Teaching Genocide and Human Rights Education in Greater Minnesota Through Podcast
In 2023, Minnesota became the 23rd state to mandate genocide studies education for students in grades 6-12. This landmark decision not only required the topic to be incorporated into pre-college education, but also recognized the colonization and forced removal of Indigenous people from their homeland as a genocide. It soon became clear that many teachers, particularly in greater Minnesota, lacked the necessary resources and training to effectively teach this subject. That’s when the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS) stepped in.
Founded in 1997 at the University of Minnesota, CHGS is dedicated to providing the tools and critical frameworks necessary to understand and address the causes, consequences and memory of genocide and mass violence, including the Holocaust. A key component of its mission is equipping educators with the academic programming, research, and materials needed to teach these complex topics in the classroom.
When the implementation of the new education requirement began in 2023, CHGS Interim Director Joe Eggers and research assistant and history PhD candidate Tibisay Navarro-Mana noticed a disparity: while educators in the Twin Cities had easier access to resources for implementing the curriculum, teachers in outstate Minnesota did not. With the support of a Human Rights Initiative grant in 2022, CHGS planned to create a workshop series to bridge this gap. Eggers and Navarro-Mana quickly realized another challenge: teachers needed to be equipped with resources, but didn't have the time to attend in-person workshops. Rather than abandoning the project, Eggers and Navarro-Mana pivoted to a different approach—they started a podcast.
Big Concepts in Small Spaces, which officially launched on Spotify and iTunes in January 2025, is designed to make complex concepts more accessible to broader audiences, and engage high school students in conversations about human rights and genocide. While it wasn’t the original workshop the team had envisioned, the podcast offers a lasting and widely accessible resource for educators—not just in Minnesota but across the country—who are seeking guidance on how to navigate these weighty and complex discussions in their classrooms.
What sets this podcast apart from other podcasts which primarily focus on different perspectives around human rights, genocide, and mass violence, is that it discusses the historical and legal definitions of genocide with experts from the field. Eggers and Navarro-Mana aim to break down what genocide truly means and how it applies in various contexts. “We’re not here to debate current events or label what is and isn’t a genocide,” explains Eggers. “Rather, we want students to realize that genocide isn’t always black and white so they can fully understand the term and think critically about its application. Everyone is arguing, but are they using the same definition of genocide?”
With the support of HRI, Eggers and Navarro-Mana were able to successfully pivot from their original plans and launch the first season of Big Concepts in Small Spaces, which included four episodes on the history of human rights and genocide during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, the Genocide Convention, and education in the aftermath of genocide. In addition, they had an interview with a Rwandan genocide survivor who has dedicated his life to working with educators in Rwanda. Through their various networks and past work with educators, they have been able to publicize the podcasts to high school students across the country. Looking ahead, the two are excited about the podcast’s upcoming season featuring scholars from a variety of disciplines discussing the complexities that surround the definition of genocide.
“A workshop would have been great,” says Navarro-Mana, “but now we have something that lives forever.”
