There can be no single "correct" way of teaching any subject, no ideal methodology that is appropriate for all teachers and students. What is offered here are guidelines and advice that might prove useful to schoolteachers in constructing their own schemes of work, taking into account the learning needs of individual students. These guidelines draw on current best practice from a number of institutions with expertise in teaching the Holocaust to address some of the concerns teachers have about how to approach this very difficult subject and to present possible ways forward.
Holocaust education stands upon advances in research and has changed significantly over the last three decades; this document seeks to reflect a continuing process of pedagogical development and improvement and, as such, is not intended as the final word on this subject.
- The Holocaust can be successfully taught to students; do not be afraid to approach this subject
- Define the term Holocaust
- Create a positive learning environment, with an active pedagogy and a student-centred approach
- Individualise the history by translating statistics into personal stories
- Use witness testimony to make this history more "real" to your students
- A cross-curricular approach will enrich your students' understanding of the Holocaust
- Contextualise the history
- Give broad and balanced coverage to this subject
- Be precise in your use of language and urge your students to do the same
- Distinguish between the history of the Holocaust and the lessons that might be learned from that history
- Avoid simple answers to a complex history
- Provide your students with access to primary sources
- Students should be alerted to the fact that the perpetrators produced much of the evidence of the Holocaust
- Encourage your students to critically analyse different interpretations of the Holocaust
- Be responsive to the appropriateness of written and visual content and do not use horrific imagery to engage your students in a study of the Holocaust
- Avoid comparing the pain of any one group with that of another
- Allow your students to explore a variety of responses of the victims, including the many forms of resistance to the Nazis
- Take care not to define the Jewish people solely in terms of the Holocaust
- Indicate that the Holocaust was not inevitable
- Do not attempt to explain away the perpetrators as "inhuman monsters"
- Be careful to distinguish between the perpetrators of the past and present-day societies in Europe and elsewhere
- Encourage your students to study local, regional, national and global history and memory
- Ask your students to participate in and reflect upon national and local traditions of commemoration and remembrance
- Select appropriate learning activities and avoid using simulations that encourage students to identify with perpetrators or victims
- Avoid legitimising the denial of the past
- Be aware of the potential and also the limitations of all instructional materials, including the Internet
- Distinguish between historical and contemporary events and avoid ahistorical comparisons
- Be responsive to the concerns of your students
The Holocaust can be successfully taught to students; do not be afraid to approach this subject
Many teachers are reluctant to explore the history of the Holocaust with their students because of the perceived difficulties in teaching the subject. They are overwhelmed by how to convey the scale of the tragedy, the enormity of the numbers involved, and the depths to which humanity can sink. They wonder how to move their students without traumatising them; they worry about their students' possible reactions to this subject and how to deal with "inappropriate" behaviour in the classroom, such as giggling or expressing antisemitic and racist remarks.
Do not be afraid to approach this subject as, while it may appear daunting, experience has shown that the Holocaust can be successfully taught to students and may have very positive results.
Define the term Holocaust
A clear definition of the term Holocaust is essential. Many teachers apply this term in a very broad sense to encompass all victims of Nazi persecution. Yet most historians of the period use a more precise definition (see IHRA guidelines on "What to teach").
Students should be aware that for many people the term "Holocaust" is problematic. A holocaust is a biblical sacrifice, and use of the term could seem to imply that the mass murder of the Jews was a form of martyrdom, but there was nothing holy about the Holocaust. Other terms should also be used with care. Speaking of the "Final Solution" means taking up the killers' language; using the word genocide could seem to accept the Nazis' conception of races. Many prefer the use of the Hebrew word Shoah-meaning catastrophe-which is not loaded with religious meaning.
Create a positive learning environment, with an active pedagogy and a student-centred approach
The Holocaust challenges many assumptions that young people may have about the nature of society, progress, civilisation, and human behaviour. Students may have defensive reactions, negative feelings, or an unwillingness to go deeper into the history of the Nazi period or of the Holocaust. A trusting atmosphere is important in order that such issues may be openly addressed and discussed.
It is important to create an open learning environment where students are given space and time to reflect, where they are encouraged to ask questions, to discuss their thoughts and fears, and to share ideas, opinions, and concerns.
Learning should be student-centred. The teacher's role should be to facilitate rather than to lecture, and young people should be encouraged to play an active role in their own learning. History is not a body of knowledge to be transmitted from the mind of the teacher to the minds of the students, but should be a journey of discovery in which young people formulate their own lines of enquiry, analyse a variety of sources of information, question different interpretations and representations of events; and find their own answers to challenging historical and moral questions.
Individualise the history by translating statistics into personal stories
Statistical studies are important and teachers should find methods to make the scale of the Holocaust and the numbers involved real to their students. But many young people will find it difficult to relate to the tragedy of the Holocaust if it is presented only in statistical terms.
Students should be given opportunities to see those persecuted by the Nazis not as a faceless mass of victims but as individuals. Use case studies, survivor testimony, and letters and diaries from the period to show the human experience and to ensure that students understand that each "statistic" was a real person, an individual with a life before the Holocaust, friends, and family. Emphasise the dignity of the victims at all times.
An exploration of the Holocaust that fails to challenge stereotypical views-that all perpetrators were mad or sadistic; that all rescuers were heroic, brave, good, and kind; that all bystanders were apathetic-risks dehumanising people in the past and rendering them as caricatures rather than real human beings.
By focusing on the stories of individuals, of moral dilemmas faced and choices made, teachers can make the history of the Holocaust more immediate and interesting to young people and more relevant to their lives today.
Use witness testimony to make this history more "real" to your students
Many countries still have Holocaust survivors living within their communities. If you are able to make contact with these survivors and invite them into your classroom, you have the opportunity to provide your students with a special and powerful educational experience. Being in the presence of someone who experienced the unimaginable can create genuine empathy in the classroom. A number of organisations can assist you in arranging for a survivor to speak at your school.
However, with an aging survivor population it may not be possible for your students to have this direct personal contact. In such cases, teachers should explore the use of video testimony to provide personal stories of the Holocaust. Other individuals who were directly involved in the Holocaust or who witnessed events firsthand also have powerful testimonies to give. If you are able to invite rescuers, liberators, and others into your classroom, then their personal stories will also greatly enrich your students' understanding of the Holocaust.
If you decide to invite someone into your classroom to speak about his or her personal experiences, talk to that person before the session to ensure that her or she is able to speak to groups and is clear about your educational objectives.
Do preparatory work with your class to ensure that your students are respectful and appreciative. Students should understand that although much time has elapsed since these events, the speaker will still find it painful to relate such intensely personal experiences.
Ensure that your students already have a secure grounding in the history of these events. The opportunity to meet witnesses should not be used primarily to transmit the historical events of the period-for the most part these people are not trained historians or teachers, nor might their experiences be "typical" of the majority of people during the Holocaust. Instead, your students will have the rare privilege of meeting someone who witnessed and experienced these events firsthand and listening to their unique, personal testimony.
Encourage your students to ask the survivor not only about what happened to him or her during the Holocaust but also about his or her life before and after, so that they get a sense of the whole person and of how the survivor has tried to live with his or her experiences.
Although it is not possible to generalise from one person's story, the effect of meeting a Holocaust survivor, rescuer, or liberator can be to make these historical events more real to your students, reinforcing that this tragedy befell ordinary people.
