The USC Shoah Foundation has announced its "100 Days to Inspire Respect" initiative, through which it will be releasing "a new IWitness activity, mini lesson and other resources based on testimony from the Institute's Visual History Archive" that focus on teaching students respect and tolerance over a 100-day period.

Named after the aggressive 100-day agenda initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, "100 Days to Inspire Respect" is designed to coincide with the inauguration of our next president, Donald Trump. The resources are designed for both middle and high school teachers to teach to their students.

"After a long, contentious campaign season that saw tempers flare on all sides, 100 Days to Inspire Respect will offer a chance for students to reflect on what it means to be a decent and civil member of an ever-changing and complex society filled with different points of view," said USC Shoah Foundation Director of Education Kori Street in a statement on the USC Shoah Foundation’s website.

USC Shoah Foundation announced today the release of the initiative’s first ten testimony-based educational resources that provide the insight of Holocaust and genocide survivors.

"There are no better standard-bearers to inspire respect and combat hatred and intolerance than Holocaust and genocide survivors. As the six testimony collections in the Visual History Archive lay bare, fear, hatred, intolerance and individual acts of prejudice can escalate to widespread discrimination, before intensifying into biased-based violence,” the foundation said in a prepared statement.

The resources will ideally help students "critically think about universal themes of tolerance, diversity and justice," put a human face to the past thanks to witness testimonies and consider stories told from the human perspective as valuable sources of knowledge. 

The foundation's leaders hope the new materials will help educators combat instances of harassment and bullying that have been on the uptick due to the oft-negative election rhetoric from the past year.

The initiative will officially kick-off January 20 and will run until April 29.

Nicole Gorman, Senior Education World Contributor

12/28/2016