Human Rights

Lately, things have been a little crazy-kids are hyper, the roads have been a mess, and I'm trying to keep my energy up as the kids are winding down, getting prepared for summer.

I've been teaching a very heavy unit as part of my Grade 9 Social Studies class-human rights. I got the idea from a division that I used to work with, the largest in my province. Where they normally tackle human rights in eighth grade and the Holocaust in the ninth, I decided to combine the two. So in my human rights unit, we are covering the Holocaust, the assimilation of aboriginal children in Australia, and the residential schools here in Canada.

Many had never heard of the Holocaust, and those that had heard about it, still could not explain it. We started off with a word splash, followed by a Powerpoint Presentation. We watched the film, Schindler's List...and wow that was hard. I had watched it previously in the theatre when it first came out, but it was just as hard watching it again-maybe even harder being an adult watching it. I knew it would be hard for them and after the first day, I could see that it was getting to a few. A couple admitted it made them angry, and to that I replied, "good, you should be angry". My point? By feeling what they did, they were acknowledging the injustice done to the people. One of my favorite quotes is something like, "if you forget the past, you're condemned to repeating it", one that I shared with my students. I was pleased that the kids were understanding and recognizing the horrible things done to the Jewish people. I was even more pleased that when we finished the film, and I turned the lights on, quite a few of my students had wet eyes.

We started the brief unit on the assimilation of half caste aboriginal children in Australia, watching "Rabbit Proof Fence". Wow...what a film. It's based on a true story of three girls who are sent to residential school, and escape. They travel over 1500 miles to get back home. It's unbelievable. I haven't had a chance to discuss it with my students yet, but they were really into it.

We start the residential schools in Canada next and I think that's going to be hard. It's a lot for the kids to process-a lot for me to process. My method is not to be the teacher, but a facilitator, even a learner with my students. I have some amazing stuff that was sent to me by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and we have an elder coming in, one I mentioned earlier.

I'm really proud of these kids for recognizing the past injustices.