{"id":30345,"date":"2013-07-25T15:47:24","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T15:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=30345"},"modified":"2020-05-20T15:54:13","modified_gmt":"2020-05-20T22:54:13","slug":"teachingsplash","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=30345","title":{"rendered":"Special Section: Beyond the Kool-Aid Reference: Teaching Jonestown and Peoples Temple"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"07-00-splash\"<\/a>
Photo obtained through
Freedom of Information Act<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every year, hundreds of thousands of students \u2013 whether they are in high school or college \u2013 will come into contact with the story of Peoples Temple and Jonestown in an academic setting for the first time in their lives. They may have heard about the 1000 Americans off in Guyana (or Ghana or Guinea) somewhere in South America (or was it Africa) who were in some cult \u2013 and they certainly are familiar with the expression, \u201cdrinking the Kool-Aid\u201d \u2013 but for teachers in history, sociology, psychology and religious studies who incorporate the subject into their curricula, the effort to make meaning out of a tragedy that doesn\u2019t seem to have anything to do with 21st-century American society, is a challenge.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, we asked a number of teachers to write about their various experiences in talking to their students about Jonestown, more than 30 years after the events of November 18, 1978. Their articles appear below.<\/p>\n

1. History Comes Alive: Jonestown in the Classroom<\/a>, by Rebecca Moore
\n2. Dip your toe in the water of Jonestown<\/a>, by Kimberly A. Adkins
\n3. Jonestown and Education<\/a>, by Craig Foreman
\n4. Teaching \u201cJonestown\u201d,<\/a> by Eugene V. Gallagher
\n5. \u201cComforting the Afflicted and Afflicting the Comfortable,\u201d<\/a> by Ted Henken
\n6. Teaching about Jonestown and Peoples Temple<\/a>, by Katherine Hill
\n7. Why Peoples Temple and Jim Jones?<\/a> by Professor G. Maynard
\n8. Understanding Undue Influence<\/a>, by Patrick O\u2019Reilly, Ph.D.
\n9. Reflections on Teaching about Jonestown<\/a>, by John R. Hall<\/p>\n

Additional articles in later years include:<\/p>\n

10. Thinking Critically about Jonestown<\/a>, by Kamilah Cummings (2014)<\/p>\n

11. Articles by David Mihalyfy<\/a><\/p>\n

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