A cross-curricular approach will enrich your students' understanding of the Holocaust
The events of the Holocaust touch upon so many aspects of human behaviour that it is profoundly relevant to teachers across a range of subject disciplines. Although a sound understanding of the history must be the foundation for study of the Holocaust, historians do not have a monopoly on this subject. Imaginative links between departments can enhance a scheme of work by drawing on different areas of expertise, approaching the Holocaust from multiple perspectives, and building upon ideas and knowledge gained in other lessons.
The narratives of the Holocaust illustrate the extremes of human behaviour, of hatred and cruelty but also of courage and humanity. Learning about the Holocaust through history evokes powerful emotions that poetry, art, and music can help students express creatively and imaginatively. The Holocaust raises important moral, theological, and ethical questions that your students could explore in their religious studies, citizenship classes, or civics lessons.
By co-ordinating an interdisciplinary approach and drawing upon the expertise of colleagues in other subject areas, you will share the teaching workload and enrich your students' understanding of the Holocaust.
Contextualise the history
The occurrence of the Holocaust must be studied in the context of European and global history as a whole to give students a perspective on the precedents and circumstances that contributed to it.
Give broad and balanced coverage to this subject
The Holocaust was not a uniform event but varied considerably from country to country and at different points in time (see IHRA guidelines on "What to teach").
Be precise in your use of language and urge your students to do the same
There are many myths about the Holocaust, and your students may come to this subject with many preconceived ideas. Ambiguities in your use of language may help perpetuate misconceptions.
Avoid using the language of the perpetrators, which mirrors their views. Terms like "Final Solution" may be cited and critically analysed but should not be used to describe the historical event.
Definitions are important because they demand accuracy and clear thinking. One example is the use of the term "camp." Although people died at many camps created by the Nazis and their collaborators, not all camps were intentionally built as killing centres. There were concentration camps, slave labour camps, and transit camps, to name a few. Different camps functioned in different ways at different times. It is essential that teachers be very precise when describing the activities that occurred at the various camps associated with this history and avoid generalising about camps.
Distinguish between the history of the Holocaust and the lessons that might be learned from that history
Be careful to distinguish between the history of the Holocaust and the moral lessons one can draw from a study of that history. There is a danger of distorting the historical narrative if it is oversimplified or shaped to better serve the particular moral lesson that teachers wish their students to learn.
Learning about these events can sensitise young people to modern-day examples of prejudice and injustice; the Holocaust can confront students with stereotypes, myths, and misconceptions and enable them to test received prejudices against historical evidence. But moral lessons will not be well founded unless they are based upon an accurate and objective reading of the historical record.
Historical inquiry of the kind we should expect of our students will reveal to them the complexities of a world in which such choices were made and such decisions taken. Students should be confronted with real dilemmas faced by people in the past. Only then might people's actions (and inaction) be seen within the context of their own time, and only then might we begin to draw meaningful lessons for today.
Avoid simple answers to a complex history
A desire to "learn lessons" risks over-simplistic explanations of the Holocaust that neglect to take into account the historical context in which decisions were made. Such an approach can reduce students' understanding of complex events to straightforward lessons of right and wrong-"the Holocaust happened because people failed to make the correct moral choices"-and lead to a superficial reading of history.
Students should investigate historical questions. This activity might include asking why the fate of Jews in different countries varied so markedly and could explore the different types of German occupation regimes from country to country. Such inquiries will invariably raise moral issues, but students should be encouraged to view the past with humility. It is easy to condemn those who refused to hide or help their Jewish neighbours, but easy moral judgements of the bystanders will not create a deeper understanding of the history or make our students better citizens.
Given the complexity of this history, students should have opportunities to study and investigate the Holocaust in depth, including the dilemmas of the rescuers, who every day had to decide whether or not to continue to risk their lives and those of their families to help those in hiding; why the Allies did not do more to save the Jews; why some of the Judenräte drew up lists of their fellow Jews for deportation to the death camps; why the majority of people in occupied lands did nothing to help their Jewish neighbours; and why ordinary men and women willingly participated in mass murder.
This complex subject matter does not always yield simple answers and many times more questions arise than actual answers. Indeed, it is important for young people to realise that for some questions there are no answers.
Provide your students with access to primary sources
It is in the letters, diaries, newspapers, speeches, works of art, orders, and official documents of the time that the perpetrators, victims, rescuers, and bystanders reveal themselves. Primary source material is essential for any meaningful exploration of the motivation, thoughts, feelings, and actions of people in the past and for any serious attempt to understand the choices made and why events happened as they did.
Students should have opportunities to critically analyse original source material and to understand that analysis, interpretation, and judgement must be based on a sound reading of the historical evidence.
Students should be alerted to the fact that the perpetrators produced much of the evidence of the Holocaust
Much of the evidence of the Holocaust-whether written documents, photographs, or film-was produced by the Nazis, so there is a danger of viewing the past only through the eyes of the perpetrators. If such material is not used carefully, we risk seeing the victims as the Nazis saw them-objectified, degraded, and dehumanised.
Such evidence needs to be contextualised, and teachers must take into account the cognitive and emotional age of the child, ensuring that use of these images is appropriate, that students have been well prepared for the emotional effect they might have, and that young people are given space to reflect and to discuss their reactions afterward.
Care should be taken to balance those documents and photographs with the diaries, letters, photographs, and other evidence from the victims themselves, in order that their voices are heard.
Encourage your students to critically analyse different interpretations of the Holocaust
Classroom learning is influenced by a broader cultural context and the Holocaust has entered the popular imagination through many and varied forms. Academic and popular histories, feature films, the mass media, documentaries, art, theatre, novels, memorials, and museums all shape collective memory. Each interpretation is influenced by the circumstances in which it is produced and may say as much about the time and place in which it was made as it does about the events it is portraying.
It is important that students consider how and why such representations of the past are produced, the selection of the evidence upon which they are based, and the intentions of those who have made them. Students should understand that although there are legitimate areas of historical debate, it does not follow that all interpretations are equally valid (see section Avoid legitimising the denial of the past).
Be responsive to the appropriateness of written and visual content and do not use horrific imagery to engage your students in a study of the Holocaust
The explicit use of Holocaust images with the intent to shock and horrify is both degrading to the victims and insensitive to students. Respect for both the victims of the Holocaust and for your captive audience in the classroom demands a sensitive approach and careful thought to what constitutes appropriate material. Teachers who have spent much time in building a relationship with their students risk a betrayal of trust by subjecting them to the most horrific and disturbing images. It is also this type of material that may cause the stress and embarrassment that can lead to nervous laughter and inappropriate remarks in the classroom.
The Holocaust can be taught effectively without using any photographs of piles of naked bodies, and the overuse of such imagery can be harmful. Engendering shock and revulsion is unlikely to constitute a worthwhile learning experience. It can, however, have a dehumanising effect and reinforce a view of Jews as victims.
If teachers choose to use atrocity photographs, they should do so only where there is clear educational benefit to the students.
Avoid comparing the pain of any one group with that of another
If the universal lessons of studying this period are truly to be understood-if we argue that through a study of the Holocaust young people might be sensitised to persecution, discrimination, and hatred in the world today-then the experience of all victims of Nazi persecution, and the ideological background to that persecution, should be included in your scheme of work.
In the particularity of the Jewish experience we see the discrimination, economic exploitation, persecution, and murder that resulted from Nazi antisemitism, but for examples of other forms of hatred and intolerance-that are equally relevant to modern society-we need to look elsewhere: to the Nazi persecution and murder of Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, Communists, political dissenters, and social nonconformists.
The suffering of all victims of Nazi persecution needs to be addressed without relativising the Jewish experience. There can be no hierarchy of suffering, either within the history of the Nazi period or between the Holocaust and other genocides.
