Auschwitz in April 1944 along with her husband and mother-in-law. Neither of them survived the
Holocaust. After liberation, she returned to Italy and
dedicated much of her life to Holocaust education
and public testimony. Tedeschi died in 2010 at the age of 96. In her memoir, Tedeschi described the squalor, starvation, and torment of the camps and
living in the shadow of the crematorium. She
explored the daily struggle for survival, the solidarity formed between women prisoners, and
the effort to hold onto identity and dignity inside a system built to destroy both. It is an important memoir because it describes relationships between
women and solidarity as the basis for psychological
survival. During her imprisonment, Tedesci’s
daughters were hidden by a Catholic family. Mother and daughters were reunited after the war.

Europa, Europa, Shlomo Perel (Original English edition, Trade Paper, 1999)

Europa, Europa is the memoir of Shlomo Perel, a Jewish boy who survived the Holocaust by hiding his identity and posing as a German. Perel was born in Germany in 1925 to a Jewish family. When the Nazis came to power, his family fled to
Poland to escape persecution. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Perel became separated from his family and was captured by Soviet forces. Later he fell into German hands but managed to convince them that he was an ethnic German rather than a Jew. Because he spoke fluent German and knew the culture, the Nazis accepted his claim. Perel spent several years living among Germans, even attending a Hitler Youth school while hiding the fact that he was Jewish. His survival depended on constant deception and the fear that his identity might be discovered at any moment.
The memoir describes the strange and dangerous situation of a Jewish teenager living inside Nazi society while secretly belonging to the
group the Nazis sought to destroy. After the war, Perel eventually emigrated to Israel. His story was later adapted into a successful film, also titled
Europa, Europa, which helped bring his extraordinary survival story to a wider audience.

A Gypsy in Auschwitz, Otto Rosenberg (Original English edition, Allison and Busby, 2001)

A Gypsy in Auschwitz is the memoir of Otto Rosenberg, a member of the Roma community who survived Nazi persecution during the Holocaust. Rosenberg was born in Germany in 1927 and was targeted by the Nazi regime because the Roma were considered racially inferior under Nazi ideology. During World War II, Rosenberg was arrested and eventually deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the Nazis had established a special section for Roma prisoners known as the “Gypsy camp.” Conditions in this camp were extremely harsh, with overcrowding, disease, and starvation common among prisoners. Rosenberg describes witnessing the destruction of the Roma section of the camp in 1944, when thousands of Roma men, women, and children were murdered in the gas chambers. He survived by being transferred to other camps, including Buchenwald, before eventually being
liberated near the end of the war. His memoir highlights the often overlooked genocide of the Roma people during the Holocaust. After the war, Rosenberg became an advocate for Roma rights and worked to educate others about the persecution his community suffered under the Nazi regime.

People in Auschwitz, Hermann Langbein (North Carolina Press, 2004)

Hermann Langbein was an Austrian communist who was imprisoned at Dachau before being transferred to Auschwitz. At Auschwitz he worked as a clerk for SS physician Dr. Eduard Wirths. His administrative position gave him access to records, personnel, and encounters with both perpetrators and prisoners. After the war he became one of the most important figures in documenting Nazi crimes and played a central role in organizing the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of the 1960s. While Langbein draws on his own experience, People in Auschwitz is not a personal memoir, but a sweeping historical account of the entire Auschwitz camp complex that covers its administration, its prisoner population, its SS personnel, and the social structures that developed within its walls. This account is important because it documents how Auschwitz functioned as a system, bureaucratic, hierarchical, and deliberately organized. It is an invaluable reference for teachers and students engaged in serious research about the Holocaust.

A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy, Thomas Buergenthal (Original English edition, Hachette, 2007)

A Lucky Child tells the story of Thomas Buergenthal, who survived the Holocaust as a young boy. Buergenthal was born in 1934 to a Jewish family in Czechoslovakia. When the Nazis occupied the region during World War II, his family was forced into a Jewish ghetto and later deported to Auschwitz. At Auschwitz, Buergenthal was separated from his mother and endured harsh conditions typical of concentration camps, including forced labor, starvation, and illness. As a child prisoner, survival was especially difficult, yet Buergenthal managed to endure through a combination of luck, resilience, and help from other prisoners. Later in the war, he was transferred to another camp and eventually survived a Nazi death march before
being liberated by Allied forces. After the war, Buergenthal eventually emigrated to the United States. He went on to become an important figure in international law and human rights, serving as a judge on the International Court of Justice. His memoir reflects not only on his childhood survival, but also on how those experiences shaped his later commitment to justice and human rights. The book
provides a unique perspective on the Holocaust through the eyes of a child survivor.

At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities, Jean Amery (Indiana University Press, 2009)

Jean Amery was born Hans Maier in Vienna in 1912. After Nazi Germany annexed Austria, he joined the Belgian resistance and was ultimately captured by the Gestapo in 1943. He was tortured by the SS and then deported to Auschwitz and later Bergen-Belsen. He did not publish his reflections on Auschwitz until 1966 and he took his own life in 1978. The book was written under a French name he adopted to conceal his German and Jewish origins. At the Mind’s Limits is a collection of philosophical essays where Amery explores what the Holocaust did to human consciousness. He
writes about torture, about being a Jewish intellectual in the camps, about the experience of aging as a survivor, and about resentment. He argued that survivors have a moral obligation not to forgive their persecutors. His essay on torture, in which he wrote, “I dare to assert that torture is the most horrible event a human being can retain within himself,” is considered one of the most important
texts ever written on the subject. He argued that “torture was not an accidental quality of this Third Reich, but its essence” and compares it to “rape, a sexual act without the consent of one of the two partners.” This account is important because it moves beyond testimony into analysis.

First One In, Last One Out: Auschwitz Survivor 31321, Marilyn Shimon (Create Space, 2016)

Marilyn Shimon is a Holocaust educator, retired teacher, and volunteer gallery educator at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. She holds a certificate in Holocaust and Genocide Studies from Georgetown University as well as a master’s
degree from Hofstra University. Her book explores the story of her own uncle, Murray Scheinberg.
Scheinberg was a Polish Jew who received prisoner number 31321 and was among the first eight men to enter Auschwitz as a political prisoner in 1940 and was also among the last to escape Dachau in 1945. The memoir traces Scheinberg’s journey through a variety of locations including Pawiak prison in Warsaw, Tarnow prison, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sachsenhausen, and Dachau. Shimon reconstructed this story from various sources including family testimony and historical records. A publisher
originally rejected the manuscript in the 1960s finding the details too extraordinary to be believed. Scheinberg was one of Auschwitz’s earliest prisoners which helps to offer a rare chronological view of how the camp system was built and expanded. The book illustrates how the Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers but with a deliberate and escalating system of imprisonment and dehumanization.

The Survivor: How I Survived Six Concentration Camps and Became a Nazi Hunter, Josef Lewkowicz with Michael Calvin (HarperCollins, 2025)

Josef Lewkowicz was a Polish Jew who was born near Krakow, Poland in 1926. When German forces occupied Poland in 1939, Lewkowicz was just thirteen years old and he and his family were deported to a Nazi concentration camp. Before being liberated by Allied forces in 1945, Lewkowicz passed through six concentration camps. He was the only member of his extended family of 150 people to survive. After the war Lewkowicz became a Nazi hunter who worked to identify and bring SS perpetrators to justice. Among those he pursued was Amon Goeth, the SS commandant of the Plaszow camp who was later depicted in the film Schindler’s List. Goeth was tried by a Polish court and executed in 1946.
Lewkowicz passed away in December 2024 at the age of 98, just weeks before his memoir was published. The memoir was co-written with British journalist Michael Calvin and follows Lewkowicz from the occupation of Krakow through liberation and his postwar pursuit of Nazi perpetrators. The book is as much an account of survival as it is a story of justice. The book is exceptionally useful because it raises questions that go beyond survival.
What does justice look like after genocide? What is the difference between simply getting revenge and accountability? The connection to Schindler’s List
provides students with a recognizable cultural entry
point into a deeper historical discussion.

Lipstick in Auschwitz, Miriam Nick (Valcal, 2025)

Miriam Nick was born and raised in Krakow, Poland and was seventeen when Germany invaded in 1939. She was relocated to the Krakow ghetto with her mother and subsequently deported through a series of seven concentration camps. She survived two death marches over five years of imprisonment. After the war, she studied at the Paris Academy of Arts and later taught art history in Israel. The memoir was originally written for her grandchildren before she died in 2012. The book centers on Nick’s experience alongside her mother in Auschwitz and other camps. The title refers to a pivotal moment upon arrival: facing the SS selection process that would determine whether they lived or died, Nick found a discarded tube of lipstick and applied it to both their cheeks to make them appear healthier and more capable of work. That small act may have saved both their lives. The book is particularly effective for discussing woman centric experiences in the Holocaust, the moral weight of everyday decisions under Nazi rule, and the meaning of resistance.

Albert Einstein and the Problem of War

Albert Einstein and the Problem of War

Lawrence Wittner


Reposted from the Peace and Health Blog of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War


Although Albert Einstein is best-known as a theoretical physicist, he also spent much of his life grappling with the problem of war. In 1914, shortly after he moved to Berlin to serve as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics, Einstein
was horrified by the onset of World War I. “Europe, in her insanity, has started something unbelievable,” he told a friend. “In such times one realizes to what
a sad species of animal one belongs.” Writing to the French author Romain Rolland, he wondered whether “centuries of painstaking cultural effort” have “carried us no further than . . . the insanity of nationalism.”


