I have discussed with other educators and given a lot of thought as to how appropriate it is to provide elementary school students with explicit information on war and the destruction and horrors it brings. However, although with some misgivings, I have come to the realization that violence is a fact of today's society (especially in poor urban centers) where children come into close contact with street violence related to gangs or crime in general. Additionally, due to mass-media information outlets and current world events, it is not unusual for anyone to watch people being killed and blown up into pieces while viewing the 6 o'clock news. Thus, I find it important that issues of war, (not the explicit showing of people blown to pieces, burned beyond recognition, death, famine, etc.) be given a context so that our students may begin to understand that war, opened arm conflicts, and ethnic violence do take place in the XXIst century. If nothing else, the lessons in this unit will provide students with opportunities to voice their opinions and fears regarding street violence and the images with which children come into contact.
Few of our students have a clear sense what a real war means and its consequences are, other than through brief television accounts. However, this country, being a humanitarian nation, opens its doors to many of the refugees of world conflicts in which it finds itself involved as a superpower. Thus, students and families, the descendants of war-torn regions, make up our classrooms. It is these children and their families who really have a clear sense of what it is to live in inhuman conditions, having found themselves in the middle of armed conflicts. But this unit is not really intended for them specifically. It is mostly intended for those students who have experienced the horrors and humiliations of war in front of a television set, through radio, or newspaper accounts. For the later, I attempt to open students' eyes to understanding not only the consequences of people and nations going to war, but also the importance of knowing whose side of the story is being narrated and how.
For those who have personally felt, either directly or indirectly, the effects of war and political and civilian unrest, this unit attempts to make them become critical thinkers, while encouraging them to tell their side of the history. It is through these accounts that we can begin to understand the real effects and consequences of war torn areas, as difficult as the retellings might be. As the poem by Bertolt Brecht
Questions From a Worker Who Reads
suggests,
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Did he not have even a cook with him?
So many reports.
So many questions.
We need our students to begin to ask who was behind either side. Our students need to be taught to recognize that often there is another side, which often is not told and look further beyond what is presented.
As a teacher, in close daily contact with young students, I find the explicit teaching of conflict and problem resolution a necessity in the classroom. The negative effects that bullying has on children have been brought to everyone's attention. This is so important that all school districts in the state of Connecticut are mandated to include an anti-bullying curriculum. We need to be able to provide our students with opportunities to solve their own problems without adult mediation by providing them with the skills for successful resolution . The analogy of today's classroom is that of the United Nations or the World International Court. The role of the teacher is to mediate and keep peace between two sovereign nations or as peacemaker between two ethnic groups or countries unable to do so alone.
This unit additionally focuses on the ethnic conflicts between the Basque country and France and Spain. I begin by stating that labels of "winners" and "losers" have connotations which hide the truth by not only their simplicity, but by attempting to minimize armed conflict into different sides of morality, demonizing the enemy and thus justifying the atrocities committed against innocent civilians. What happened in Guernica in 1937, the ancient Basque capital, is but one of the earliest examples of the first time a civilian population was intentionally bombed. I highlight the Basque conflict, as I look for parallels to classroom and school situations where students can be made active participants to these current conflicts.
Can we as teachers offer our students a view of the horrors of wars at the same time we study ways that can help decrease tensions before they escalate into something bigger both in the classroom and out of the classroom? Three stories by Dr. Seuss come to mind to explore nonviolent situations to solve conflicts, which are presented to the students as a way to contextualize further discussions on war and peace.