Teaching War?

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

This post has been smoldering since our last meeting. As things were winding down, Clay mentioned he didn't "teach war much". While I didn't think about it much at the time, as I was doing some advance lesson planning, looking at the 7th grade curriculum, was is pretty much a big part of the human story. In other discussions with teachers, I've heard similar statements, usually along the line of "I don't glorify war." In our current world it would be hard to glorify war. I have a couple of friends who are in Iraq - I know they don't think it's glorious. Maybe if those we teach realize what is involved, what war is like, they might be able to prevent further conflicts. Of course, there are millions of others who need the same lessons. When I taught 10th grade history, I made sure I covered WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam. I showed my classes (with parental permission of course) "Schlinder's List" and the invasion portion of "Saving Private Ryan". I wanted them to understand, to visualize as much as possible, what that war was really about.

War brings out the worst and best in mankind. Maybe the kids need to know all they can.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Mr. Pastor. We leave the glorification part to politicians. They do a better job in that regard, and they don't need our help.
And you know what? showing the movies you mentiond does not tell one hundredth of the ugliness of war. Only when one sees his brother's guts on the ground being eaten by wild dogs with millions of flies around it, or if one tries to pick up pieces of his best friend's body parts and put them in a plastic bag, he might feel only a little of it.
I'm sorry, I hope I did not upset anyone. I just felt like I had to share some of my flashbacks to help getting a better picture of what war is like.

[Anonymous]

As a sixth grade ancient civilizations teacher, I try to provide students with as many perspectives as possible. What has worked for you in teaching about war? Although these civlizations were plagued with war and skirmishes, I have trouble getting the kids to connect. Is this a lost cause or am I missing the point? Any techniques or suggestions? I don't have too many videos that have recreations of wars from ancient times.

jem

[Anonymous]

jem,

in the sixth grade curricula, i focus less on the fights than what is fought over. water, land, resources; power in general. teach the princilples and let them figger it out. with esl students in the past, i gave them prompts to make a skit like, "you're an early human hunter-gatherer. there's a new band of about 35 humans crossing your territory and hunting there. they've disrupted your daily life. What do you do?" Then, after they understood, they wrote a little play. they had to cover the problem, their response and the consequence in the play. it was cool.

dan

[Anonymous]

One thing I have been doing is posting daily updates of the American (USA) casualties over in Iraq. During the course of the day, I will check the computer for updates. My students don't know when I will check, so throughout the day, kids will pop their head in the room to look. Or they get quiet when I walk over to the board to update. We have had discussions about war, how it has evolved (for lack of a better word) and how it isn't like what they see in video games / movies. Slowly, my students have been grasping the concept that war isn't glamourous, fun, neat, or any other adjectives denoting fun. They are understanding that those who die will not come home to the family, that death is permanent, and those left behind, like parents and friends will hurt greatly.
I stopped updating the ages of the casualties, it was too upsetting and distracting, plus, a lot of work, so I replaced it with showing the cost of the war and how quickly it is going up, and what other services that money could buy.
This, along with the occasional friend or neighbor of a student who is killed or hurt, in the various ways children are killed or hurt in LA also helps to bring the realities home.

If people are interested, I can post some of the web sites in the correct forum, but since it isn't dealing w/ East Asia, I decided to hold off.

[Anonymous]

Teaching 7th grade History makes the teaching of war a necessity, it is the blood and guts year of history. I try to honour the bravery of those who have served in all wars while showing them how war by its nature is dehumanizing. I have never known anyone who was in the killing that did not have nightmares for the rest of their lives.

For high school students using Barbara Tuchman's books "the Guns of August" and "The March to Folly" can help them put things in perspective. As can using a Marxian reasning for warsby tracing the economic reasons for conflicts.

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