The experience of the other victims of Nazi persecution should not be relegated to a single add-on lesson, with each of these distinct groups treated as if all were the same. Instead, the story of these groups should be integrated within the narrative of the persecution of the Jewish people, for example, the similarities and differences between the genocide of the Jews and that of the Roma and Sinti could be explored, or the link between the personnel and methods of the Nazi "euthanasia" programme and the death camps of Eastern Europe could be investigated.
Such an approach not only should acknowledge the persecution of other victims but also should contribute to an understanding of the particularity of the Jewish experience and should help place the Holocaust within the broader historical context. Just as it is not possible to explain the mass murder of the Jewish people without the context of World War II, so it is inadequate to study this story in isolation from the persecution of other victim groups.
Allow your students to explore a variety of responses of the victims, including the many forms of resistance to the Nazis
There were many forms of resistance to Nazi persecution, from armed struggle to finding ways of maintaining human dignity even in the most extreme circumstances of the ghettos and the camps. The victims of the Nazis did not always passively accept their persecution. It is important to study how the victims responded, the limits on their freedom of action, and the many different forms of Jewish resistance to the Holocaust.
Take care not to define the Jewish people solely in terms of the Holocaust
Events of the Holocaust should be placed in historical context. There is a need to show life before and after the Holocaust in order to make it clear that the Jewish people have a long history and rich cultural heritage and to ensure that students do not think of Jews only as the dehumanised and degraded victims of Nazi persecution. Young people should be aware of the enormous loss to contemporary world culture that resulted from the destruction of rich and vibrant Jewish communities in Europe.
Indicate that the Holocaust was not inevitable
Just because a historical event took place, and it was documented in textbooks and on film, does not mean that it had to happen. The Holocaust took place because individuals, groups, and nations made decisions to act or not to act. By focusing on those decisions you gain an insight into history and human nature and can better help your students become critical thinkers.
Do not attempt to explain away the perpetrators as "inhuman monsters"
The Holocaust was a human event with human causes. There is a need to "rehumanise" all the people in the Holocaust: to see victims, rescuers, collaborators, bystanders, and perpetrators as ordinary human beings in extraordinary circumstances. This need is not to normalise the perpetrators but to recognise that the majority were not sadistic psychopaths and that "evil" is not a sufficient explanation for the Holocaust.
The more difficult question is, how was it humanly possible that ordinary men and women, loving fathers and husbands, could participate willingly in the murder of innocent men, women, and children?
The motivation of the perpetrators needs to be studied in depth and students should use primary documents, case studies, and individual biographies to weigh the relative importance of ideology, antisemitism, ambition, peer pressure, economic opportunism, criminal psychopathology, and other factors in explaining why people acted as they did.
Be careful to distinguish between the perpetrators of the past and present-day societies in Europe and elsewhere
Students should not form the opinion that all Germans were Nazis, nor that the German people were uniquely disposed to genocide. They should have opportunities to study the varied responses of the German people to Nazi policies, including enthusiastic support, cooperation, discontent, apathy, and active resistance.
Be careful to distinguish between the Germany of the past and Germany in the present. The events of the Holocaust need to be located in their historical context so that the people, politics, society, and culture of modern Germany is clearly distinguished from that of its Nazi past.
Students should also recognise that antisemitism is a worldwide and centuries-old phenomenon and there were many non-German perpetrators and willing collaborators across Europe. Other nationals served alongside SS units or as concentration camp guards, local police assisted in the round-ups and deportations of Jews to the death camps, at times local people instigated pogroms against their Jewish neighbours or betrayed Jewish people in hiding. Governments allied to Nazi Germany assisted in the murders on their own initiative.
Encourage your students to study local, regional, national, and global history and memory
If you live in a country where the Holocaust has taken place, emphasise the specific events there in the context of the national history of that period, without disregarding the European dimension of the Holocaust. This investigation should include the experiences of victims, rescuers, perpetrators, collaborators, resisters, and bystanders and should explore how far each of these has been incorporated into your local, regional, or national memory and historical narratives.
If you live in a country that was one of the Allied powers or one that was neutral during World War II, encourage your students to re-examine your national narrative of this period. Why did countries not take in more refugees during the 1930s and 1940s? Why did the Allies not make saving Jews one of their war aims? Could more have been done to save the Jews of Europe?
Ask your students to participate in and reflect upon national and local traditions of commemoration and remembrance
Events such as Holocaust Memorial Days provide opportunities for intergenerational projects, encourage discussion among family members of related contemporary issues, and facilitate other forms of community learning.
As well as enabling learning about the Holocaust to move from the classroom into the local community, such occasions can themselves become subject to investigation and learning. Students might be asked to consider how cultural influences shape memory and memorials, how their community chooses to reflect on its past, how different groups select from history and construct their own narratives, whether their nation addresses difficult aspects of its national history, and how such commemorations differ from those in other countries.
Select appropriate learning activities and avoid using simulations that encourage students to identify with perpetrators or victims
Although empathetic activities can be very effective techniques for interesting young people in history by highlighting human experience and responses to events in the past, great care needs to be taken in selecting such activities when approaching such a sensitive subject as the Holocaust.
It may be useful, for example, for students to take on the role of someone from a neutral country, responding to these events: a journalist writing an article for her newspaper about the persecution of the Jews; a concerned citizen writing to her political representative; or a campaigner trying to mobilise public opinion. Such activities can be good motivators of learning and also highlight possible courses of action that students may take about events that concern them in the world today.
Teachers need to be aware, however, that some young people might overidentify with the events of the Holocaust, be excited by the power and even the "glamour" of the Nazis, or demonstrate a morbid fascination for the suffering of the victims. Here lies the danger of creative writing or role-play exercises that encourage students to imagine they were directly involved in the Holocaust. Using the creative expression of students in a cross-curricular approach can be worthwhile, but teachers should be clear in their aims. Often "empathetic exercises" are in poor taste and pedagogically flawed because it is impossible for us really to be able to imagine-except in the most superficial sense-what it would feel like to be in circumstances so far removed from our own life experience.
Such techniques also pale alongside the genuine empathy many students are able to experience on encountering personal stories, case studies, and survivor testimony.
Avoid legitimising the denial of the past
Holocaust denial is ideologically motivated. The deniers' strategy is to sow seeds of doubt through deliberate distortion and misrepresentation of the historical evidence. Teachers should be careful not to unwittingly legitimise the deniers through engaging in a false debate.
Care must be taken not to give a platform for deniers-do not treat the denial of the Holocaust as a legitimate historical argument or seek to disprove the deniers' position through normal historical debate and rational argument.
Many teachers believe, however, that the phenomenon of Holocaust denial must be explored with their students, either because their young people raise the question themselves or because teachers are concerned that their students might come across these views later in life and be unprepared for the deniers' rhetorical techniques and their ability to confuse or mislead.
If this is the case, then Holocaust denial should be treated separately from the history of the Holocaust. It might be relevant to a separate unit on how forms of antisemitism have evolved over time or as a media studies project exploring the manipulation, misrepresentation, and distortion employed by groups for political, social, or economic ends.
Be aware of the potential and also the limitations of all instructional materials, including the Internet
Carefully evaluate the historical accuracy of all instructional materials. Antisemitism, homophobia, and anti-Gypsy feeling are widespread in many societies and may be present in your classroom. Be aware that such prejudices might exist among your students, and be careful when choosing instructional materials that through the reproduction of Nazi propaganda and atrocity photographs they do not unwittingly reinforce negative views of the victims. Ensure that your instructional materials include personal stories and case studies that challenge and subvert negative stereotypes of the victim groups.
