UNESCO launches new online course to help educators teach about histories of violence
- GAB NEWS
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
Understanding violent pasts is essential to understanding the world we live in today. The histories of genocide, war, colonialism, enslavement and other forms of mass violence shape contemporary societies. Their legacies are visible in present day inequalities, social divisions, political tensions and cultural attitudes.
When these histories are simplified or ignored in educational settings, learners lose the opportunity to process them, to recognize how the past continues to influence the present, to think critically about injustice, and to actively contribute to building peace.
Launched on the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, the online course on Teaching and Learning about Histories of Violence has been developed to support educators in addressing these complex topics thoughtfully and responsibly. This global, and free-to-access course offers a foundation in key concepts, including the idea that violence is not only physical but can also be structural and cultural. This wider understanding helps learners recognise how discrimination, prejudice and exclusion can lay the groundwork for physical harm, and how such systems may persist long after the direct violence has ceased.
Addressing violent pasts through education: a policy guide
UNESCO
2025
The online course is launched alongside UNESCO’s policy guide to support ministries of education on how to address local histories of violence in education systems.
© UNESCO
Educators must be aware not only of what to teach, but how to teach about histories of violence. The course introduces methods such as working with primary sources, analyzing historical narratives and using testimonies to foreground lived experience. It pays particular attention to the facilitation of challenging discussions, offering guidance on how to create brave and respectful classroom environments where students can express ideas, question assumptions and encounter difficult emotions safely.
By weaving together knowledge, pedagogy and reflection, history education can be a space where difficult pasts are examined with care and purpose, to promote learning that builds empathy, strengthens critical understanding and contributes to a culture of human rights, social cohesion and peace.
What UNESCO does to promote education about violent pasts
Education about the Holocaust and violent pasts is part of UNESCO’s work in promoting Global citizenship education (GCED), which aims to support learners of all ages to become ethical, empathetic and respectful human beings who can adapt to the world rapidly moving forward, even amidst its most complex challenges and threats.
The overall framework for GCED is the UNESCO Recommendation on Education for Peace and Human Rights, International Understanding, Cooperation, Fundamental Freedoms, Global Citizenship and Sustainable Development, that seeks to build more peaceful, just, and sustainable societies through education.
UNESCO works with countries and partners to develop programmes that foster understanding of the causes and consequences of the Holocaust, violent pasts and how genocides happen, to encourage a constructive engagement in today’s societies. It provides guidance and tools to support textbook and curriculum revision, develop and revise policies, promote appropriate and relevant pedagogies, and enhance cooperation between formal and non-formal sectors of education, including with museums and memorials. UNESCO also creates Chairs in universities to sustain research and education about the history and the prevention of extreme forms of violence.
The Organization’s work on the legacies of violence spans across its areas of expertise. Several memorial sites have been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list, starting with the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1979, and continued more recently with the inscription of three memorial sites of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, as well as three historical sites of the crimes committed by the Khmer rouge regime in Cambodia. This work is complimented by UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme that recognizes significant documentary heritage and includes collections of historical records that bear witness to past crimes.
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