These profiles contain text of state legislation about the teaching of the Holocaust, and Holocaust-explicit History/Social Studies and English/Language Arts state content standards. Also provided is contact information for state departments of education.
COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION CONTACTS
Office of Educational Services, Colorado Department of Education
Legislation: There is currently no legislation regarding the teaching of the Holocaust.
COLORADO ACADEMIC STANDARDS
Standard Type:
History/Social Studies
Date Implemented:
1995, 2001
Grade Level:
Middle & High School (grades 7-12)
History/Social Studies: The following standards in the Colorado Model Content Standards for History explicitly address the Holocaust:
[Grades 9-12] Standard 5.3: Students know how political power has been acquired maintained, used, and/or lost throughout history. As students in grades 9-12 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes: analyzing how genocide has been used to acquire or maintain political power; analyzing the causes and events of major wars of the contemporary era and the resulting changes in the distribution of political power (for example, WWI, WWII, War in Vietnam, the Russia and Invasion of Afghanistan)
(page 19).
[Grades 9-12] Standard 6.1: Students know the historical development of religions and philosophies. As students in grades 9-12 extend their knowledge, what they know and are able to do includes: explaining how, throughout history, conflicts among peoples have arisen because of different ways of knowing and believing (page 22)
The following standards in the Suggested Grade Level Expectations for History explicitly address the Holocaust:
[Grade 8] History Standard 5: Students understand political institutions and theories that have developed and changed over time. Eighth grade students will: Study the effects of Nazism, Communism, and Socialism; Compare the "flaws" of capitalism to the "flaws" of other forms of government money control systems and management practices (page 23)
[Grade 8] History Standard 6: Students know the religious and philosophical ideas have been powerful forces throughout history. Eighth grade students will: Compare the "non-violent, passive resistance" movements of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi; Discuss whether these movements could have succeeded at all against governments led by dictators and "self-serving" regimes such as Nazism (Hitler) and "Stalinism." (A possible classroom debate: Was the "basic impulse" of the leadership of the British Empire different than the "basic impulse" of Nazism, Fascism, and Socialism?) (page 23)
English/Language Arts: The Holocaust is not explicitly addressed in Colorado’s Model Content Standards for Reading and Writing or the Grade Level Expectations for Reading and Writing.
Museum