In addition to printed materials, the Internet is potentially a valuable educational and research tool. However, teachers need to be careful in their use of the Internet because a very large number of seemingly plausible sites are written and maintained by Holocaust deniers and antisemites. Teachers should warn young people about this phenomenon, making them aware that some search engines can produce unreliable results and helping students identify legitimate and authoritative sites.
Teachers should emphasise the need to critically evaluate all sources of information and to consider the context in which the information was produced. Encourage students to ask questions such as the following: Who wrote the information? What is the purpose of the Web site? Is there an agenda? If so, how does this affect the selection and presentation of information?
Recommend authoritative sites that you have vetted. The Web sites of the organisations listed in the International Directory could be a useful starting point, and each will have links to other reputable sites.
Distinguish between historical and contemporary events and avoid ahistorical comparisons
For many educators a key motivation for teaching about the Holocaust is that it can sensitise young people to examples of injustice, persecution, racism, antisemitism, and other forms of hatred in the world today. The Holocaust is often seen as a moral touchstone, a paradigm of evil. Although learning such universal lessons can be an important part of studying the Holocaust, students should also understand the differences between events, recognising the particular as well as the universal.
Today there is a tendency to use the term "holocaust" as shorthand for all manner of terrible events, atrocities, and human tragedies. This trend is partly because of the limitations of language to adequately describe such events and partly because of a lack of information and understanding about the history of the Holocaust. Unfortunately, through overuse the term "holocaust" has sometimes become trivialised or even corrupted, and the misappropriation of that term risks diminishing the crimes of the Nazis through false comparisons.
Learning about the Holocaust can lead young people to make useful comparisons with the modern world: human rights violations that happened under the Nazis (especially those that occurred during the pre-war period) may well be comparable with modern examples of prejudice, discrimination, and persecution.
Genocide, however, is clearly and fundamentally different and distinct from the loss of civil rights. Of course, there have been other examples of genocide and it is legitimate to ask, for example, what are the similarities and differences between the Holocaust and the genocide in Rwanda. But students should be clear that not all tragic events constitute genocide and should beware of making false comparisons.
Guard against superficial comparisons or the impression that we can decide upon our course of action today by simple reference to past events. We live in complex times and do our students a disservice if they believe that the lessons from history are so clear that they offer easy solutions in the present.
Be responsive to the concerns of your students
Students who feel that the suffering of their own people or group has not been addressed may be resistant to learning about the persecution and murder of others. It is important to study other histories of racism, enslavement, persecution, or colonialism that are particularly relevant to your student body.
Some teachers are concerned that teaching the Holocaust may enflame young people who falsely equate the suffering of Jewish people under Nazi persecution with Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories. But this is not a reason for avoiding teaching about the Holocaust.
Although one may hope that learning about the Holocaust might sensitise students to examples of injustice, persecution, prejudice, and violations of human rights today, teachers should guard against a politicisation of history and an appropriation of the Holocaust to further some campaigning agenda.
Teachers must be sensitive to the feelings and opinions of students on issues of real concern to them. Teachers should be prepared to examine the causes of conflict in the modern world, and young people should be given opportunities to discuss these issues openly. But care must be taken to clearly distinguish between different conflicts, and the causes and nature of each.
Of course we want our young people to become active and engaged members of society. But using the example of the Holocaust to encourage such positive attitudes may be counterproductive and lead to feelings of helplessness if students are not given opportunities to discuss how they may respond to issues of interest to them. Build time into your scheme of work to explore together with your students methods of legitimate and peaceful action that are available to them on issues of interest to them.


Welcome to the first week of class in the course: Basic Introduction to Game Design. Make sure to read the syllabus and course information before you continue. Today, we are going to discuss the role of a game designer when completing a game and find out a little more about what game design actually is. This text follows closely from our textbooks (Game Design Workshop, Chapter 1 and Challenges for Game Designers, Chapter 1). Before we get started right away, let me point you to a series of helpful videos called Extra Credits as well. They tackle many interesting game development issues in their videos that are educational and often fun to watch as well. The one below discusses what you need to become a game designer. I highly recommend the videos on their channel if you want to find out more about game development. They have lots of information there and complement this course nicely.
Game designers craft the core mechanics of a game. This means that they are responsible for deciding how games work when the player starts playing them. Most importantly, game designers create rules. These rules govern how games work. Even for non-digital games, like board and card games, we cannot play those games without following a rule set. The rules of games guide how players achieve goals. Often, goals and rules are tied to more complex procedures that all together generate the content of gameplay.
Depending on the size of the development team, game designers can also be involved in creating the narrative structure (i.e., the drama and story that players experience in a game) of a game. Game designers are often the creative hub of game development. They help the game development team communicate and ensure that the vision of the gameplay experience is maintained throughout all developmental iterations of the game.
As the above video from Extra Credits points out, game designers help, for example, the artists and programmers in a team share a vision even when they are not sharing a common vocabulary (which is often the case in game development). This is also partially why game development is such an exciting profession to be working in, because highly technical and highly creative people work together on creating something very unique: a video game.
“A good game is a series of interesting choices.” (Sid Meier)
(See Chris Bateman’s article for a critique and reference of the above quote.) Many people see games (and the activity of gaming) as a creative form of self-expression and art that can deeply move people. At the heart of good gameplay is an engaging player experience, which is often governed by the meaningful decisions of a player. Rules and goals only go so far, if a player is not motivated enough to reach them. The decision-making part of a game is where a game designer’s skill is most likely seen during gameplay.
Think about it. Even in first-person shooters, where you think the goal is most often straightforward (e.g., “kill the enemies before they kill me”), there are many little second-by-second decisions involved, such as where to move, whether to take cover or to shoot or whether or not you can use the environment (e.g., the now omnipresent exploding barrels) to wreak havoc on your digital enemies. For example, in the screenshot above, not only do you have to make the regular duck, cover, move, or shoot decisions, but the game also clearly outlines your goals at a particular moment. In the example, the player is hurt and the goal should be to get to cover (the game helps you in decision-making here), but there is also the imminent attack from the helicopter requiring you to “press 4” to use your predator drone for a counter attack. The fun of gameplay in this moment is to make the right decisions in the proper sequence (threreby becoming meaningful to the player) to move past those “goals of the moment” and to advance further into the game.
When we play games, we experience these moments. However, as we move from being players of games toward becoming designers of games in this class, we need to become able to break these experiences down into their components, structure, goals and rules. Game design is essentially about creating player experiences. Therefore, good game design should be centered on players. Both of our textbooks refer to this approach as player-centric game design. In the development process of a game, this means that you will need to get feedback early from people playing your game prototypes to improve them as you continue development. Great games are focused on great player experiences.
Being an advocate for your players
Our textbook author, Tracy Fullerton, describes the process of experiencing gameplay through the eyes of a potential player of your game as being an advocate for the player. You always have to imagine how the player will understand and interpret your game. The further you go into the development of your game, the harder this will become as you become more infatuated with your game design ideas. Keep in mind that once you start programming structures of your game, things will get much harder to change. With all the other content that makes up games, like fancy graphics, stories and special effects, it is sometimes easy to forget that players won’t play your game unless your gameplay works for them. Simple things that your players will need to understand about your game within the first couple of minutes are the following:
- How do I play? What actions are necessary to play this game? What am I doing?
- How do I win or lose? How does a round or the entire game end?
- What are my objectives? Why do I want to play this?