As militarist propaganda swept through Germany, accompanied that fall by a heated
patriotic “Manifesto” from 93 prominent German intellectuals, Einstein teamed up with the German pacifist Georg Friedrich Nicolai to draft an antiwar response, the “Manifesto to Europeans.” Condemning “this barbarous war” and the “hostile spirit” of its intellectual apologists, the Einstein Nicolai statement maintained that “nationalist passions cannot excuse this attitude which is unworthy of what the world has heretofore called culture.”


In the context of the war’s growing destructiveness, Einstein also helped launch and
promote a new German antiwar organization, the New Fatherland League, which called for a prompt peace without annexations and the formation of a
world government to make future wars impossible. It engaged in petitioning the Reichstag, challenging proposals for territorial gain, and distributing statements by British pacifists. In response, the German government harassed the League and, in
1916, formally suppressed it.


After the World War came to an end, Einstein became one of the Weimar Republic’s
most influential pacifists and internationalists. Despite venomous attacks by Germany’s rightwing nationalists, he grew increasingly outspoken. “I believe the world has had enough of war,” he told an American journalist. “Some sort of international agreement must be reached among nations.” Meanwhile, he promoted organized war resistance, denounced military conscription, and, in 1932, drew
Sigmund Freud into a famous exchange of letters, later published as Why War.


Although technically a Zionist, Einstein had a rather relaxed view of that term, contending that it meant a respect for Jewish rights around the world. Appalled by Palestinian-Jewish violence in British ruled Palestine, he pleaded for cooperation between the two constituencies. In 1938, he declared that he would “much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state.” He disliked “the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power,” plus “the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks.”

The most serious challenge to Einstein’s pacifism came with the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 and the advent of that nation’s imperialist juggernaut. “My views have not changed,” he told a French pacifist, “but the European situation has.” As long as “Germany persists in rearming and systematically indoctrinating its citizens in preparation for a war of revenge, the nations of Western Europe depend, unfortunately, on military defense.” In his heart, he said, he continued to
“loathe violence and militarism as much as ever; but I cannot shut my eyes to realities.” Consequently, Einstein became a proponent of collective security against fascism.


Fleeing from Nazi Germany, Einstein took refuge in the United States, which became his new home. Thanks to his renown, he was approached in 1939 by one of his former physics students, Leo Szilard, a Hungarian refugee who brought ominous
news about advances in nuclear fission research in Nazi Germany. At Szilard’s urging, Einstein sent a warning letter to President Franklin Roosevelt about German nuclear progress. In response, the U.S. government launched the Manhattan Project, a secret program to build an atomic bomb. Einstein, like Szilard, considered the Manhattan Project necessary solely to prevent Nazi Germany’s employment of nuclear weapons to conquer the world. Therefore, when Germany’s war effort neared collapse and the U.S. bomb project neared completion, Einstein helped facilitate a mission by Szilard to Roosevelt with the goal of preventing the use of atomic bombs by the United States. He also fired off an impassioned appeal to the prominent Danish physicist, Niels Bohr, urging scientists to take the lead in heading off a dangerous postwar nuclear arms race. Neither venture proved successful, and the U.S. government, under the direction of the new president, Harry Truman, launched the nuclear age with the atomic bombing of Japan. Einstein later remarked that his 1939 letter to Roosevelt had been the worst mistake of his life.


Convinced that humanity now faced the prospect of utter annihilation, Einstein resurrected one of his earlier ideas and organized a new campaign against war. “The only salvation for civilization and the human race,” he told an interviewer in September 1945, “lies in the creation of a world government, with security of nations
founded upon law.” Again and again, he reiterated this message. In January 1946, he declared: “As long as there exist sovereign states, each with its own, independent armaments, the prevention of war becomes a virtual impossibility.” Consequently, humanity’s “desire for peace can be realized only by the creation of a world government.”


In 1946, he and other prominent scientists, fearful of the world’s future, established the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists. As chair of the new venture, Einstein repeatedly assailed militarism, nuclear weapons, and runaway nationalism. “We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking,” he said, “if mankind is to survive.”


Until his death in 1955, Einstein continued his quest for peace, criticizing the Cold War and the nuclear arms race and calling for strengthened global governance as the only “way out of the impasse.” Today, as we face a violent, nuclear armed world, Einstein’s warnings about unrestrained nationalism and his proposals to control it are increasingly relevant.


Documenting the Debate Over the Use of Nuclear Weapons Against Japan

  • Einstein-Szilard Letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, August 2, 1939

    Background: Albert Einstein was the world’s most renowned physicist and a Nobel Prize winner. He fled Germany in the 1930s and established himself in the United States. Nuclear scientists Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, and Edward Teller, refugees from Nazi occupied Europe, persuaded Einstein to send a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning him of the possibility that Germany could develop an atomic bomb. In this letter, Einstein urged Roosevelt to support a program to develop atomic weapons.
    “Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations:
    “In the course of the last four months it has been made probable — through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America— that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future. This phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable — though much less certain — that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air. The United States has only very poor ores of uranium in moderate quantities. There is some good ore in Canada and the former Czechoslovakia, while the most important source of uranium is Belgian Congo.
    “In view of this situation you may think it desirable to have some permanent contact
    maintained between the Administration and the group of physicists working on chain reactions in America. One possible way of achieving this might be for you to entrust with this task a person who has your confidence and who could perhaps serve in an unofficial capacity. His task might comprise the following:
    “a) to approach Government Departments, keep them informed of the further development, and put forward recommendations for Government action, giving particular attention to the problem of securing a supply of uranium ore for the United States.
  • “b) to speed up the experimental work, which is at present being carried on within the limits of the budgets of University laboratories, by providing funds, if such funds be required, through his contacts with private persons who are willing to make contributions for this cause, and perhaps also by obtaining the co-operation of industrial laboratories which have the necessary equipment.
    “I understand that Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium from the Czechoslovakian mines which she has taken over. That she should have taken such early action might perhaps be understood on the ground that the son of the German Under-Secretary of State, von Weizsäcker, is attached to the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute in Berlin where some of the American work on uranium is now being repeated.”
  • The Franck Report, Report of the Committee on Political and Social Problems
  • Manhattan Project “Metallurgical Laboratory,” University of Chicago, June 11, 1945
  • Background: As the U.S. drew up plans to drop the first atomic bomb in August 1945, a group of scientists at the University of Chicago prepared a report arguing against the use of the bomb. Headed by James Franck and including notable scientists such as Leo Szilard and Glenn Seaborg, a Nobel laureate. The classified document was submitted to the Interim Committee, a group appointed by President Truman to advise him on the use of the bomb, in June 1945, one month before the Trinity
    test and two months before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Interim Committee rejected their recommendations.
  • A) “The development of nuclear power not only constitutes an important addition to the technological and military power of the United States, but also creates grave political and economic problems for the future of this country.”
  • B) “Nuclear bombs cannot possibly remain a ‘secret weapon’ at the exclusive disposal of this country, for more than a few years. The scientific facts on which their construction is based are well known to scientists of other countries. Unless an effective international control of nuclear explosives is instituted, a race of nuclear armaments is certain to ensue following the first revelation of our possession of nuclear weapons to the world. Within ten years other countries may have nuclear bombs, each of which, weighing less than a ton, could destroy an urban area of more than ten square miles. In the war to which such an armaments race is likely to lead, the United States, with its agglomeration of population and industry in comparatively few metropolitan districts, will be at a disadvantage compared to the nations whose population and industry are scattered over large areas.”
  • C) “We believe that these considerations make the use of nuclear bombs for an early, unannounced attack against Japan inadvisable. If the United States would be the first to release this new means of indiscriminate destruction upon mankind, she
    would sacrifice public support throughout the world, precipitate the race of armaments, and prejudice the possibility of reaching an international
    agreement on the future control of such weapons.”
  • D) “Much more favorable conditions for the eventual achievement of such an agreement could be created if nuclear bombs were first revealed to the world by a demonstration in an appropriately selected uninhabited area.”
  • Recommendation of the Scientific Panel of the Interim Committee
  • Background: The panel that issued this report to Secretary of War Henry Stimson consisted of four prominent physicists who were part of the Manhattan Project, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Director of the Los Alamos Laboratory; Enrico Fermi, lead scientist for the first nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago Met Lab; Arthur Compton, Nobel laureate and head of the Metallurgical Laboratory; and Ernest Lawrence, Nobel laureate and head of the Radiation Laboratory at UC Berkeley.
    “You have asked us to comment on the initial use of the new weapon. This use, in our
    opinion, should be such as to promote a satisfactory adjustment of our international relations. At the same time, we recognize our obligation to our nation to use the weapons to help save American lives in the Japanese war.

