BOSTON — Currently the Boston Public Schools do not require their history or social science curriculum frameworks to include the topic of genocide when teaching United States history or world history.
At the Council meeting the first week of March, the Council voted to adopt a resolution in support of passage of House Docket (H.D.) 1167, “An Act Concerning Genocide Education” and Senate Docket (S.D.) 1592, “An Act Advancing and Promotion Genocide Education” in the Massachusetts State legislature.
H.D. 1167, “An Act Concerning Genocide Education,” sponsored by Rep. Jeffrey Roy, and S.D. 1592, “An Act Advancing and Promoting Genocide Education,” sponsored by Sen. Michael Rodrigues, are acts that seek to amend the Massachusetts General Laws to require that all school districts in the state shall include a curriculum unit on the Holocaust and genocide.
Such curriculum unit would include, but not limited to, teaching the histories of the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the Famine Genocide in Ukraine known as Holodomor, the Pontian Greek Genocide and the more recent atrocities in Bosnia, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Sudan.
