Choosing to Participate and the Facing History Journey

Please note: If you are new to Facing History and Ourselves, you should spend some time exploring the about us section of our website. You should also go to the description of our Scope and Sequence.

Choosing to Participate and the Facing History Scope and Sequence

This image represents how Choosing to Participate relates to other areas of the Facing History scope and sequence. After an examination of identity, membership ("We and They"), a case study of history, and issues of judgment, memory and legacy, students reflect on their own roles as citizens in a democracy, and embark on what we hope is a life-long commitment to responsible participation in the world, continually asking themselves, "How can I make a difference? Does one individual matter? Where do I begin?"

At this point in the journey, students are more aware than ever that history is made every day by ordinary human beings like themselves. They also begin to understand that they have the power to change the course of history through their own individual actions. They explore what it means to be a citizen in a democracy, to exercise one's rights and responsibilities in the service of a more humane and compassionate world. Choosing to Participate focuses on individuals and groups who have taken steps toward building and sustaining just, inclusive, and caring communities. Facing History teachers often conclude their units by asking students to think about these individuals and the choices they made. What can we learn from their experiences about the importance of confronting the historical legacies of prejudice and bigotry? What can we learn about the importance of small steps?The question of how individuals can “choose to participate” in the civic life of their society sits at the heart of Facing History’s work with teachers and students. We believe that our democracy can remain healthy only to the extent that individuals exercise their right to interpret and judge the actions of themselves and of others. The history of the fragile democracy of the Weimar Republic in Germany suggests to us that inaction and silence can have profound consequences.

It is not surprising, therefore, that in the Introduction to our resource book, Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior, we focus on the work of Hannah Arendt, who contended that merely thinking about the world does not guarantee that any injustice may eventually change. Rather, it is the act of engaging in public discourse about ourselves and the communities that we live in that binds together the fabric of civil society. For Arendt, “we humanize what is going on in the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it, and in the course of speaking of it we learn to be human”. ¹

This workshop is but one avenue for us to come together, as an online learning community, to explore what “choosing to participate” can mean for both our students and ourselves.

To learn more about why Choosing to Participate is situated at the close of the Facing History journey, please read the Preface to Choosing to Participate.

¹ Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior (Facing History and Ourselves, Brookline, Massachusetts) 1996, p. xxii.

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