New things

I am introducing an alternative process in a new way tomorrow.  I am using the work of a Holocaust survivor as the sample artist.  Before showing her work, I am using a photo activity from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM).  This is a big thing for me.  I am tired of hearing the kinds of ignorant comments I hear year after year.  Then, I see the students do not learn to think more compassionately or open-mindedly once they get to college.  I find that many adults are no better.  For instance, upon hearing that one of the candidates for super at my job is Jewish, the thoughts of some were that we might get Jewish holidays off. (!)  My first thought was that it would be an opportunity for the community and school to know someone who is not just like them.  (Yes, there are still people out there who are clueless when it comes to other beliefs.  Someday I will tell you about my neighbour).

We do have a class on the Holocaust and genocides, but I don't know that much of the stuff sinks in.  There are still so many kids who continue to use such hate-filled speech as they grow up.  The still stereotype.  They still generalize about populations.  I always feared touching on these types of things because I thought I could be misconstrued as being political.  However, our new evaluation system has markers for that type of education.  Fabulous opportunity!

When I went to the USHMM in DC this summer, I was prepared.  I had been to the Terror House museum in Budapest.  That museum is in the building that housed the fascist organizations responsible for many tortures and killings, even occurring in that building.  The presentation of the history from fascism's rise in Germany to the Soviet "rescue" of Hungary, to the eventual departure of all Soviet presence in Hungary was brutal.  The museum warns that it is not suitable for young children.  It shirks away from nothing.  As a visitor, you cannot avoid anything - images, audio, video, etc..

This is not what I experienced at the USHMM.  I found it way too easy to avoid the most moving, horrible stuff.  I watched as so many people walked right past some of the most upsetting, graphic video footage, photographs, writings, and audio.  There we were, the same 10 or so people taking it all in.  I kept encountering the same visitors all the time.  Just several of us really taking the time to learn and observe what was presented to us.  How many hundreds of others just breeze on through, day after day, just so they can check it off their lists, tell everyone they were there?  What a disgrace.

I know from talking to family who had been there when it opened that the floor arrangement and exhibits are laid out differently now.  I wish they could change the exhibits and flow of people so that the harder stuff could not be ignored.

I guess that's why I made sure I altered a project so that I could address this time frame.  It's like the kids really don't get it.  I want them to get it.