- What is the game about? Is there a setting, story or meaning to this?
Each minor decision a player makes during gameplay will affect the experience they are having in one way or another. In the context of board games, this is even more visible, since decisions are often made to advance strategically against other players and can have social consequences after play is over. Our other textbook refers to the way that game designers create meaning by letting players exercise choices in the following:
“Whenever the player is allowed to exercise choice in a game and that choice affects the outcome of the game, then designers are creating meaning.” (Ian Schreiber, Brenda Romero)
Some decisions have no alternatives though (such as rolling the dice in some board games), so there is no player choice in these. Rules like this still advance the game, but unless there are other meaningful choices in the game, a game can quickly become boring and its “replay value” will go down. As a game designer, our role is to keep things interesting for the player and make sure our rules allow players to make decisions that they will find engaging.
It is critical to test your game continuously during development with people that are not you and not your development team. While, especially at the start of a game development project, you might still be able to test your game to some degree for the functionality of features, as you go deeper into development this will become much harder. So, you will need playtesters. These are people that play your game and give you feedback on their experience, which you can check against your design goals. This way you make sure that your design works as intended. You often even learn a lot already by simply watching people play your game and taking notes (yes, you always need to take notes). The earlier you involve playtesters in the development of your game, the easier it is to keep implementing changes and help steer the development of the game in the right direction early on.
“In some ways, designing a game is like being the host of a party.” (Tracy Fullerton)
Being a good game designer is more about getting everything ready for the player to control rather than having full control over everything. This is how game designer differs substantially from movie directors, for example. Movie directors have (to some degree) great creative control over how an audience perceives their films. However — games being dynamic systems — game designers have to relinquish control over their games, because the players have to be in control of shaping their own experience. As the above quote states, you can prepare all the necessary tidbits for your party, but you won’t know how the party actually plays out until your guests start arriving. You can set all the pieces in place, make sure your rules work and your objectives are clear, but in the end the experience only unfolds when the player starts controlling your game. The more you playtest, the closer you come to getting the results you have envisioned.
The passions and skills of a game designer
Game designers usually love playing games, but not just for personal entertainment. They see games as systems and structures. They want to be able to break them down into processes and actions. Playtesting a game just one time might still seem like fun, but when you are playing the same part of a level over and over again, you will soon see how much dedication is necessary to become a game designer. You will start looking for inconsistencies in the design for long periods of time, but luckily you have playtesters to help you as well. In addition, our textbook mentions several other core skills for game designers:
- Communication. You need to be able to communicate your creative vision clearly. You need to sell your game. This also means you will need to learn to write and present properly to captivate other people with your ideas. But as Jesse Schell also notes in his Art of Game Design book, you need to be a great listener to be a great game designer. Listening to the team and being able to synthesize their ideas and your creative vision is what makes the game a true collaborative product in the end.
- Teamwork. The game designer interacts closely with many people on the development team, channeling artists, programmers and producers to help them understand one another. Game design is a team effort and game designers ensure that everyone is able to contribute to the game.
- Process. Games are systems with lots of interdependent elements. Changing one element (e.g., to balance your game) might introduce many problems to another element. Understanding how this linked system works and being able to advocate a process of creating the game in all team members is core game design skill. Making sure to develop your game in small iterations and playtesting elements accordingly helps guide your development process. Being on top of this process is your job.
- Inspiration. Putting on different lenses to view the real world and its underlying system and relationships is another elementary skill. Investing money, romantic courtship, even life itself can be considered as systems that are similar to games. Trying to find the rules and challenges helps you understand these systems. Being able to deconstruct what inspires you will make you a better game designer.
- Becoming a better player. A better player does not refer to getting more skilled at playing (e.g., becoming a Dota 2 or LoL pro player). No, it means to be able to observe yourself during play and understanding your experiences. Understanding common patterns and elements in games will make you more game literate. If you understand how the game systems work in the games you are playing (i.e., how they create meaning), then you are on your way to create better games of your own.
- Creativity. Being able to find inspiration from other parts of your life is crucial for designing games. Many great game designers are inspired by all sorts of complex real-life systems (watch this video to see where Will Wright got his Sims inspiration from) and are able to channel this creativity. A good exercise for this is thinking back about your childhood and the games that you have played as a kid. Do you remember what was so engaging about them?
The player-centric game design process
As we discussed before, it helps you push your game from the initial concept to the final complete product when you always keep the player experience in mind. Every stage of game development should have some form of testing with real players (not with the development team) attached to it. For this you should decide on what experience you want your players to have right from the start.
What are your player experience goals?
Our textbook defines player experience goals as “goals that the game designer sets for the type of experience that players will have during the game. These are not features of the game but rather descriptions of the interesting and unique situations in which you hope players will find themselves.” (Fullerton, Game Design Workshop, page 12). So, essentially you have to ask yourself what you want your players to do and feel. Ideally, they should feel something about everything that they are doing or are able to do in the game. Actions and reactions create player experiences. If you game has a goal, such as “players win only if they all reach the end square together,” this is different from a player experience goal that could state “players have to collaborate to win the game.” Instead of focusing on your game’s features, try to focus on what your players are thinking and feeling when they play your game. What meaningful decisions would facilitate these thoughts and feelings?
The iterative development process
The word iteration in this context means that you do the same sequence of things over and over again until you feel that the product is complete enough for shipping. Our textbook outlines the sequence as follows: set player experience goals ? get idea or system ? formalize idea/system ? test idea/system again player experience goals ? evaluate results ? prioritize results ? if results are bad, go back to step one ? if results can be improved, modify and test again ? if results are positive, the process is done.
Your homework assignments
These homework assignments are taken out of your textbook: Game Design Workshop. All assignments are due in your Tutorials on Tuesday! There are two tutorial slots, each f0r 52 people max. Both are held in Simcoe J102, 2:10 pm — 3:30 pm and 3:40 pm — 5:00 pm. These homework assignments are worth 45 XP in total.
1) Become a playtester of a game
With all this talk of testing games, pick a game of your choosing and play it. Try to monitor yourself while playing. Make notes of what exactly you are doing and how you feel at different moments during gameplay. Create a full A4 page of detailed notes that break down your actions, attitude and performance in the game. Repeat this process (i.e., write another A4 page) with a friend that plays exactly the same game. Now, compare the two sets of notes. Write a couple of bullet points about what you have learned from this activity. Worth 15 XP max.
2) Start a game journal
Start a paper or digital journal (or optionally a blog and tweet the link @acagamic or add the link as a comment on this page). In this journal, describe more than just the features of the games that you play, explain in fine detail the choice that you are making during gameplay and then what you personally though and felt about these choices. What do you think are the underlying systems and game mechanics that facilitated those choices for you? Why do you think some of those game mechanics exist? Compare the moments of gameplay in the game that you are playing and investigate why one gameplay moment had a bigger impact on you than another one. Do this for at least one game and present this in the tutorial session. (Keep doing this for games throughout the term if you like. Here is an example of an older journal from Kevin Gan, a former student.) Worth 15 XP max.
Some quick tips if you choose to take the blog route
Avoid these common mistakes in your blogs. I see these every year and for students new to writing on the web. Check out this wonderful guide as well.
- Don’t ever underline something online unless it is a hyperlink! Emphasize word with bold fonts!
- Don’t use copyrighted images. Make sure to reference your images online. For educational purposes, some of it is fair use, but you want to make sure it is ok.
- Use bullet points, emphasis and paragraphs. Nobody wants to read your wall of text.