    (1) To accomplish these ends we recommend that before the weapons are used not
    only Britain, but also Russia, France, and China be advised that we have made considerable progress in our work on atomic weapons, and that we would
    welcome suggestions as to how we can cooperate in making this development contribute to improved international relations.
  • (2) The opinions of our scientific colleagues on the initial use of these weapons are not unanimous: they range from the proposal of a purely technical demonstration to that of the military application best designed to induce surrender. Those who advocate a purely technical demonstration would wish to outlaw the use of
    atomic weapons, and have feared that if we use the weapons now our position in future negotiations will be prejudiced. Others emphasize the opportunity of saving American lives by immediate military use, and believe that such use will improve
    the international prospects, in that they are more concerned with the prevention of war than with the elimination of this specific weapon. We find ourselves closer to these latter views; we can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring
    an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.
    (3) With regard to these general aspects of the use of atomic energy, it is clear that we, as scientific men, have no proprietary rights. It is true that we are among the few citizens who have had occasion to give thoughtful consideration to these problems during the past few years. We have, however, no claim to special competence in solving the political, social, and military problems which are presented by the advent of atomic power.”
  • Petition to the President of the United States, July 17, 1945
  • Background: Nuclear physicist Leo Szilard, a refugee from Hungary who worked on the Manhattan Project, drafted a petition to President Harry Truman in the summer of 1945 hoping to avert the use of the atomic bomb against Japan. The petition was signed by seventy other scientists but was not seen by the President or the Secretary of War before the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer were not listed as signers.
    “Discoveries of which the people of the United States are not aware may affect the welfare of this nation in the near future. The liberation of the atomic power which has been achieved places atomic bombs in the hands of the Army. It places in
    your hands, as Commander-in-Chief, the fateful decision whether or not to sanction the use of such bombs in the present phase of the war against Japan. We, the undersigned scientists, have been working in the field of atomic power. Until recently we have had to fear that the United States might be attacked by atomic bombs during this war and that her only defense might lie in a counterattack by the same means. Today, with the defeat of Germany, this danger is averted and we feel impelled to say what follows: The war has to be brought speedily to a successful conclusion and attacks by atomic bombs may very well be an effective method of warfare.
    We feel, however, that such attacks on Japan could not be justified, at least not until the terms which will be imposed after the war on Japan were made public in detail and Japan were given an opportunity to surrender. If such public announcement gave assurance to the Japanese that they could look forward to a life devoted to peaceful pursuit in their homeland and if Japan still refused to surrender, our
    nation might then, in certain circumstances, find itself forced to resort to the use of atomic bombs. Such a step, however, ought not to be made at any time without seriously considering the moral responsibilities which are involved.

    “The development of atomic power will provide the nations with new means of destruction. The atomic bombs at our disposal represent only the first step in this direction, and there is almost no limit to the destructive power which will become available in the course of their future development. Thus a nation which sets the precedent of using these newly liberated forces of nature for purposes of destruction may have to bear the responsibility of opening the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale.
    “If after the war a situation is allowed to develop in the world which permits rival powers to be in uncontrolled possession of these new means of destruction, the cities of the United States as well as the cities of other nations will be in continuous danger of sudden annihilation. All the resources of the United States, moral and material, may have to be mobilized to prevent the advent of such a world situation. Its prevention is at present the solemn responsibility of the United States—singled out by virtue of her lead in the field of atomic power. The added material strength which this lead gives to the United States brings with it the obligation of restraint and if we were to violate this obligation our moral position would be weakened in the eyes of the world and in our own eyes. It would then be more difficult for us to live up to our responsibility of bringing the unloosened forces of destruction under control.
    “In view of the foregoing, we, the undersigned, respectfully petition: first, that you
    exercise your power as Commander-in-Chief, to rule that the United States shall not resort to the use of atomic bombs in this war unless the terms which will be imposed upon Japan have been made public in detail and Japan knowing these terms has refused to surrender; second, that in such an event the question whether or not to use atomic bombs be decided by you in the light of the consideration presented in this petition as well as all the other moral responsibilities which are involved.”
  • “A Policy for Survival: A Statement by the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists,” published in the June 1948 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
    Background: The Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists was formed in May, 1946, by Albert Einstein, R.F. Bacher, Hans A. Bethe, Edward U. Condon, R. Hogness, Leo Szilard, Harold C. Urey, and V.F. Weisskopf. Their objective was to encourage and further the peaceful uses of atomic energy and to do this they would solicit private contributions in support of the work of the National Committee for Atomic Information.
    “Two years ago this month the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission was in process of formation. Now the discussions on international control of atomic energy are about to be adjourned indefinitely, perhaps never again to be resumed. One of the most fateful events in history has passed almost unnoticed. Its importance must be realized: its lesson for mankind must be made clear. To clarify the importance of the collapse of these discussions, we reiterate here our Six Point Statement published originally on November 17, 1946:
  1. Atomic bombs can now be made cheaply and in large number. They will become more destructive.
  2. There is no military defense against atomic bombs and none is to be expected.
  3. Other nations can rediscover our secret processes by themselves.
  4. Preparedness against atomic war is futile, and if attempted, will ruin the structure of our social order.
  5. If war breaks out, atomic bombs will be used and they will surely destroy our civilization. There is no solution to this problem except international control of atomic energy, and ultimately, the elimination of war.”

Future-Proofing Civic Literacy: A CAPTIVATE Approach to AI in Social Studies

Future-Proofing Civic Literacy: A CAPTIVATE Approach to AI in Social Studies

Andy Szeto

Students today are navigating an information landscape unlike any generation before them. In an era of fake news, viral misinformation, and convincing deepfakes, they must decide what to believe, who to trust, and how to act as citizens. AI now sits at the center of this challenge. On one hand, it generates tools that make learning faster and more efficient. On the other, it can fabricate images, alter video, or spread misinformation at a scale that tests even the most skilled fact-checker.


For social studies educators, the stakes are high. Will students use AI merely as a shortcut for homework, or will they learn to interrogate it as part of building civic literacy? If AI is framed only as a time-saver, students miss the struggle that cultivates curiosity, stamina, and democratic habits. But if schools position AI as a partner in inquiry and civic reasoning, it can help prepare students for the future
of democracy.

The civic cost of shortcuts

When students turn to AI for quick answers,
they risk losing more than depth of knowledge. In
social studies, this habit undermines the very
practices democracy depends on: questioning
evidence, weighing competing narratives, and
engaging with diverse perspectives.

As Jessica Grose (2025) noted in the New York Times, “A.I. encourages surface perfectionism without developing the tools and stamina necessary for true critical thinking.” If students use AI to bypass the work of analyzing primary sources or
debating policy trade-offs, they lose opportunities to develop civic persistence and deliberation. Research shows that heavy reliance on AI during practice can weaken independent
performance (Vasconcelos et al., 2022). In the civic realm, the danger is greater: shallow engagement leaves students vulnerable to misinformation and less prepared to evaluate claims about history, politics, or public life. These risks highlight why
social studies cannot treat AI as a novelty or a quick fix. Instead, it must be framed as part of a broader effort to prepare students for a civic landscape where information is contested and solutions demand resilience. That preparation is what educational thought leaders call future-proofing.

Future-proofing learning

Future-proofing is not about chasing the newest device but about cultivating higher-order thinking, authentic application, and purposeful use of technology (Sheninger, 2025). Michael Fullan warned long before AI that relying on tools alone would never deliver meaningful outcomes. As he put it, “The notion that having a laptop computer or hand-held device for every student will make her or him smarter, or even more knowledgeable is pedagogically vapid” (2011, p. 15). His later work on deep learning reinforced that the most powerful drivers of growth are collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and character. In his view, technology only matters when it amplifies these human capacities (Fullan, Quinn, & McEachen, 2018).

For social studies, this means using AI not as a shortcut for facts, but as a catalyst for the habits that sustain democracy. Students need to weigh evidence, test competing claims, and deliberate across differences. These are capacities that technology should support rather than weaken. The OECD’s Learning Compass emphasizes adaptability, agency, and lifelong learning as the keys to thriving in uncertainty. Similarly, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030 the most valued skills will combine technical and human capacities: AI literacy, analytical and creative thinking, resilience, curiosity, leadership, and systems awareness. These frameworks confirm that the very skills social studies aims to cultivate, such as critical inquiry, civic reasoning, and responsible action, are also those most urgently needed for the
future. They also align closely with design thinking, where empathy, problem definition, prototyping, and iteration guide the search for solutions to complex social and civic problems.

The CAPTIVATE Framework

To translate this vision into practice, social studies classrooms need a structure that emphasizes inquiry and civic readiness. The CAPTIVATE framework offers such a path. It positions AI not as a replacement for judgment but as a partner for
deeper reasoning and action. The framework includes nine elements, grouped into three clusters:
Civic Habits (Collaboration, Accountability, Perspectives), Critical Reasoning Skills (Testing Bias, Iteration, Verification), and Future Orientation (Application, Transformation, Empowerment).


Civic Habits


C- Collaboration: AI should enrich, not replace, human collaboration. In social studies, collaboration builds civic discourse. Case in point: A class uses AI to draft multiple versions of an immigration policy. Students work in groups to compare drafts, critique assumptions, and present a balanced proposal.


A- Accountability: Responsibility cannot be outsourced to machines. Students must consider accountability in historical and civic contexts. Case in point: In a unit on environmental justice, AI generates policy options for pollution reduction. Students debate which groups would bear responsibility if the proposals failed.


P – Perspectives: Social studies thrives on multiple viewpoints. AI can surface them, but students must analyze what is emphasized or excluded. Case in point: In history class, AI provides different accounts of the Civil Rights Movement from politicians, activists, and journalists. Students examine which voices are centered and which are
marginalized.


Critical Reasoning Skills


T- Testing Bias: All AI reflects the data it is trained on, making algorithmic bias inevitable. Students must learn to uncover and question it. Case in point: In civics, AI generates sample campaign ads for fictional candidates. Students analyze tone and
imagery to identify how bias may advantage or disadvantage candidates.


