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The 2008-2009 school
year concludes complete with workshops and sessions led by The
Genocide Education Project. The Genocide Education
Project led a two-day workshop for Los Angeles Unified
School District (LAUSD) educators—sponsored by the
school district. The workshop fell on two Saturdays and
provided LAUSD teachers an opportunity to learn about
the Armenian Genocide and develop a lesson plan to use
with their students in the upcoming school year.
The workshop included a session on the history of the
Armenian Genocide by Dr. Levon Marashlian, a professor
at Glendale Community College who also serves on The
Genocide Education Project's advisory board. His lecture
included a detailed analysis of the factors leading to
the genocide and a discussion regarding the response of
the United States. Suzanne Berberian spoke at the
workshop on Armenian American identity in public
schools. She is a volunteer for The Genocide Education
Project and holds a leadership position in the Pasadena
School District. Teachers also participated in a session
on identity and genocide sponsored by Facing History and
Ourselves.
Other sessions were led by Sara Cohan, Education
Director of The Genocide Education Project, and included
such topics as the history of the Armenians before 1915
in the Ottoman Empire, geopolitical ramifications of
genocide denial and strategies for effectively teaching
about the Armenian Genocide.
The Genocide Education Project also ran two sessions at
the Day of Learning in San Francisco, California. The
Day of Learning is an annual program sponsored by the
Holocaust Center of Northern California. It is an all
day event that provides an opportunity for students,
parents and teachers to learn about the history of
genocide. Each year the program is designed around a
particular theme. This year's theme was "Taking a
Stand." The Genocide Education Project focused on the
role of media during genocide and specifically The
New York Times during the Armenian Genocide. One
session was designed for educators and the other for
high school students. The Genocide Education Project has
participated in this event for several years and is
proud to support the work of the Holocaust Center of
Northern California and their commitment to teaching
about the Armenian Genocide.
Sara Cohan, Education
Director with The Genocide Education Project, working
with teachers at "Day of Learning" in San Francisco, CA
Herman Clay, Director,
History and Social Science Branch, Secondary
Instructional Support Services, LAUSD, addressing
teachers at The Genocide Education Project's LAUSD
workshop |
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Meet Sara Cohan, Education Director, The Genocide
Education Project
Sara Cohan
Spring, 2009 - Sara Cohan has been named The Genocide
Education Project's full-time Education Director.
Cohan's comprehensive experience in the field of
education, including research, curriculum development
and teaching, make her particularly well-suited for the
position.
Having earned her Master of Science degree in Social
Science Education from Florida State University and her
Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology/Sociology from
Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, Cohan has taught
secondary education in Florida, including Florida's
International Baccalaureate (IB) program, which offers
advanced academic courses with an international
perspective. As a teacher, Cohan received the George
Washington Medal of Honor from the Freedoms Foundation
at Valley Forge, for the service-learning projects she
implemented, including her work with Nobel Peace
Laureate, Betty Williams, teaching students about human
rights issues.
Cohan is very familiar with genocide education, both
from her professional experience and her family history,
being a descendant of Armenian Genocide and having lost
family in the Holocaust. She is very gratified to have
taken this position. "The mission of the organization is
also my own: to ensure that the history of genocide is
remembered, analyzed, and discussed, and to use that
history to find ways to thwart future genocides. Through
education, I am contributing to the fight against
genocide, and paying homage to my family's history at
the same time."
She also worked as a research fellow for the Southern
Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance project, which
combats prejudice in multicultural schools, providing
free educational materials to teachers. She was a
Fulbright-Hays scholar in Mexico, under the sponsorship
of the United States Department of Education. There, she
studied education and culture with a focus on Mexican
Art as a vehicle to better understanding the diversity
of Mexico.
Selected as a Justice Teaching Fellow by the Supreme
Court of Florida, Cohan went on to develop and implement
a district-wide workshop on law-related education to
educators in Pensacola.
Cohan has written articles for scholarly journals and
magazines, and has written educational materials for a
variety of organizations, including The Genocide
Education Project, and has recently authored an essay
entitled "My Grandfather's Testimony" which will be
included in the new book Evoking Genocide: Scholars
and Activists Describe the Works that Shaped their Lives.
The collection of essays will be available in September.
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