- If you are not sure how to do blogs at all, you don’t have to. It is ok to hand this assignment in on paper.
- Try to aim at about 1000 words for this analysis.
- Focus on analysis — nobody wants to read how much you like a game, we want a design breakdown. Focus on the elements of the game system.
- Make sure to keep the font reasonably large and easy-to-read, look out for readability. The very best system to write on the web these days is Medium, which has a fantastic editor and great layout of your text built right in. You can log in directly with your Twitter account with no extra credentials to make it even easier to use.
- If you are really interested in learning how to write well, I recommend reading the book Style: Toward Clarity and Grace from Joseph M. Williams.
3) Design a board game
This is a race-to-the-end game. You need to create a game on paper, in which you use a dice to advance fields. Your game needs to have a start and an end field. The objective of the game is to reach the end field. You should have a total of 25 fields. The rest is up to you. Design this game on paper and present it in the tutorial. How will your player move? What actions are you allowing your players in this game? Make sure to bring all materials needed to play your game on Tuesday. Keep things simple. Worth 15 XP max.
If you are going for that A+, you will want to read these.
Dear game students: read this right now. It’s an update to that other thing posted before that you had to read then. http://t.co/3qtQWqlAGf
— Ian Schreiber (@IanSchreiber) June 19, 2013
— Rob Shewaga (@Wabolas) September 17, 2014
- Chapter 1: The Role of the Game Designer (pp.3–28). Tracy Fullerton (2014). Game Design Workshop, 3rd Edition.
- Chapter 1: The Basics (pp. 1–24). Brenda Brathwaite and Ian Schreiber (2014). Challenges for Game Designers. Charles River Media.
- What are game mechanics? Daniel Cook (2006). Lost Garden.
- How I analyze a game. Raph Koster (2014). Raph Koster’s Website.
- Game Development: Harder Than You Think. Jonathan Blow (2004). ACM Queue.
- Gameplay Deconstruction: Elements and Layers. Paolo Tajè (2007). Game Career Guide.
- How to Become a Game Designer. Soren Johnson (2012). Soren Johnson’s Game Design Journal.
- The Legend of Zelda: Anatomy of a game. Troy Gilbert.
Some early feedback on Twitter and blogs from students
— jessé (@jessenym) September 10, 2014
— Ryan Henchey (@ryanh32) September 10, 2014
— Cody Chaplin (@Cody_Chaplin) September 10, 2014
— Darian (@DarianTse) September 9, 2014
— Brennan Root (@BigBigBubbles) September 9, 2014
— Bo Ouyang (@redbit0621) September 9, 2014
— Ryan Henchey (@ryanh32) September 9, 2014
— Ryan Henchey (@ryanh32) September 9, 2014
— Peter Termini (@Mango4Tango) September 9, 2014
— Jack Hamilton (@Triceratops_Rex) September 9, 2014
— Tyrone Sagarino (@TyroneSagarino) September 9, 2014
— Windlancer (@Windlancer1) September 9, 2014
— Spencer Dowie (@spencerdowie) September 9, 2014
— Deryk Thuss (@Deek2295) September 9, 2014
— Deryk Thuss (@Deek2295) September 9, 2014
— Shane Chan (@SMChan25) September 9, 2014
— Drew Terbrack (@Grandtitan19) September 9, 2014
— michael (@something139) September 9, 2014
— Cody Chaplin (@Cody_Chaplin) September 9, 2014
— Alexander Lagman (@AlecLagmar) September 9, 2014
— Nelly (@sheepishNel) September 9, 2014
— Kitty Running (@KittyRunning) September 9, 2014
— Ian Blackley (@iBlackley) September 9, 2014
— Curtis Rio Sewell (@CurtisRioSewell) September 9, 2014
— Actual Fiyah (@gDanoFire) September 9, 2014
— Vincent Ho (@MrVince329) September 9, 2014
— Shivam Sachdeva (@shivaramo) September 9, 2014
— Rylan Koroluk (@orderofgaming) September 9, 2014
— jessé (@jessenym) September 9, 2014
— Aidan Rockarts (@aidanrockarts) September 8, 2014
— Russell Sng (@R_Sng) September 8, 2014
— Mathooshan T. (@FireXfreak) September 7, 2014
— Sulojen (@Sulojen) September 8, 2014
— Andrew Wryghte (@OptimusK9) September 7, 2014
— Jordan Culver (@DawnDCXVI) September 7, 2014
— gabe ramsay (@Gabe_Ramsay) September 7, 2014
— Jack Hamilton (@Triceratops_Rex) September 7, 2014
— Liquid Forza (@Forzaroma11dg) September 6, 2014


The culture of Africa is varied and manifold, consisting of a mixture of countries with various tribes that each have their own unique characteristics. It is a product of the diverse populations that today inhabit the continent of Africa and the African Diaspora. African culture is expressed in its arts and crafts, folklore and religion, clothing, cuisine, music and languages. Expressions of culture are abundant within Africa, with large amounts of cultural diversity being found not only across different countries but also within single countries. Even though African cultures are widely diverse, it is also, when closely studied, seen to have many similarities. For example, the morals they uphold, their love and respect for their culture as well as the strong respect they hold for the aged and the important i.e. Kings and Chiefs.
Africa has influenced and been influenced by other continents. This can be portrayed in the willingness to adapt to the ever-changing modern world rather than staying rooted to their static culture. The Westernized few, persuaded by European culture and Christianity, first denied African traditional culture, but with the increase of African nationalism, a cultural recovery occurred. The governments of most African nations encourage national dance and music groups, museums, and to a lower degree, artists and writers.
Africa is divided into a great number of ethnic cultures. The continent's cultural regeneration has also been an integral aspect of post-independence nation-building on the continent, with a recognition of the need to harness the cultural resources of Africa to enrich the process of education, requiring the creation of an enabling environment in a number of ways. In recent times, the call for a much greater emphasis on the cultural dimension in all aspects of development has become increasingly vocal. During the Roman colonization of North Africa,(parts of Algeria, Libya, Egypt and the whole of Tunisia) provinces such as Tripolitania became major producers of food for the republic and the empire, this generated much wealth in these places for their 400 years of occupation. During colonialism in Africa, Europeans possessed attitudes of superiority and a sense of mission. The French were able to accept an African as French if that person gave up their African culture and adopted French ways. Knowledge of the Portuguese language and culture and abandonment of traditional African ways defined one as civilized.Kenyan social commentator Mwiti Mugambi argues that the future of Africa can only be forged from accepting and mending the sociocultural present. For Mugambi, colonial cultural hangovers, pervasive Western cultural inundation, and aid-giving arm-twisting donors are, he argues, here to stay and no amount of looking into Africa's past will make them go away. However, Maulana Karenga states:
Our culture provides us with an ethos we must honor in both thought and practice. By ethos, we mean a people's self-understanding as well as its self-presentation in the world through its thought and practice in the other six areas of culture. It is above all a cultural challenge. For culture is here defined as the totality of thought and practice by which a people creates itself, celebrates, sustains and develops itself and introduces itself to history and humanity
— Maulana Karenga, African Culture and the Ongoing Quest for Excellence
African arts and crafts
Main article: African art
Africa has a rich tradition of arts and crafts. African arts and crafts find expression in a variety of woodcarvings, brass and leather art works. African arts and crafts also include sculpture, paintings, pottery, ceremonial and religiousheadgear and dress. Maulana Karenga states that in African art, the object was not as important as the soul force behind the creation of the object. He also states that All art must be revolutionary and in being revolutionary it must be collective, committing, and functional.