I – Iteration: Democracy itself is iterative, and students benefit from revision and refinement. Case in point: In economics, AI drafts a city budget proposal. Students adjust priorities for education, housing, and healthcare until the budget reflects
real-world trade-offs.


V- Verification: AI can be convincing but wrong. In social studies, where misinformation and deepfakes spread easily, fact-checking is essential. Case in
point: In media literacy, students ask AI to generate a news story about a current conflict. They then verify details with reputable sources and test AI generated images for authenticity.

Future Orientation


A- Application: Learning deepens when applied to civic life. Case in point: In geography, students use AI to generate strategies for addressing food insecurity, then design proposals tailored to their local community.


T- Transformation and Ethics: AI has the power to reshape society. Students must explore its ethical and transformative dimensions. Case in point: In government class, students use AI to examine surveillance policies. They debate trade-offs
between security and civil liberties, linking technology to democratic values.


E- Empowerment: The ultimate goal of social studies is civic empowerment. AI should help students see themselves as capable of change. Case in point: In a capstone civic action project, students combine AI analysis of voting patterns with
community research to propose strategies for increasing youth voter turnout.


From classroom to leadership


CAPTIVATE is also a tool for instructional leaders. It can guide professional learning, coaching, and curriculum planning.
● In professional learning, workshops can be framed around CAPTIVATE to show teachers how AI can deepen inquiry rather than replace it.
● In classroom observations, CAPTIVATE can be used as a lens during walkthroughs to highlight collaboration, perspective-taking, and ethical reflection.
● In curriculum design, CAPTIVATE can be mapped to NCSS C3 standards so AI integration strengthens inquiry-based instruction. Scaling CAPTIVATE across professional practice helps ensure AI strengthens human judgment rather than diminishes it.


The new readiness


Past readiness meant memorizing facts. Future readiness in social studies means using AI to ask critical questions, evaluate evidence, and apply learning to civic life. If students are not taught to go beyond convenience, they risk becoming passive consumers of machine-generated narratives. But when inquiry, reflection, design thinking, and CAPTIVATE skills are emphasized, students are equipped to navigate democracy in a complex world.


A call to instructional leaders


The CAPTIVATE framework aligns with the NCSS C3 Inquiry Arc: developing questions and planning inquiries, applying disciplinary concepts, evaluating sources, communicating conclusions, and taking informed action. AI can either erode these practices if used superficially, or strengthen them when guided by CAPTIVATE. The
challenge is not whether students will encounter AI; they already do. The challenge is whether schools will prepare them to engage it with wisdom, creativity, and civic responsibility. That preparation is the key to future-proofing civic literacy in an age of misinformation and uncertainty.


References


Fullan, M. (2011). Choosing the wrong drivers for whole system reform. Centre for Strategic Education. 13396088160.pdf


Fullan, M., Quinn, J., & McEachen, J. (2018). Deep learning: Engage the world change the world. Corwin Press.

Grose, J. (2025, May 14). A.I. will destroy critical thinking in K–12. The New York
Times. Opinion | A.I. Will Destroy Critical Thinking in K-12 – The New York Times


Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (n.d.). Future of education and skills 2030/2040. Retrieved May 27, 2026, from Future of Education and Skills 2030/2040 | OECD

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2023). AI and the future of skills, volume 2: Methods for evaluating AI capabilities. OECD Publishing. AI and the Future of Skills, Volume 2 | OECD

Sheninger, E. (2025, March 2). Future-proofing learning: Preparing students for an unpredictable world. A Principal’s Reflections. A Principal’s Reflections: Future-Proofing Learning: Preparing Students for an Uncertain Tomorrow


Vasconcelos, H., Jörke, M., Grunde-McLaughlin, M., Gerstenberg, T., Bernstein, M., & Krishna, R. (2022). Explanations can reduce overreliance on AI systems during decision-making (arXiv preprint No.arXiv:2212.06823). arXiv.
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2212.06823


World Economic Forum. (2025). The future of jobs report 2025. World Economic Forum. The Future of Jobs Report 2025 | World Economic Forum

Lessons from the Past Help Shape Civic Minds

Lessons from the Past Help Shape Civic Minds
Carolyn Faggioni
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason (1905)


In this era of educational systems dominated by the pursuit of all things STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), this retired social studies teacher would like to buck the trend — stem the tide, if you will — and make the
case for the expansion of social studies education. So, why study social studies? It’s not so you can do well at Trivia Night at the pub or impress your friends with your knowledge of arcane facts. We can Google that stuff.


The Spanish American philosopher George Santayana, in warning of the dire consequence of not knowing history, provided perhaps the strongest argument. We study history to learn from the past, which enables an educated citizenry, the lifeblood of a genuine democracy, to repeat successes while avoiding pitfalls.


Students in social studies classes examine events, movements, ideas and people to uncover lessons that can be applied today and in the future. Studying global history helps one navigate an increasingly interdependent world, and in a diverse nation like the United States, it will help us to understand and appreciate one another, leading to greater peace and harmony and less tension, animosity and turmoil. With greater understanding of other cultures, international relations will improve.


Studying civics provides students the opportunity to become familiar with the basic
features of representative democracy and how to function effectively as citizens. When informed citizens are at the helm, actively participating in our democracy, liberty is safeguarded. Conversely, if citizens are ill-informed, lack the requisite critical thinking skills to analyze information, do not know how to engage with one another in a civil manner, or check out entirely by not bothering to stay informed or participate in the democratic process, the void will be filled by special interests, often
narrowly defined and committed to pursuing policies that may not be for the greater good. As James Madison asserted in 1822, “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”


Social studies education not only equips students with essential knowledge of the past, but a skill set that will empower them as citizens of this nation and members of the global community.

The Global Imperative: Dealing with Global and International Education in Small Institutions and Programs

The Global Imperative: Dealing with Global and International Education in Small Institutions and Programs


James K. Daly

The call for schools to prepare students for life in an inter-connected globalized world has been strongly articulated for years (Mansilla, V. B., & Gardner, H., 2007; Byker and Marquardt S., 2016; Majewska, I. A. ,2023). The Council of Chief State School Officers and the Asia Society have provided thoughtful guides that both highlight the need for global competence and suggest ways in which to develop it (see https://pz.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/bookglobalcompetence.pdf).

In a 2012 report the U.S. Department of education highlighted the need for
schools to focus on global issues (see https://wvde.us/sites/default/files/2018/03/InternationalStrategy.pdf). The report called for rigorous standards that would use top performing countries as a baseline for rethinking and redesigning schools in preparation for success in the global economy. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills
(https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED519427.pdf) included global awareness in their 2009 identification of key topics and approaches. Several states have incorporated these and their own locally devised approaches on global knowledge and skills
into their education standards.

As a result of these efforts many different approaches and goals have emerged. However, the effort to infuse and develop global knowledge and skills is not without controversy. Byker and Marquardt (2016) challenge some of the foundational frameworks in the call for global awareness in schools. There are many different
programs and curricula that address variations and different areas of focus within the field. Among these approaches are preparation for global citizenship, global awareness, global competency, preparation for global economic participation, and
more. These various plans are themselves global, with international organizations identifying essential components needed for this area, seeking to guide schools on how to address instruction and assessment.


Global by nature, expectations for schools

Schools in the United States are culturally and linguistically diverse (NCES, 2013). The U.S. Dept of Education reports over 5 million English language learners in the Fall of 2021(National Center for Education Statistics, 2024). The languages spoken by students in public schools demonstrate a diversity representative of much of
the world. According to the 2023 American Community Survey, 21.7% of public-school students are children of immigrants (U.S. Census Bureau, 2023). Effectively designing instruction, teaching and assessing students from families
whose experiences and history go beyond national boundaries is cited as requiring globally competent teachers.

In framing a response to these issues powerful organizations have had a significant
impact on proposing guidelines for U.S. schools. International data have been gathered with a focus on economic outcomes and competition. The PISA tests, developed by the private international Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD), the World Bank, and other international organizations have used assessments and the interpretation of their results to promote standardization in school curricula, and the outcomes schools seek to achieve. This has seen efforts at the national level in the U.S. that include No Child Left behind, and The Race to the Top.

Additionally, national and state standards take global data into consideration. This removes much of the decision making from practitioners, administrators and school boards to politicians and bureaucrats, with many from outside of the U.S. Fueled by global and international interests, this movement towards standardization is seen by
many as problematic (Tienken, 2017). Critics suggest that these approaches often guide teachers into a passive acceptance of dominant narratives of
the value of global infusion within teaching (Rizvi and Beech, 2017). These contentions suggest this results in school practices that are implemented by
authorities not involved in teaching, and which result in schooling not related to the lives of students.


Teacher preparation

Given this context the role of teacher preparation has been increasingly cited as an arena for global and international education attention. Many groups have promoted a vision of global competence that includes developing competencies and awareness within teacher preparation programs. A prominent feature of this approach involves the study abroad experience.

Among US students who study abroad, one of the lowest categories of participation is that of students in preservice teacher education programs (Institute of International Education (2024). The total number of college students involved in study abroad programs in 2022-23 was 280,716. Of those, only 2.4% were in education majors.
However, many schools promote study abroad opportunities for pre-service candidates. Worth consideration is what impact this has for the future. Does study abroad prepare future teachers to design, share, and present lessons that help their future students better understand global issues, trends and events?

