Students begin to distinguish between the criteria or attributes pertaining to different concepts, such as, for example, war crimes, genocide, ethnocide, crimes against humanity, and realize that the borders of these concepts are often unclear. Categorization of different forms of evil, a process of demystification of evil, often undermines assumptions and beliefs, exposing students to the complex factors which contribute to different genocides. Now and then students find it so difficult or morally repulsive to analyze different forms of evil that they decide they cannot remain in the class. She felt that it was improper to delineate between different types of killing. However, most students come to understand and value the need to encounter and distinguish among the different categories of historic atrocity.
Personal background plays a crucial role in what teachers decide to teach.
Most teachers whose syllabi are included in this Guide wrote that they had some type of personal experience with prejudice or genocide, or professional work with human rights or refugee organizations. Both Ron Baker and Rhoda Howard state that their work with human rights organizations led them to become interested in knowing more about genocide. Clive Foss comments that in doing archeological research in historic Armenia he noted the lack of Armenians and determined to try to find out what actually happened. This generated a more general interest in the whole question of genocide. My own interest in understanding the Nazi genocide against Jews and Gypsies led me to develop courses on the Holocaust which included sections on the earlier genocide against the Armenians and to develop a course on comparative genocide.