Today was Remembrance Day ... a day set aside each year to ... remember ...
I'm teaching Elie Wiesel's novel 'Night' in my grade 12 class. For those of you who haven't read it, I highly recommend you run out right now, find yourself a copy, and sit down and spend the few hours it takes to read it.
The Holocaust. Fifteen year old Jewish boy. Hitler. Auschwitz. Devastation. Horrendous crimes. Your heart will break and you will shed a few tears.
It's amazing how many of my students have no idea what The Holocaust is ... or was. We talk about remembering but many of the students at Dene high don't know what they are remembering. They haven't been taught about World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Darfur, Rwanda, etc. It's not that they aren't interested because they are ... we (the teachers) just haven't taken the time to teach them. I'm at a crossroads. I'm beginning to believe that it's more important, or at least just as important, to teach novels like 'Night' that have some real historical significance. Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Browning, the Bronte sisters ... they all still have their place, just not necessarily here. Teachers complain that the students just aren't interested, but perhaps we're just not giving them material to be interested in.
It is also a sad commentary that the Saskatchewan Curriculum does not require a student to study history! They say it is important to know your past or you are doomed to repeat it; I hope that's not the way things are going. I loved history in school and I believe students today are just as interested in knowing about the way things used to be! I'm glad you are taking the time and making the choice to select materials that bring the past forward to the present.
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