Most of the recent growth of study abroad experiences at the university level seem to be related to the increase in short-term study-abroad experiences, which lasted less than a semester. Many of these occur during summer or intercession terms (Kehl & Morris, 2008). According to a report Open Doors by the U.S. Department of State, 40.6% of study abroad experiences were during the summer term, and of those 31.6% were of two- eight weeks or less (Institute of International Education, 2024). How effective are such short term study abroad experiences? There are few studies that compare the benefits of long-term study abroad to those of short-term ones. Older studies suggest long term programs have an impact on students’ global or world mindedness, often described as cultural awareness and interest in international events. (Sharma & Klasek, 1986. Hett, 1993). Deng & Boatler (1993) report a consequence of feeling connected to the global community. An increased open-mindedness about other cultures has been cited (Stephenson, 1999). Other research suggests an increased level of global perspective (Zhai & Sheer, 2004). Long-term study abroad experiences of a semester or more appear to have greater impact (Kehl & Morris, 2008, Zorn, 1996; Medina-López-Portillo, 2004).

There is some evidence that short-term study trips can also help teacher education candidates develop global knowledge and skills (Dwyer, 2004; Willard-Holt, 2001, Shiveley, J., & Misco, T. ,2015). A caveat is that trips of short duration have the potential of reinforcing prejudices (McKay & Montgomery, 1995). This seems true as inadequate orientation and cursory involvement in a foreign culture may be the case with short study abroad programs. Short study programs may support confirmation bias that can reinforce prior stereotypes and may also provide a lack of authentic activities and projects with the host population. Goldstein, 2017, contends that American students often have pre-conceived views of how others see
them which short programs may not be able to address.

Very few teacher education candidates participate in study abroad, and of those who do, most are in short term programs. This evidence suggests concerns about the focus on study abroad as a means for developing and strengthening the global and international knowledge and awareness of pre-service teacher education candidates.
Other approaches in teacher preparation programs include the development of courses devoted to globalization and international topics. This is problematic as accreditation requirements and available resources for course development and delivery can be barriers for many institutions. In many cited examples an existing course, often a social studies methods course, was identified as a location for global work.

Possibilities for small institutions and programs As with many areas of importance, there is no one approach likely to work in all institutions. Critiques of the global and international education field challenge many of the assumptions that guide national and international programs and projects. Few teacher education candidates participate in study abroad programs. The challenge for smaller and less resourced institutions and programs can be significant. So, what can a small program
accomplish?

This reflection contends that a useful way to proceed might be to encourage and support individual effort. Individual faculty can build upon personal connections, membership in professional organizations, and partnering with schools and
institutions engaged in global and international initiatives. This narrative describes the ongoing work of over seventeen years begun by two professors in two institutions. One institution is in New Jersey, the other in Ukraine. Neither is funded,
their work is done out of a commitment to promoting international understanding and the knowledge and skills needed for future teachers.


The initial collaboration

When the New Jersey institution was awarded a Deliberation in a Democracy (DID) grant it was partnered with Ukraine (https://did.deliberating.org/about_us/index.html). For three years high school teachers and students from nine New Jersey school districts were paired
with partner teachers and high school students in Ukraine. At both the NJ site and the Ukrainian site teachers were taught a process of deliberation.

Controversial topics were identified by the international project staff directors and teachers were taught to approach each controversy using the deliberation model. The focus was on active listening and clear communication. At the conclusion of the project, the assessment completed by researchers at the University of Minnesota found that the results were exceptional, well beyond what would normally be expected (“About Us”, n.d.). The two faculty members decided to bring a revised and revamped version of the DID concept and process to their universities. Both had teacher training programs in which the venture was to be housed.

What was accomplished

This partnership is in its 17th year. At the conclusion of the DID grant students from high schools in both countries that had participated in the project were invited to virtual conferences. The university students from both sites facilitated and took part in these. The debriefings in focus groups demonstrated that the impact on high school students was significant (for a video of one of the conferences go to https://blogs.shu.edu/globaleducation/). NJ high school students stated that they hoped their Ukrainian counterparts recognized that they were a similar in many ways. They reported that they were growing in their knowledge and understanding, open minded and anxious to learn about others. The NJ students reported they sense their Ukrainian partners felt the same. They also shared that prior to the conferences they perceived Ukraine as a ‘grey’, unhappy place with unfriendly people. Those perceptions rapidly disappeared. Once grant funding ended, the conferences with high school participants came to an end and were replaced by collaboration between just the university students at each site.

Each semester a social studies methods course in NJ and a History of Ukraine course in Ukraine organized the collaboration. Regular communications by virtual sessions were conducted at least once each semester. Initially a discussion board was set up and served as the primary tool in between virtual meetings. Students quickly learned to analyze comments and responses carefully. On several occasions New Jersey students were surprised, and occasionally alarmed, by what their partners had written. In de-constructing the messages a focus for the NJ university students was on the use of English by non-native speakers.

Students realized that a formal way of speaking and writing often resulted in misunderstanding and misinterpreting. There was an appreciation for the
challenge faced in communicating in a second language. This was addressed on both sides, and students recognized the need to avoid jargon and cultural nuances. This understanding was explored in both the virtual sessions and dialogue on the
discussion board. Students also recognized the need to respectfully ask one another to explain what was meant in both their written and spoken comments. During the Revolution of Dignity –the Maidan Revolution, New Jersey students regularly communicated with Ukrainian partners. Near real time videos and messages provided instant access to events in Ukraine as they occurred.

For a variety of internal issues, the discussion board process was ended. Virtual
sessions using Zoom and TEAMS were still regularly scheduled to discuss critical issues selected by students and faculty from both institutions. Scholars from several departments at both universities were invited to share their expertise and join in conversations. At each meeting students also had an opportunity to speak about their educational experiences, their lives and interests and other topics.

One successful project was a two-year collaboration that explored the Ukrainian Diaspora in New Jersey. The faculty members and students from both universities were trained in creating a website which was used to post the research results of the project. In several sessions the student researchers met together virtually in real time to work on constructing the website. The New Jersey students conducted an oral history project. They met with the archivist for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the United States, located near their campus. They then conducted interviews over several weekends with parishioners from a local Ukrainian Orthodox Church. They gathered testimony about WWII and the Soviet era, as well as the experience of immigrating to the US. Inter generational stories revealed the integration into the larger culture, and current and emerging consequences of this immigration. The Ukrainian students compiled a history of Ukraine, with a focus on WW II and the post-Soviet time period. Both sides prepared videos that were embedded on the website. These included the oral history interviews, messages from campus groups, music and dance (Ukrainian). An interactive google map was posted, which brought viewers to both campuses. Using the features of the map it was possible to explore the areas around the campus and beyond. Everything on the website was translated into both English and Ukrainian.

Various elements of the project were shared at several national and international conferences. Several of the New Jersey students attended in person and there were videos from the Ukrainian partners, who also spoke via a Zoom connection. The Ukrainian university also hosted several international conferences at which the work was shared, with New Jersey students attending virtually to share and explain their work.

In 2020 this collaboration initiated an electronic journal. The Ukrainian university hosted it and provided the translation of articles into both English and Ukrainian. The journal has now published six editions, with four since the war with Russia began. Each published edition has been followed by an international conference hosted by the Ukrainian university at which the writers share their work with one another. The recent editions the war have focused largely on the war.

As the NJ program was small all of the future social studies teachers were engaged in this work as they took their social studies methods course. This course was recently replaced by a generic methods course and work now continues primarily with history classes as well as in a secondary education class with a broader range of student majors. Student and faculty continue to meet at least once a
semester, and to collaborate on the electronic journal.


Ongoing efforts


In this collaboration that even war has not been able to stop, institutional support from both universities continues to grow. A second partnership with another Ukrainian university has begun. Teacher education candidates in New Jersey have broader opportunities for contact. Over the years they have
met international partners, worked on common projects, shared ideas, researched and listened to one another’s dreams and challenges. For New Jersey students the war has been made real, not a social media or video clip.

These experiences provide both models for how to engage in global partnerships and learning, and a source of information and knowledge not open to most. Two professors in two universities, with a commitment to having students work
together without systemic institutional support or resources, have provided a wealth of experiences. Small programs can explore the arrangements described here, routinely bringing international perspectives and dialogue into classes. Larger programs with supportive funding and resources could seamlessly infuse such collaborations into existing global partnerships and projects. The possibility to engage all teacher education candidates into authentic global experiences exists and can be expanded.


References
About Us. (n.d.). Deliberating in a Democracy. https://did.deliberating.org/about_us/index.html

Byker, E. J., & Marquardt, S. (2016). Curricular connections: Using critical cosmopolitanism to globally situate multicultural education in teacher
preparation courses. Journal of Social Studies Education Research, 7(2), 30–50.

Estellés, M., & Fischman, G. E. (2021). Who needs global citizenship education? A review of the literature on teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 72(2), 223–236.

Goldstein, S. B. (2019). Stereotype threat in U.S. students abroad: Negotiating American identity in the age of Trump. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary
Journal of Study Abroad, 29(2). https://doi.org/10.36366/frontiers.v29i2.395

Institute of International Education. (2024). Detailed duration of U.S. study abroad, 2005–06 to 2022–23. Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange.
http://www.opendoorsdata.org

Kehl, K., & Morris, J. (2008). Differences in global mindedness between short term and semester long study abroad participants at selected private universities. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 15, 67–79.

Majewska, I. A. (2023). Teaching global competence: Challenges and opportunities. College Teaching, 71(2), 112–124.