Certain African cultures have always placed emphasis on personal appearance and jewelry has remained an important personal accessory. Many pieces of such jewelry are made of cowry shells and similar materials. Similarly, masks are made with elaborate designs and are an important part of some cultures in Africa. Masks are used in various ceremonies depicting ancestors and spirits, mythological characters and deities.
In many traditional arts and craft traditions in Africa, certain themes significant to those particular cultures recur, including a couple, a woman with a child, a male with a weapon or animal, and an outsider or a stranger. Couples may represent ancestors, community founder, married couple or twins. The couple theme rarely exhibit intimacy of men and women. The mother with the child or children reveals intense desire of the women to have children. The theme is also representative of mother mars and the people as her children. The man with the weapon or animal theme symbolizes honor and power. A stranger may be from some other tribe or someone from a different country, and more distorted portrayal of the stranger indicates proportionately greater gap from the stranger. (HI)
Folklore and religion
See also: African traditional religions and Religion in Africa
Like all human cultures, African folklore and religion represents a variety of social facets of the various cultures in Africa. Like almost all civilizations and cultures, flood myths have been circulating in different parts of Africa. Culture and religion share space and are deeply intertwined in African cultures. In Ethiopia, Christianity and Islam form the core aspects of Ethiopian culture and inform dietary customs as well as rituals and rites. According to a Pygmy myth, Chameleon, hearing a strange noise in a tree, cut open its trunk and water came out in a great flood that spread all over the land.
Folktales also play an important role in many African cultures. Stories reflect a group cultural identity and preserving the stories of Africa will help preserve an entire culture. Storytelling affirms pride and identity in a culture. In Africa, stories are created by and for the ethnic group telling them. Different ethnic groups in Africa have different rituals or ceremonies for storytelling, which creates a sense of belonging to a cultural group. To outsiders hearing an ethnic group's stories, it provides an insight into the community's beliefs, views, and customs. For people within the community, it allows them to encompass their group's uniqueness. They show the human desires and fears of a group, such as love, marriage, and death. Folktales are also seen as a tool for education and entertainment. They provide a way for children to understand the material and social environment. Every story has a moral to teach people, such as good will prevail over evil. For entertainment, stories are set in fantastic, non-human worlds. Often, the main character of the story would be a talking animal or something unnatural would happen to human character. Even though folktales are for entertainment, they bring a sense of belonging and pride to communities in Africa.
There are different types of African stories: animal tales and day-to-day tales. Animal tales more oriented towards entertainment, but still have morals and lessons to them. Animal tales are normally divided into trickster tales and ogre tales. In the animal tales, a certain animal would always have the same character or role in each story so the audience does not have to worry about characterization. The Hare was always the trickster, clever and cunning, while the Hyena was always being tricked by the Hare. Ogres are always cruel, greedy monsters. The messengers in all the stories were the Birds. Day-to-Day tales are the most serious tales, never including humor, that explained the everyday life and struggles of an African community. These tales take on matters such as famine, escape from death, courtship, and family matters, using a song form when the climax of the story was being told.
African stories all have a certain structure to them. Villagers would gather around a common meeting place at the end of the day to listen and tell their stories. Storytellers had certain commands to start and end the stories, "Ugai Itha" to get the audience's attention and begin the story, and "Rukirika" to signal the end of a tale. Each scene of a story is depicted with two characters at a time, so the audience does not get overwhelmed. In each story, victims are able to overcome their predators and take justice out on the culprit. Certain tools were used in African folktales. For example, idiophones, such as drums, were used to make the sounds of different animals. Repetition and call-back techniques in the form of prose or poem were also used to get the audience involved in the stories.
Main article: Clothing in Africa
Women's traditional clothes in Ethiopia are made from cloth called shemma and are used to make habesha kemis. The latter garment is basically cotton cloth, about 90 cm wide, woven in long strips which are then sewn together. Sometimes shiny threads are woven into the fabric for an elegant effect. Men wear pants and a knee-length shirt with a white collar, and perhaps a sweater. Men often wear knee-high socks, while women might not wear socks at all. Men as well as women wear shawls, the netela.
Zulus wear a variety of attire, both traditional for ceremonial or culturally celebratory occasions, and modern westernised clothing for everyday use. Traditional male clothing is usually light, consisting of a two-part apron (similar to a loincloth) used to cover the genitals and buttocks. The front piece is called the umutsha (pronounced Zulu pronunciation: [umtifash]), and is usually made of springbok or other animal hide twisted into different bands which cover the genitals. The rear piece, called the ibheshu[ibeːʃu], is made of a single piece of springbok or cattle hide, and its length is usually used as an indicator of age and social position; longer amabheshu (plural of ibheshu) are worn by older men. Married men will usually also wear a headband, called the umqhele[umǃʰɛle], which is usually also made of springbok hide, or leopard hide by men of higher social status, such as chiefs. Zulu men will also wear cow tails as bracelets and anklets called imishokobezi[imiʃoɠoɓɛːzi] during ceremonies and rituals, such as weddings or dances.
In the Muslim parts of Africa, daily attire also often reflects Islamic tradition.
Main article: African cuisine
The various cuisines of Africa use a combination of locally available fruits, cereal grains and vegetables, as well as milk and meat products. In some parts of the continent, the traditional diet features a preponderance of milk, curd and whey products. In much of tropical Africa, however, cow's milk is rare and cannot be produced locally (owing to various diseases that affect livestock). The continent's diverse demographic makeup is reflected in the many different eating and drinking habits, dishes, and preparation techniques of its manifold populations.
In Central Africa, the basic ingredients are plantains and cassava. Fufu-like starchy foods (usually made from fermented cassava roots) are served with grilled meat and sauces. A variety of local ingredients are used while preparing other dishes like spinach stew, cooked with tomato, peppers, chillis, onions, and peanut butter. Cassava plants are also consumed as cooked greens. Groundnut (peanut) stew is also prepared, containing chicken, okra, ginger, and other spices. Another favorite is Bambara, a porridge of rice, peanut butter and sugar. Beef and chicken are favorite meat dishes, but game meat preparations containing crocodile, monkey, antelope and warthog are also served occasionally.
The cuisine of the African Great Lakes region varies from area to area. In the inland savannah, the traditional cuisine of cattle-keeping peoples is distinctive in that meat products are generally absent. Cattle, sheep and goats were regarded as a form of currency and a store of wealth, and are not generally consumed as food. In some areas, traditional peoples consume the milk and blood of cattle, but rarely the meat. Elsewhere, other peoples are farmers who grow a variety of grains and vegetables. Maize (corn) is the basis of ugali, the East African version of West Africa's fufu. Ugali is a starch dish eaten with meats or stews. In Uganda, steamed, green bananas called matoke provide the starch filler of many meals.
In the Horn of Africa, the main traditional dishes in Ethiopian cuisine and Eritrean cuisine are tsebhis (stews) served with injera (flatbread made from teff,wheat, or sorghum), and hilbet (paste made from legumes, mainly lentil, faba beans). Eritrean and Ethiopian cuisine (especially in the northern half) are very similar, given the shared history of the two countries. The related Somali cuisine consists of an exotic fusion of diverse culinary influences. Varieties of bariis (rice), the most popular probably being basmati, usually serve as the main dish. Xalwo (halwo) or halva is a popular confection served during special occasions such as Eid celebrations or wedding receptions. After meals, homes are traditionally perfumed using frankincense (lubaan) or incense (cuunsi), which is prepared inside an incense burner referred to as a dabqaad. All food is served halal.
