February 26, 2004

Bay Area ANC’s Genocide Education Project Expands Statewide

February, 2003 - The effort to educate California's public school students about the Armenian Genocide has been one of the Bay Area Armenian National Committee's top priorities. On February 10th, the ANC chapter's Education Committee sent more than 10,000 brochures to the History and Social Science teachers of California's public high schools. The brochures alert them to the Bay Area ANC's new educational website, TeachGenocide.org and the lesson plans "Human Rights and Genocide: A Case Study of the First Genocide of the 20th Century."

"This direct mail campaign is the first step towards our long term goal to reach all California high schools, making teachers aware of the resources available to them and to assist them in teaching about the Genocide as the state curriculum requires," said Raffi Momjian, Bay Area ANC Education Project Director. "The lesson plans we developed with the San Francisco Unified School District have already been very positively accepted by several Bay Area school districts which have purchased them and distributed them to their history teachers. We plan to extend this initiative statewide."

Coinciding with the mailer, the Bay Area ANC continues to forge relationships with school districts beyond its immediate area. On February 4th, Momjian presented teaching materials to 55 teachers in Elk Grove, as part of a workshop hosted by the State of California's Center for Excellence on the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance. The Center, which was created through the passage of Assembly Bill 2003 last year, includes the ANC's lesson plans in its website and materials. Conducted on four afternoons, the workshop included one afternoon about the Armenian Genocide, presented by Professor Richard Hovanissian of UCLA Armenian Studies Program, Richard Kloian of the Armenian Genocide Resource Center, and Raffi Momjian of the Bay Area ANC. Momjian will also present the lesson plans and website to Pasadena teachers at a workshop on March 12th hosted by the Pasadena ANC, with the Pasadena Unified School District and Assemblywoman Carol Liu.

"The education project provides a means to counter the ever-expanding campaign of Genocide denial being carried out by the Turkish government. The project helps to insure that future generations of American youth will have the basic education necessary to reject Turkish denial when they encounter it," said Momjian. "We expect to expand upon these successes, working with ANC chapters across the state, to help teachers consistently include the Armenian Genocide in their classrooms."