Mansilla, V. B., & Gardner, H. (2007). From teaching globalisation to nurturing global
consciousness. In M. M. Suárez-Orozco & C. Sattin (Eds.), Learning in the global era: International perspectives on globalisation and education. University of California Press.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2024). Bachelor’s degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions, by race/ethnicity and sex of student: Selected years, 2009–10 through 2021–22 (Table 204.27). U.S. Department of Education.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_204.27.asp

OECD. (2016). Global competency for an inclusive world. OECD Publishing.

Paine, L., & Zeichner, K. (2012). The local and the global in reforming teaching and teacher education.

Comparative Education Review, 56(4), 569–583. Project Zero. (n.d.). Global competence. https://pz.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/bookglobalcompetence.pdf

Reimers, F. (2006). Citizenship, identity and education: Examining the public purposes of schools in an age of globalization. Prospects, 36(3),
275–294.

Rizvi, F., & Beech, J. (2017). Global mobilities and the possibilities of a cosmopolitan curriculum. Curriculum Inquiry, 47(1), 125–134.

Shiveley, J., & Misco, T. (2015). Long term impacts of short term study abroad: Teacher perceptions of preservice study abroad experiences. Frontiers: The
Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 26, 107

Tienken, C. (2017). Defying standardization: Creating curriculum for an uncertain future. [Publisher not provided].

U.S. Census Bureau. (2023). American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates [Data set].

U.S. Department of Commerce. https://data.census.gov/U.S. Census Bureau. (2023). Age and sex (ACS 1-Year Estimates, Table S0101). U.S. Department of Commerce.
https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2023.S0101

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2024). Number and percentage distribution of students enrolled in degree-granting postsecondary institutions, by distance education participation, location of
student, and control and level of institution: Fall 2021 and fall 2022 (Table 204.27).
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_204.27.asp

West Virginia Department of Education. (n.d.). International education strategy.
https://wvde.us/sites/default/files/2018/03/InternationalStrategy.pdf

Book Review-The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg

The Climate Book

By Greta Thunberg

Reviewed by Hank Bitten, NJCSS Executive Director

In 2097, on the 100th anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol, historians will ask why did we not do something to prevent the warming of the planet.  After all, we experienced record breaking temperatures every year, were the most educated population in world history, and had the technology and economic resources to reduce carbon emissions. They will likely establish an historical argument based on our obsession with laissez-faire economics and consumer spending.

Will the people at the beginning of the 21st century blame the scientists, economists, and politicians or will they blame misinformation, self-interest, and neglect of spiritual perspective? Fortunately, there is substantial evidence to support the contributions of the government, business, and educational leaders from New Jersey and New York in addressing the crisis of climate that has already defined the 21st century.

Greta Thunberg’s The Climate Book is a collection of articles that future historians will read in their inquiry into the decisions of the top 1% of the population of the “Global North” and everyone else with a net worth over $1 million in 2026. The data will serve as evidence of how we abused carbon.  In 1900- the cumulative carbon emissions totaled 45 billion tons and in 2000 it was1,000 gigatons. In 2026, it doubled to 2,000 gigatons. (Page 14) The question on the 2097 AP World History exam will be, “Why?”

This book is the “go to” book for educators.  Climate education is relevant to history, science, economics, sociology, literature, art, math, and civics. The problem of climate cannot be debated as there is no place for compromise. Greta Thunberg’s analogy made this clear to me:

“It is like walking on thin ice – either it carries your weight, or it does not. Either you make it to the shore, or you fall into the deep dark, cold waters.” (page 2)

Teachers are the first responders who need to make students aware by teaching the importance of sustainability, understanding that the economic freedom we value is changing our environment, that the problem with carbon is one of chemistry and physics. The slightest increase in temperature changes the composition of oceans and our atmosphere. According to Thuberg, since most political and business leaders are not able to address the problem; the collective action of the global population is our best hope. This is why teachers and curriculum matter!

The book is organized into five sections with concise articles of three or four pages explaining and analyzing the theme of each section. Each article provides excellent information for discussion, further exploration, and cooperative learning.  For example, Section 2, “How Our Planet is Changing”, includes articles on heat, methane, air pollution, clouds, the jet stream, polar ice caps, acidification, droughts, floods, fresh water, and microplastics. These articles explain the fragile nature of our atmosphere, how small changes over time lead to major changes in food production, and the economic and human cost of extreme weather events.

“A new line of research has also uncovered a summer connection that contributes to recent severe heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and deluges.  These extreme events are more likely when the jet stream splits, with one branch flowing across the middle of the continent and another along the Arctic coast.  These splits tend to occur when the spring snow cover on high-latitude land areas melts earlier than normal, a strong trend observed in recent decades.  When the snow disappears early, underlying soils dry out and warm sooner, creating a belt of abnormally high temperatures over high latitude land areas.  This warm belt favors jet-stream splits. Rossby waves can then become trapped between the two jet-stream branches, causing stagnant weather conditions that can cause persistent heatwaves, dry periods and rain spells, often leading to extreme summer events.” (Page 65)

If all the ice in Greenland and Antarctica melt, sea levels have the potential to rise by 65 meters or 200 feet. (page 83)  According to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, “As identified in the New Jersey’s Rising Seas and Changing Coastal Storms: Report of the Science and Technical Advisory Panel and the New Jersey Scientific Report on Climate Change, sea-levels are increasing at a greater rate in New Jersey than other parts of the world. By 2050, it is likely that sea-level rise will meet or exceed 1.7 feet and increase to 3.8 feet by the end of the century. “Sunny day flooding” will occur more often across the entire coastal area with Atlantic City experiencing “sunny day flooding” 131 days a year and a 50% chance it will experience 326 days a year by 2100.”  (A sea level rise of 1.7 feet is less than one meter.) Source

Every article in Chapter 3, “How It Affects US” explicitly documents the reality of climate change. Here are some examples:

“Up to one fifth of the global land surface was affected by extreme drought in 2020, leading to a stark rise in food and water shortages.” (page 134)

“Anthropogenic climate change is responsible for one in three deaths due to heat today – accounting for 37 percent of heat-related deaths between 1991 and 2018.” (page 137)

“Malaria and dengue may spread into temperate areas such as France, Bulgaria, Hungary, Germany and the eastern coast of the Ununited states extending from south of Atlanta to north of Boston.” (page 245)

“We grew crops at a carbon dioxide concentration of 550 parts per million (ppm), the level the world is expected to reach around the middle of this century.  We found that crops grown at these elevated CO2 concentrations had significantly lower amounts of iron, zinc and protein than identical cultivators of those crops grown at today’s CO2 levels.” (page 149)

“The fact that 3 billion people use less energy, on an annual per capita basis, than a standard American refrigerator gives you an idea of how far away from global equity and climate justice we currently are.” (page 154)

“With current warming trends, 1.2 billion people could be forced to migrate by 2050.” (page 180)

The content in this chapter relating to disappearing insects, deforestation, rising sea levels, psychology of violence related to temperature increases, and political instability should be considered as essential reading. Although our goal is to keep temperatures below 1.50C in this century, Greta Thunberg explains that this is an average and some areas will see up to 4.0oC temperatures and others closer to 10C. “In 2021, Moody Analytics estimated that the global economic toll of 20C of warming would be $69 trillion.” (page 192)

Chapter 4 provided me with valuable insights that I can use as a social studies teacher.  These insights provide information on the changes in carbon emissions between 1970 and 2025 and how consumption in OECD countries is contributing to the coming crisis on our planet. The information in this section is also important if individuals are going to educate the adult population. The population of the United States is in denial about what is happening and the fact that in approximately 20 years, 1.5 billion people will need to relocate to a different location within the United States as a result of water shortages, transportation costs, rising sea levels, crop failures, dangerous insects, extreme heat, and unprecedented storms! The target of a 1.5oC increase by 2050 is likely unattainable and we need to expect an average temperature increase of 2.5oC or higher by 2100.  While civic engagement by individuals and families is important, the hope for the future will require action by local, state, and national governments.

“The carbon dioxide safety level for such climate stability is often considered to be around 350 parts per million (ppm) – a  level we passed in around 1987. In February 2022, we surpassed 421 ppm. At current emission levels, our remaining carbon budgets for a decent change of staying below 1.5oC and, by doing so, minimizing the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control, will be gone before the end of this decade. There are no effective policies in place.” (page 241)

The complexity of the problem is difficult to understand. As populations increase, food production requires more land for agricultural production. As a result species migrate, trees are removed, fertilizer production increases, and the shipping of food to where the people are living increases. The two graphs below include significant data.  The first graph, “Greenhouse gas emissions from transport subsectors in 1970, 1990, and 2010” provides evidence on the increase in emissions as the population of the world increased from approximately 3 billion in 1970 to 8 billion today. The graph also provides evidence of the problem of global equity as the amount of emissions in 2010 is that to the total emissions from Latin America, Middle East and Africa, and Asia total 2.75 gigatons is less than the amount of 3.14 gigatons emitted from the 38 OECD countries with market-based economies and democratic forms of government.

(page 266)

The second graph, “A comparison of greenhouse-gas-emissions intensity”, illustrates the emissions from airplanes, automobiles, and trains. The graph does not include the cost of international shipping, a decision made by the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. “This is extremely problematic since international aviation and shipping together contribute the equivalent amount of CO2 as Japan, the fifth biggest CO2-emitting nation in the world.” (page 269)

The greenhouse gas emissions form airplanes is greater than the emissions from automobiles.  Students need to understand the paradox of buying an EV or hybrid vehicle for transportation to reduce carbon emissions and then taking a plane to the Caribbean for Spring Break or a trip to Europe is counterproductive. We need to change our behavior. Education has the potential to change behavior!