The roots of North African cuisine can be traced back to the ancient empires of North Africa, particularly in Egypt where many of the country's dishes and culinary traditions date back to ancient Egypt. Over several centuries traders, travelers, invaders, migrants and immigrants all have influenced the cuisine of North Africa. Most of the North African countries today have several similar dishes, sometimes almost the same dish with a different name (the Moroccan tangia and the Tunisian coucha are both essentially the same dish: a meat stew prepared in an urn and cooked overnight in a public oven), sometimes with a slight change in ingredients and cooking style. To add to the confusion, two completely different dishes may also share the same name (for example, a "tajine" dish is a slow-cooked stew in Morocco, whereas the Tunisian "tajine" is a baked omelette/quiche-like dish). There are noticeable differences between the cooking styles of different nations – there's the sophisticated, full-bodied flavours of Moroccan palace cookery, the fiery dishes of Tunisian cuisine, and the humbler, simpler cuisines of Egypt and Algeria.
The cooking of Southern Africa is sometimes called 'rainbow cuisine', as the food in this region is a blend of many culinary traditions, including those of the Khoisan, Bantu, European and Asian populations. Basic ingredients include seafood, meat products (including wild game), poultry, as well as grains, fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruits include apples, grapes, mangoes, bananas and papayas, avocado, oranges, peaches and apricots. Desserts may simply be fruit. However, there are some more western style puddings, such as the Angolan Cocada amarela, which was inspired by Portuguese cuisine. Meat products include lamb, as well as game like venison, ostrich, and impala. The seafood includes a wide variety such as crayfish, prawns, tuna, mussels, oysters, calamari, mackerel, and lobster. There are also several types of traditional and modern alcoholic beverages including many European-style beers.
A typical West African meal is heavy with starchy items, meat, spices and flavors. A wide array of staples are eaten across the region, including those of Fufu, Banku and Kenkey (originating from Ghana), Foutou, Couscous, Tô, and Garri, which are served alongside soups and stews. Fufu is often made from starchy root vegetables such as yams, cocoyams, or cassava, but also from cereal grains like millet, sorghum or plantains. The staple grain or starch varies region to region and ethnic group to ethnic group, although corn has gained significant ground as it is cheap, swells to greater volumes and creates a beautiful white final product that is greatly desired. Banku and Kenkey are maize dough staples, and Gari is made from dried grated cassavas. Rice-dishes are also widely eaten in the region, especially in the dry Sahel belt inland. Examples of these include Benachin from The Gambia and Jollof rice, a pan-West African rice dish similar to Arab kabsah.
See also: African popular music and Music of Africa
Traditional Sub-Saharan African music is as diverse as the region's various populations. The common perception of Sub-Saharan African music is that it is rhythmic music centered on the drums, and indeed, a large part of Sub-Saharan music, mainly among speakers of Niger–Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages, is rhythmic and centered on the drum. Sub-Saharan music is polyrhythmic, usually consisting of multiple rhythms in one composition. Dance involves moving multiple body parts. These aspects of Sub-Saharan music were transferred to the new world by enslaved Sub-Saharan Africans and can be seen in its influence on music forms as Samba, Jazz, Rhythm and Blues, Rock & Roll, Salsa, and Rap music.
Other African musical traditions also involve strings, horns, and very little poly-rhythms. Music from the eastern Sahel and along the Nile, among the Nilo-Saharan, made extensive use of strings and horns in ancient times. Dancing involve swaying body movements and footwork. Among the Khoisans extensive use of string instruments with emphasis on footwork.
Modern Sub-Saharan African music has been influenced by music from the New World (Jazz, Salsa, Rhythm and Blues etc.). Popular styles include Mbalax in Senegal and Gambia, Highlife in Ghana, Zoblazo in Côte d'Ivoire, Makossa in Cameroon, Soukous in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kizomba in Angola, and Mbaqanga in South Africa. New World styles like Salsa, R&B/Rap, Reggae, and Zouk also have widespread popularity.
Like the musical genres of the Nile Valley and the Horn of Africa, North African music has close ties with Middle Eastern music and utilizes similar melodic modes (maqamat). It has a considerable range, from the music of ancient Egypt to the Berber and the Tuareg music of the desert nomads. The region's art music has for centuries followed the outline of Arabic and Andalusian classical music. Its popular contemporary genres include the AlgerianRaï. Somali music is typically pentatonic, using five pitches per octave in contrast to a heptatonic (seven note) scale such as the major scale. In Ethiopia, the music of the highlands uses a fundamental modal system called qenet, of which there are four main modes: tezeta, bati, ambassel, and anchihoy. Three additional modes are variations on the above: tezeta minor, bati major, and bati minor. Some songs take the name of their qenet, such as tizita, a song of reminiscence.
Main article: Languages of Africa
The main ethno-linguistic divisions in Africa are Afro-Asiatic (North Africa, Horn of Africa), Niger–Congo (including speakers from the Bantu branch) in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, Nilo-Saharan in parts of the Sahara and the Sahel and parts of Eastern Africa, and Khoisan (indigenous minorities of Southern Africa). The continent of Africa speaks hundreds of languages, and if dialects spoken by various ethnic groups are also included, the number is much higher. These languages and dialects do not have the same importance: some are spoken by only few hundred people, others are spoken by millions. Among the most prominent languages spoken are Arabic, Swahili and Hausa. Very few countries of Africa use any single language and for this reason several official languages coexist, African and European. Some Africans speak various European languages such as English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, German and Dutch.
- ^"African Culture and People". About.com Travel. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
- ^Khair El-Din Haseeb et al., The Future of the Arab Nation: Challenges and Options, 1 edition (Routledge: 1991), p.54
- ^Halim Barakat, The Arab World: Society, Culture, and State, (University of California Press: 1993), p.80
- ^Tajudeen Abdul Raheem, ed., Pan Africanism: Politics, Economy and Social Change in the Twenty First Century, Pluto Press, London, 1996.
- ^"Education And Culture In Africa'S Quest For Development"(PDF). Retrieved 2015-10-14.
- ^Khapoya, op. cit. p. 126f
- ^African culture and the ongoing quest for excellence: dialog, principles, practice.: An article from: The Black Collegian : Maulana Karenga
- ^Richard Pankhurst, 1997, `History of the Ethiopian Borderlands: Essays in Regional History, Lawrenceville, New Jersey.
- ^Florence, Namulundah. The Bukusu of Kenya: Folktales, Culture and Social Identities. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic, 2011. Print.
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African societies, with their strong recognition of cultural traditions, face the deep problems that characterize a modern society, most of which are neither of their making nor even of their wishing. African societies and their cultures have undergone continual change as far back as history and prehistory can illumine, and their experience of several centuries of the overwhelming economic, military, social, and cultural power of colonial overrule has led to both changes and stagnation. Postcolonial "development" strategies, well-intentioned or not, have in many respects continued the effects of colonialism, through economic exploitation and financial indebtedness. In addition, Africa has been used by outside powers, especially during the cold war, as a surrogate battleground between these powers. Most postcolonial "economic development" has failed, owing to its being controlled by "experts" who have assumed that African societies are the same as those of industrialized nations and who are ignorant of the minute details of African cultures, social organization, and problems of local identity and purpose that lie below the level of the nation-state. Sadly, little progress has been made since the end of colonialism toward any real improvement in the lives of the ordinary people: instead, change has been at the level of the elites, who have taken charge of "modernization" and benefited from it. Nevertheless, African cultural traditions remain strong, and they are still capable of absorbing external influences and transforming them into their own.