Tolerance

Yom Hashoah was remembered this week.  A day set aside to remember the victims of the Nazi genocide.  And a day to use as a learning moment.  My 8th grade social studies class is a wonderful group of students who might not have a care in the world.  Sure, with the current financial situation our nation is facing, some of these kids' parents are facing troubles.  But how to teach and tell about a situation that occurred over 60 years ago?  The Holocaust.  To some kids today it is a word, something in the history books.  How to impress on these young minds that holocausts are still happening in the world and that the victims are not just adults, but children of their ages and younger.  The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is perhaps one of the best and stirring celluloid telling of a Holocaust drama involving children.  It is not too graphic and the visuals are thought provoking.  Watching this film in social studies class is wonderful in that watching the students' reactions are priceless.  With a series of questions that will be answered in small group discussions, questions are already being asked.  Then, each student will have a small project based on the film- whether a poem or something artistic- to demonstrate an understanding of tolerance, friendship, prejudice and how to change the world into that better place each generation hopes for.  As the old saying goes, if we forget such atrocities, we're doomed to repeat them again...and we, as a race, will have learned nothing.