(page 267)

Perhaps the most important insight for me in this section was the information on consumerism. A household in the United States contains, on average, 300,000 individual items,…” (page 282)  Teachers need to bring awareness about human behavior and the impact of production and disposal, and life expectancy and efficiency.

“An American one-percenter accounts for ten times the greenhouse gas emissions of the average American; the average American is responsible for three times the emissions of the average person in France; the average French person accounts for ten times that of the typical person in Bangladesh.” (page 282)  This section provides perspectives that are excellent resources for teachers.

Students need information about solutions for living in a world that is 1.5oC warmer and likely closer to 2.0oC. Solutions are more than wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles. The psychology of human behavior, the importance of civic engagement, preparation for a sudden crisis, the economic potential of incentives, awareness of the role of the media, and an understanding of the actions of citizens are essential understandings for students.

“The wealthiest 10 percent of people globally produce around half of all greenhouse gas emissions, as well as having more to do to achieve a sustainable way of life,….” (page 330) The graph below clearly explains why climate education for students in the United States should be a curriculum mandate. The graph also illustrates the problems of inequality and injustice as a result of the economic system that currently dominates our world. An understanding of the big picture from 19th century colonialism and imperialism to the global supply chains of the 21st century are essential for understanding the invisible atmospheric changes that have been taking place for 150 years. The existential crisis that threatens to disrupt the comfortable lives of the students we are teaching will take place in the next few years or decades. This is the “inconvenient truth!”

As social studies educators we are responsible for teaching the lessons of the past, especially as they relate to the rise and fall of civilizations. The discovery of fire, writing, cement, crop rotation, the three-part plow, animal, water, and steam power, fossil fuels, electricity, nuclear energy, the automobile, department stores, credit cards, e-commerce, and artificial intelligence are curriculum topics that need to be carefully reviewed in how we are teaching them because they cumulatively contribute to a warmer planet. The graph below illustrates why this is a critical curriculum topic for social studies educators.

The great migrations in history are the result of wars, trade, investments, escape from authoritarian rulers, genocide, poverty, and extreme weather events. We teach about the migrations from the Irish famine, religious wars in Europe, African Slave Trade, European migration to the United States, Harlem Renaissance, Dust Bowl, Partition of India, Resettlement after World War II, and the urbanization of China. If history is a guide, the largest migration will occur in the 21st century because of the impact of extreme weather on agriculture, potable water, heat-related deaths, and higher sea levels.

The Climate Book is essential reading for teachers. The section on solutions (Chapter 5) provides critical information for debate and discussion with your students.

Revisiting Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel

Revisiting Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel

By Ari Mandel

Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: Norton, 1997) is one of those books that feels revelatory the first time you read it. It takes a question that most people rarely stop to ask, “Why some societies ended up rich and powerful while others did not?,” and reframes it in a way that is both unsettling and reassuring. Unsettling, because it strips away comforting myths about cultural superiority and human exceptionalism, and reassuring, because it offers an explanation that does not rely on racism, divine favor, or civilizational destiny. Diamond’s central claim is that geography, rather than biology or culture, played the decisive role in shaping global inequality. In the epilogue, he steps back to defend this framework, clarify its limits, and argue that history itself can be studied scientifically.

Diamond’s ambition is enormous; he is trying to explain a great deal of human history with a single organizing framework. Geography, in his telling, shapes the availability of domesticable plants and animals, the timing of agriculture, population density, technological development, and ultimately conquest. By the time Europeans reached the Americas, the outcome was already largely predetermined by thousands of years of environmental advantage. Diamond is careful to insist that geography constrains rather than dictates outcomes, but it is hard to miss how much explanatory weight geography is made to carry.

In the epilogue, Diamond anticipates the charge of environmental determinism and pushes back. History, he argues, can still be studied scientifically, even if we cannot run controlled experiments. Continents and societies function as natural experiments, allowing historians to compare different environments and identify broad, recurring patterns. Diamond is explicit about what he believes his framework does and does not explain. He is not accounting for individual leaders, specific events, or moral responsibility.Instead he is explaining why some societies had early advantages and others did not.

When Diamond stays within these bounds, his arguments are often extremely persuasive. His comparison between Eurasia and the Americas is a good example. Eurasia benefited from an abundance of domesticable plants and animals, including wheat, barley, cattle, pigs, and horses, which supported early agriculture, large populations, and dense settlements. Dense populations, in turn, produced epidemic diseases, and over time, immunity. When Europeans arrived in the Americas, they brought not only steel weapons and guns, but germs to which they had long been exposed. Indigenous populations, lacking similar disease histories, were devastated. Diamond’s point is not that Europeans were smarter or more capable, but that they inherited a vastly different historical trajectory shaped by their environment.

The same logic applies to Diamond’s discussion of continental axes, particularly the contrast between Eurasia’s east-west orientation and the Americas’ north-south orientation. Eurasia’s east-west axis allowed crops, animals, and technologies to spread across similar latitudes and climates with relative ease. Innovations could diffuse over thousands of miles without needing to adapt to radically different environments. In the Americas, by contrast, north-south diffusion meant crossing deserts, jungles, mountains, and sharp climatic transitions. This slowed the spread of agriculture and technology and limited large scale integration. Over millennia, these differences compounded. Geography, in Diamond’s account, does not merely shape local conditions, it shapes connectivity itself.

Where Diamond’s framework begins to strain is when it starts to feel like a master key rather than one tool among many. In the epilogue, he insists that geography is not destiny, yet culture often appears in his account as a thin downstream effect of environmental constraints. Culture adapts to geography, rather than actively shaping how societies respond once similar options exist. This is where the model starts to feel incomplete. Culture is not just decoration layered on top of material conditions. It is the air we breathe, the water we swim in, and the lens through which material realities are interpreted. Societies facing similar geographic constraints can still make very different choices, build different institutions, and value different outcomes.

Diamond acknowledges this problem in theory but tends to underplay it in practice. He is strongest at explaining origins and weakest at explaining persistence and divergence. Geography helps explain why certain possibilities existed, but it does not fully explain why some societies embraced particular paths while others did not, even when those paths were available. Once agriculture, technology, and states exist, culture feeds back into material conditions in complex ways. Institutions, norms, and values can amplify or blunt geographic advantages, and these feedback loops receive less attention than they deserve.

This tension becomes even more apparent when Diamond’s framework is applied to contemporary global developments. Geography still matters enormously. Climate vulnerability, access to arable land, exposure to disease, and proximity to trade routes continue to shape global inequality. The uneven impact of climate change, for example, follows geographic lines Diamond would immediately recognize. At the same time, globalization, technology, and political institutions complicate the picture. Some societies have used technology and collective action to mitigate geographic disadvantages, while others have failed to do so despite favorable conditions. Here again, culture and politics mediate geography’s effects.

Diamond deserves credit for what he is trying to do. He offers a corrective to explanations that blame the victims of history for their own misfortune or attribute inequality to inherent superiority. His framework insists that history’s winners were not morally better or biologically superior, merely luckier in where they happened to have been born. That insight alone makes Guns, Germs, and Steel worth reading.

The epilogue clarifies what Diamond believes his project to be. Geography is not the whole story, but it is an essential part of it. Diamond is at his best when he treats geography as an ingredient rather than a recipe. History is shaped by environments, material conditions, and culture together. No single theory explains everything. Diamond’s contribution is to remind us how much of the story begins long before anyone makes a conscious choice, and how deeply the ground beneath our feet has shaped the world we inherited.

Spreading ‘Liberty’: Chautauqua County Women were a Force in the Underground Railroad

Spreading ‘Liberty’: Chautauqua County Women were a Force in the Underground Railroad

By Wendy Straight

(Reprinted from Observer Today, January 18, 2026) https://www.observertoday.com/news/top-stories/2026/01/spreading-liberty-chautauqua-county-women-were-a-force-in-the-underground-railroad/

From left: Carloyn E. Storum Loguen about 1860; Mary Ann Brigham Brown’s husband Rev. Abel Brown under assault in Westfield NY about 1835.

Chautauqua County women Carolyn Loguen (1817-1867) and Mary Ann Brown (1814-1842) were active in New York state’s anti-slavery movement and in the Underground Railroad. Working mostly in the shadows of their widely known husbands, the women themselves were locally famous for their own efforts in the cause of freedom.

Carolyn E. Storum Loguen of Busti married the formerly enslaved minister Jermain Wesley Loguen (1813-1872). The couple then operated an Underground Railroad station in Syracuse. They had six children, and their daughter, Amelia, married the eldest son of the nationally known abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), who also was formerly enslaved.

In 1851, the Rev. Loguen assisted in the rescue of William Henry, a formerly enslaved cooper working in Syracuse. Henry had been arrested under America’s Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, but he was rescued by abolitionists and then sheltered in Canada. Also in 1851, Harrison Williams was arrested under the same law, on Carolyn’s childhood farm in Busti, where her parents operated an Underground Railroad Station. In spite of several attempts to rescue him, Harrison Williams was returned to slavery. The historical marker paying tribute to Harrison Williams and the Storums stands today on Sanbury Road near Northrup Road in Busti. Another historical marker, to both Caroline Loguen and her husband, stands today at NYS Route 92 and Pine Street in Syracuse.

