Report: “The Didactic and Emotional Needs of Teachers in Teaching about the Holocaust”
We present a unique report by Alicja Kotowska and Karolina Marcinkowska – the result of a nationwide survey conducted among teachers and educators as part of the Educational Toolkit project. The report fills a gap in research by focusing not on students, but on the psychosocial and methodological challenges teachers face when teaching about traumatic past events.
We present the full report “Teachers’ Emotional and Didactic Needs in Teaching about the Holocaust” – a unique study that focuses for the first time on your perspective, mission, and challenges. We diagnose the emotional gap, the need for media education, and the systemic barriers you face in the classroom.
The report is not just statistics, but the voice of a committed and courageous profession, providing a direct basis for the creation of tools to support you as part of the Educational Toolkit project. It is a diagnosis that will be used to create materials to support you in building mature, empathetic, and factually accurate historical education.
Key findings – What will you learn from the report?
The report confirms your high sense of purpose in your work and your pedagogical courage in tackling controversial topics, but at the same time it points to key areas that require immediate support:
• Gap in emotional tools: we have diagnosed that although teachers are able to recognize emotional overload in students, 84.6% of teachers lack ready-made tools to work with difficult emotions and to safely conclude lessons. The report points to specific directions—developing teaching based on historical empathy—to remedy this.
• Urgent need for media education: teachers expect schools to systematically develop media education (82% support). There is a huge demand for ready-made exercises to help distinguish between facts and opinions (74%) and to expose the mechanisms of manipulation and disinformation in the media, including on platforms such as TikTok and YouTube.
• Critical thinking as a priority: in the age of disinformation and social media, teachers are demanding systematic media education and specific exercises to expose manipulation. The full report details which digital formats and content are most desired.
• Support for teacher autonomy and self-efficacy: the results indicate high professional self-efficacy—teachers are able to remain calm and find solutions when faced with difficulties. Protecting this inner strength, e.g., through psychological support and strengthening autonomy, is a key institutional recommendation.
• Realistic attitude: the report confirms that the vast majority of teachers are guided by a realistic theory of history. This means that most teachers strive to learn the truth – even if it is uncomfortable for Polish collective memory – rather than instrumentally building a national image. The report also provides substantive and ethical support for this attitude.
• Mission and courage: 79.6% of respondents are willing to go beyond the core curriculum for socially relevant topics. A sense of mission – as many as 85.5% believe that teaching about the Holocaust and exclusion has profound meaning – is the greatest asset of teachers and educators and requires systemic support.
• Diverse needs: the study identified three teacher profiles (Trusting and Moderate, Conservative Instrumental, Experienced and Autonomous). Understanding that support must be tailored to a given work style and experience is at the heart of our future teaching activities.
• Preferred teaching formats: Teachers are most likely to use source-based materials (eyewitness accounts – 47%) and multimedia (educational films, interactive maps, and apps). They also expect access to digital materials for independent exploration by students (77%).
Who is this report for?
For all teachers of history, social studies, Polish language, ethics, and educators from museums and non-governmental organizations who want to:
• understand the psychosocial conditions of their work with difficult history;
• learn about recommendations for historical empathy (e.g., rich contextualization, multi-perspective approach);
• receive specific guidelines that will be translated into tools within the Educational Toolkit.
DOWNLOAD the full report and support the development of mature historical education!
The report is the result of cooperation between the KARTA Center Foundation and the Center for Research on Prejudice at the University of Warsaw.
Financed by the EU. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Executive Agency for Education and Culture (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the EACEA is responsible for them.