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The Boston Holocaust Memorial was one of the most powerful I have seen. As you walk through the glass, steam comes up from the grates, and names of people that were killed in various concentration camps are on the sides of the glass. Photo taken in 2013.
I hope you enjoyed your long weekend and recovered from finals! It's time to get back with learning about the Holocaust. Here's what happened in class today:
Learning Targets:
Knowledge LT 18: I can explain how and why world societies organize themselves and how power is established and maintained.
Critical Thinking and Analysis LT 2: I can explain connections between events, issues, problems and concepts.
Soundtrack: "Brand New Day" by Sting. Selected for today because today is the start of a new semester in Global Studies! Wipe the slate clean - it's time to get back to work! Lyrics here.
AGENDA 1/28/15:
News Brief – Zac V.
Final Grades
Stanford Prison Experiment
Rise of the Nazis
News Brief: Zac V. was absent today, so I did the news brief, and selected this article to talk about: CNN.com - First lady Michelle Obama shakes hands with Saudi king. So? Lots going on here, with global diplomacy, the new Saudi king, culture and customs, and women's rights!
Zac T. was selected to do the next news brief. I also showed the VICE News clip for the day.
Final Grades: After the news, I passed back the Ladakh final DBQ grades, and explained why I gave the scores that I did. Most students did okay with this - I know it was somewhat complicated! In order to get them all graded before final grades were due, I did not write many comments back - please see what I highlighted in the rubric for details on why you received the score(s) you did. Also, final grades from the first semester are posted in the room, by student ID number. I will take them down after next class, so we can start anew.
Stanford Prison Experiment: Before showing this famous clip, I asked if students had any personal stories about World War II or the Holocaust from their family history. It was really interesting to hear these!
I noted that yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day, and it is the 70th Anniversary of Auschwitz being liberated (or freed) by the Allies. With that, I showed this CNN feature on some of the survivors, and played the first video for the class:
Then, I asked how this was possible, and if we could consider something like this happening to us - either as the Nazis or the persecuted people. I think it is hard to consider ourselves capable of such horrific acts. Which is why the Stanford Prison Experiment is so famous. Basically, it was a psychological experiment based on assigning roles to Stanford students (really smart people) - either as "prison" guards or prisoners. The prisoners were taken and not allowed out for six days (until the experiment ended early). Basically, the prison guards turned into awful, terrible people. Here's the clip we watched in class (there are many others out there - do a search if you want to learn more):
After the clip, I came back to the idea of wondering if something like the Holocaust could happen again. It's a difficult question for historians, and for people in general. We want to believe that people are good. If we aren't careful about learning the history and psychology to combat it, I think there is a better chance of something like this happening again.
Rise of the Nazis: With that idea, I passed out this reading, which has to do with how the Nazi political party and Hitler came to power in Germany:
The questions and answers that I wanted the class to do in preparation for a discussion next class on this were:
2) Make three discussion questions (not yes or no answers) about the reading. Try to base your questions on specific quotes from the reading.
The rest of class was devoted to reading the article and preparing discussion questions. Next class, I am hoping that we can have an interesting, student led discussion on the article and the questions it generates - specifically about if this could possibly happen again.
Thank you for your hard work, everyone! It's good to be back and have a new beginning. :-)
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