In 1854, Carolyn’s parents coordinated the widely attended Anti-Slavery Convention in Sugar Grove Pa., near Busti. Both Rev. Loguen and Frederick Douglass were featured speakers at that major event. However, Mary Ann Brigham Brown and her husband had been deceased long before the significant convention in Sugar Grove. Mary Ann was from nearby Fredonia, and she married another famous abolitionist, Rev. Abel Brown, Jr. (1810-1844) of nearby Forestville.

In the early 1830s, Mary Ann had met her future husband, while both attended the Fredonia Academy, which formerly stood on the site of today’s Opera House and Village Hall. The couple then traveled throughout the northeast, active in the Underground Railroad. Scholars have speculated that when the Western New Yorker Eber M. Pettit mentioned in his 1879 anti-slavery memoir that there was a “President” of the Underground Railroad, he was referring to the martyr Rev. Brown. Rev. Brown was so outspoken in his beliefs that he was often beaten by angry dissenters. His 1844 death in Canandaigua was said to have been from injuries sustained in just such a beating.

Another assault upon Brown had occurred in Chautauqua County a few years earlier, while he was preaching in Westfield. That was the period when New York State’s Anti-Slavery Society was being organized in central New York State, an endeavor also met with violent protests. However, within a few years of Brown’s beating in Westfield, the collected voices of Chautauqua County’s other abolitionists attracted increasingly more of their neighbors into what became known as “the liberty cause,” and the Underground Railroad became more safely active here, until the 1850 law. Although that law, signed by New York’s own Millard Filmore, generally made life dangerous for those involved in the Underground Railroad, the same law actually backfired in Chautauqua County, by drawing even more people into the anti-slavery movement.

Mary Ann died two years before her husband, shortly after the birth of their second child. Her children were then raised in Fredonia by her mother Mary (Polly) Dix Brigham Taylor (1790-1857), who also opened her home to a freedom seeker in 1844. There is no historical marker to memorialize Mary Ann, her husband, her children, or her mother, but a Fredonia mansion stands today where Mary Ann’s children grew up. The former Taylor farm is located on U.S. Route 20, just west of Fredonia.

After the Civil War, Daniel Fairbanks greatly expanded and modernized the former Taylor home. For the 1881 Chautauqua County Atlas, the elegant, new house was illustrated in the name of Sayles Aldrich.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Wilda B. and J. Carter Rowland operated a gift shop behind the mansion, at the approximate location of part of the former Taylor home.

The Schaghticoke Tree of Peace and Welfare

The Schaghticoke Tree of Peace and Welfare

This essay is drawn from The Northern Inland Passage: An Interpretive Guide to the Champlain Canal Region published by Lakes to Locks Passage in 2019.

The Schaghticoke Tree of Peace and Welfare

During the Beaver Wars the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), supplied by Dutch weapons, decimated the Mohican along the Hudson River. A Mohican effort to regain control of land taken from them by the Mohawk left their strength so severely depleted that they refused to join their eastern Algonquin speaking allies in fighting King Philip’s War (1675-1676) — a war that marked the last major effort by the Native Americans of New England to drive out the English settlers. Following that bloody conflict, defeated Indigenous refugees fled west from New England along the Hoosic River into the Province of New York. Edmund Andros, Governor of the Province, saw this exodus as an opportunity to thwart the territorial ambitions of Massachusetts.

Many residents in Massachusetts believed their colony should extend all the way to the Hudson, so Andros invited displaced Mohicans, along with Wampanoags, Narragansetts, Skokis, and Nipmucks, to settle on the meadows between the mouth of the Hoosic River and Tomhannock Creek. He believed they would prevent squatters and act as a barrier against French raids from the north. This assemblage of peoples became known as Schaghticoke.

Governor Andros negotiated peace with several tribes and then created a reserve on the west side of the Hudson and offered it to the Mohawk as a homeland. This, combined with the expanded settlement of Schaghticokes, created an early warning system for Albany in the case of hostile raids by the French and their Indigenous allies from the north. To cement the alliance, the governor convened a peace council in 1676. Representatives of the English Crown and as many as a thousand Native People, along with Jesuits from the Mohawk villages, gathered to smoke calumet (peace) pipes and promise to keep the covenant made there.

During the ceremony they planted an oak sapling — which later became known as the Witenagemot Oak — and named the place “the Vale of Peace.” Witenagemot is an old English word that means “Council of the Wise.” In England, a Witenagemot was called to help settle a dispute peacefully by discussion.

The tree stood for nearly 300 years. One hundred years later Johannes Knickerbocker III built his house at this place. The ancient tree stood behind the Knickerbocker Mansion until 1949, when it was uprooted during a winter flash flood. Saplings of the original oak now grow in its place. Although the Schaghticoke eventually moved west, many have made pilgrimages back to this symbol of the pact.

Schaghticoke is on NY-40 about 20 miles north of Albany.

This essay is drawn from The Northern Inland Passage: An Interpretive Guide to the Champlain Canal Region published by Lakes to Locks Passage in 2019.

Lessons for Today from a Landmark New Jersey Desegregation Case

Lessons for Today from a Landmark New Jersey Desegregation Case

By Lamont Repollet

Education has the potential to be the great equalizer that truly changes the trajectory of people’s lives. The struggle to realize that potential has a long history here in New Jersey. Looking back, we know Black activists were demanding civil rights reform in education here in the Garden State more than a decade before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision desegregated public schools across the nation in 1954. Concerted efforts by the NAACP, other advocates and mothers weary from discrimination in education led to legal battles that paved the way for changes and pivotal federal legislation. One of the precedent-setting cases that helped the arc of the moral universe bend toward justice, to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was New Jersey’s Hedgepeth and Williams v. Board of Education (1944).

In 1943, two mothers from Trenton, Gladys Hedgepeth and Berline Williams, attempted to enroll their children in a neighborhood middle school. The school, the women were told, wasn’t “built for Negroes.” As a result, they enrolled their children in a Blacks-only school more than two miles away while simultaneously filing lawsuits against the Board of Education of Trenton. Represented by Robert Queen of the NAACP, the case made its way to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled intentional segregation in public schools to be a violation of New Jersey law. Schools in New Jersey would no longer be segregated.

In the courts, the Hedgepath-Williams decision proved to be a precedent on which proponents of desegregation could build the historic case that ended legal racial segregation in schools across the nation, Brown v. Board of Education. In his legal brief for that case, attorney Thurgood Marshall cited the Hedgepeth–Williams decision. Ultimately, racial segregation was deemed unconstitutional -– even if the segregated schools were otherwise equal in quality.

The broader impact of the historic ruling was profound. It resulted in a massive shift in the national landscape of racial justice and the American judicial system as a whole. The next year, New Jersey’s state legislature passed a fair employment practices act, with a fledgling enforcement division, that prohibited racial discrimination in hiring practices. The number of Black teachers rose exponentially.

Further racial barrier-breaking developments also occurred. New Jersey’s State Constitution of 1947 codified the desegregation of public schools. In 1949, a civil rights bill in the state banned discrimination in public accommodations. New Jersey became a model for New York and Pennsylvania, and ultimately the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Today, nearly eight decades since the Hedgepeth-Williams ruling laid the groundwork for even more dramatic reforms nationwide, race-based inequalities remain pervasive in our schools. How do we follow in the footsteps of our predecessors and fulfill the mandate secured by trailblazers like Gladys Hedgepeth and Berline Williams? We need to compensate teachers equitably across districts to attract and retain quality candidates of all races to the field, but specifically Black educators. We must offer professional development, research opportunities, and holistic support to new and early-stage educators so they can succeed. Without these resources, we are setting young teachers up for failure before they even begin. When our educators feel whole, their students can be at the top of their game, too.

Furthermore, we cannot underestimate the power and importance of Black students seeing people who look like them in the classroom and in leadership positions across academia. Last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Trenton’s population was nearly 50 percent Black, 37 percent Hispanic and 13 percent white, yet the hiring of teachers of color there and elsewhere is slow to catch up to the diversity of its students. Imagine how much greater our students’ academic achievement will be when more Black educators teach Black children Black history, as well as all of the other subjects they are taught in school. Or how high their standards and visions of self-actualization will soar when students of color see themselves more fully represented in the sciences and research, the arts, business, sports, civil rights and in positions of leadership in these fields and others.

It’s also high time we invest more in higher education. We must continue to demand funding and resource allocations for our schools and universities, particularly prioritizing underserved communities. From pre-K through college and into graduate school, we must find and reach the undiscovered brilliant minds, the dreamers, the entrepreneurs, the leaders who are right there in our midst waiting to be put on an educational path that lets them become their full selves. Education is a pathway to upward mobility. It is a way for students to break free from the cycle of poverty and oppression in order to achieve their dreams. When we invest in equal education for all, we are building a stronger future for all of us.

In God’s eyes, we are created equal. However, history and current events remind us that we are not all treated equally. Everyone hears a lot about self-determination and being the architect of their own future. That’s easy to say when you are born into privilege and opportunity. It is a much more difficult proposition for anyone facing racism, systemic negligence and prejudice throughout their lives. We as a community cannot ignore the disadvantages that hold so many of our people back. Instead, we must leverage our positions as educators to create programs and deliver resources that will make a difference in students’ lives. Like the activists of today and decades past, we must work relentlessly to make sure that governments and systems of education do their part. Hedgepeth and Williams v. Board of Education is a call to equity in action as much now as it was in 1944, and we must rededicate ourselves to its moral imperative.