US Army executions of Sioux civilians, followed by burial in a mass grave (Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1890).
How will you incorporate atrocities and human suffering in your curriculum? How (Should?) will you use these events / patterns as a way to teach justice and morality?Is there a set of universal truths, standards, or laws that you will use to help your students analyze these topics?
11 comments:
I think that it's very important to teach the atrociities and human suffering that is in history and even takes place today. There are several chances in the history curriculum to incorportate the teaching of these events, such as theh holocaust, Rwandan genocide, the dealings with the American Indians, and other such events.
I will use these events to teach my students what things have happened and use the events to examine why they happened. From there we can have discussions about the justice of the event(s) and the morality of the event(s). The set of "universal standards" that I would used to guide discussion and for analyzing these topics would be the basic human rights. I realize that there are some discrepancies about what these rights are, but generally they are widely accepted.
I think that it is important that students know that atrocities and devastating events in history are not just movie made, it is important that students understand that the world is not as peaceful as we like to make it. It is also imperative that students understand the context that the events happened in, and develop for themselves an understanding of why this may have occurred.
I think that these subjects definitely should be taught in a way that shows students how awful the event was, but also to learn form the ignorance and hatred that often is associated with the event. In the event of the Holocaust the students should be presented with the justice that was served after the war, but also they should be questioning whether the war trials were effective in issuing that justice or if it was all just to save face? This is an important aspect in the way that presents them the facts of the situation. I would have to agree with Melissa in that using universal standards of what human rights are violated in these atrocities is the best standards to use for the situation.
When presented with this senario, the first thing that I thought about was the way that this information was presented to me. Both of these subjects are interesting and equally horrifiying. Even more difficult is thinking about how to apply these instances in the right context, with the best information, that is as least biased as possible. However, thinking about someone giving a dramatic rendition of the star spangled banner, portraying our country as a fantastic spotless place opportunity and then thinking about the horrifying deeds commited by U.S. army personel, it's difficult not to be left with a sour, even bitter aftertaste.
I think that we can easily be mislead and have biased oppinions formed for us if we don't learn how to inspect situations like these. Yes, America seems to be a good country, yes, there is the issue of time and the values that change over time. Still, doing a good job of oppinion forming by looking at all the evidence is so vital.
From the perspective of the classroom, each of these instances should be taught in a semi isolated fassion to alow at first focus on the main issue, but then a widened view to see issues in perspective. So using evidence to form a good base of knowledge and then reffering back to the morals that are known to man as good would probably be a good methodic way of approaching contrasting, yet similar instances such as these.
The moral stance is an interesting one because whose morals are you teaching? Atrocities, including those committed by the United States need to be taught to students in the classroom. If they are not addressed not only would we be portraying an inaccurate history in many ways, but we would also lose the opportunity to understand the mistakes and work to rectify and avoid them in the future.
I think Dr. Nichols had an interesting comment in class about not viewing history through our 21st century lenses. I think we have probably all asked ourselves, would I have recognized the messiah? Would I have been a part of the Underground Railroad? Would I have hid Jews in Nazi Germany? We would each like to answer yes to that question, but we honestly don’t know what we would have done. However, while this might bring clarity to the subject/event it does not make it acceptable.
I struggle with how to discuss more recent events- events that may have included students’ family members etc. How do we acknowledge our mistakes, even work towards reform while still being sensitive to personal feelings? Should we even be sensitive?
I definitely plan on incorporating atrocities and human suffering into my curriculum. Unfortunately a lot of history is based on atrocities-- however i would also like to focus on positive events in my classroom. Although the wars and injustices make the front page, there are also positive people and events in history that are important to discuss as well. As for the atrocities, I want to be sure that I am not just focusing on atrocities of other countries. A false sense of patriotism fueled by skewed information in social studies is very dangerous. It is important to point out that America is not perfect and the mistakes that our country has made should be discussed.
As for a set of universal truths, it is obviously inappropriate to impose my Christian views on the events that we are discussing in my classroom, however many Christian values are simply universal standards of placing value on individuals' lives. Therefore I think that applying these truths in teaching justice and morality should be fairly natural.
In response to Kim, I think it is absolutely ESSENTIAL for us to be sensitive to those students with family members affected by certain events or their feelings towards the events. This shows the students that we respect them and their personal feelings, and i think this respect will really improve the dynamic of the classroom.
When Kim wrote "Would I have been a part of the Underground Railroad? Would I have hid Jews in Nazi Germany? We would each like to answer yes to that question, but we honestly don’t know what we would have done." It got me thinking that an interesting activity would be to have students write first about why they would not have been a part of a given atrocity, then have them write about why they would have been a part of the atrocity (maybe in the form of a letter to a relative defending or explaining their choice). This would necessitate an understanding of the context of the situation not only historically, but socially and culturally. How could normal people allowed six million Jews die or allow hundreds to be drowned as witches? Lets examine the situation and find out! yay!
This would also serve as a means to discuss morality and justice. Are atrocities necessary, unavoidable, or condonable in some situations and not others? Are the deaths of 120,000 Japanese civilians outweighed by the potential deaths of American soldiers and the need to make the first bold move in the game of chess that was the Cold War?
Many important contributions - all around. One thing that I think ought to be brought up, which KPetrick somewhat alluded to, is how we can learn from these events to prevent atrocities in the future. Or in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt (who was heavily involved in the creation of the UN Declaration of Human Rights): "When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?"
Ashley had cautioned: "A false sense of patriotism fueled by skewed information in social studies is very dangerous." A very good point. In Turkey, for example, it is considered a crime against "Turkishness" to publicly claim that Turkey committed a genocide against Armenians in WW 1. If we do not reckon with our own country's sins, we may continue to perpetrate the same crimes. It has been argued that the denial of genocide is an extension of the genocide itself.
I won't say too much, because for the most part I would be repeating what has already been said by everyone.
I would certainly want to present atrocities and human suffering in my classroom. In my own experience, my teachers did a fairly good job at covering atrocities/suffering that happened in the more distant past than more recently. This could be, like Kim pointed out, because students (and teachers) still know people who were directly involved in these events.
I believe that while these atrocities should be shown, the teacher needs to play a large role in setting up the situation. Particularly if the event is being shown through a movie, I think the teacher needs to create the right environment and attitude in the classroom, and rememeber that when dealing with such sensitive issues, students will react in very different ways.
Atrocities and human suffering should be just as much a part of the history curriculum as the proud events in our nation's history are. We must understand that for every narrative of progress in our nation's history very often there was an exploited class as well. A history teacher would be failing their students to not offer a balanced representation of history in this regard.
I plan to present both sides of every issue, and have the students discuss and use critical thinking to determine the positives and negatives and values of every situation. If a major point of history education is to prevent the past from happening again we must understand what happened in the past to prevent it from happening again. I also want my students to connect a person with the events in question. I will provide primary sources and attempt to use relevant pictures, movies and literature to show them that real people went through these events, not just a faceless man. Human rights as established by the geneva convention and some standards of humanism would be involved in my guiding principals. The golden rule never hurts as well.
Re Jesse: Your activity would be very interesting for the classroom setting. It would allow students to look at life through both vantage points and grant them a deeper understanding of the conflict. If students would up however ultimately agreeing with the Germans in the Holocaust or those that drowned witches would you challange them? Is it the job of the educator to provide that scaffolding?
Re ashley: I agree that we must not focus all of the attention onto negatives, however I also don't believe we should simply accept "possitive" people withouth through investigation. Many of even our own founding fathers are not nearly as "positive" as soon as the spot light of nationalism has been turned off them.
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