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From: Maia Cheli-Colando <maia>
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 08:54:40 -0700
Norma Jean,
While I understand your concern about children learning warfare as a game, and then extrapolating that to real warfare -- and I share the same concern -- I think that injudiciously teaching them about the horrors of war will create a kind of overload after which most children will be unable to grasp, incorporate and move to action from that information. I know so many /adults/ who are overwhelmed by the horrors of the world, so many who have "seen/heard it all" that they do not know where to begin, or if beginning even can make a difference. And these adults are many of them activist-minded and caring people who do make a difference in the world, yet feel hopeless. They could do so much more with hope.
To force on a child the overload that many (most?) adults cannot well withstand is cruel. A child's ability to place events and experiences within context grows as they grow, and we must be careful what we teach to whom when. To gauge timing is incredibly challenging for those in a public school school environment developing curriculum -- most teachers do not have the (I would say critical) freedom that Monica has, to expand or retract information levels based on the needs of her specific students. And even in Monica's case, she has a whole class to consider. An amazingly difficult thing, I think.
When I hear adults talk about how children "should learn" the "real story" I am unsettled by the anger I hear. Perhaps it is an anger that arises from guilt, or regret, or from a sense of hopelessness that the adults cannot make a difference anywhere else, but at least they can
/make/ the children. No children living today are responsible for the Holocaust. They are not guilty of it. Neither, for the most part, are those of us here. And where does guilt and hateful recollection get us? To a place of a better understanding, a willingness to action? Rarely is it so, I think.
Instead of ignoring a child's developmental capacity and punishing them with the horrors of their ancestors (or other people's ancestors), of even the horrors in which their parents, teachers, and librarians are currently complicit, I think we need to watch and listen to children carefully, hearing their place on the path -- and their ability at this moment to wisely use the stories we want to share. I think that if we ever feel ourselves to be teaching a child something in anger -- with the "you should know how it /really/ was (or is)" tone in our voice... then I think we have to pull back. Stop. Reconsider. These children are not responsible for what was. They are responsible for what will be. And if we care about the future, then we should teach for that. For the hope of the coming generations, and those of us already living.
As to romantic war games, most of the children I know do not play them, and they know why. My seven year old knows the meaning of genocide, and some of the groups that have survived it; she knows about the war in Iraq; the Holocaust, the wars in Palestine and Israel; the potato famine and the British oppression of the Irish. She does not need to know about the daily explosions in Iraq, or of the Towers and the planes, the soap and gas chambers of the Holocaust, or the rape of California Indian women during genocide, to know and call the horror as it is and was. She knows that yearly the Wiyot people gather on the Island here to remember what happened when white men came and slaughtered the women and children of the tribe during celebration -- and to remember themselves into the future. She doesn't need to know more details than that now. To play cowboys and Indians is so far off the chart for her that I can't fathom the circumstance in which it would happen.
Yet, when she was perhaps five (a far distance from seven!), she saw the Sound of Music for the first time. She was already much aware of the wrongness of war, but little aware of the details. After the movie, she copied the heil, not knowing it for anything other than a dramatic inflection. We recoiled, and with that "how it really was" tone in our voices made it clear she never should do so again. We were right to explain it to her, I think. But wrong to do so with any anger or fear. She had no context. She was free of wrong.
My daughter is an unusual child. After much pleading, she is skipping most of the cleaning this morning so that she can hide in the bedroom and read Jane Eyre. Her ability to process information meaningfully is unusual. (I do not take much credit for this, for she was born rather unusual, which has been a delight to watch as she grows.) But I am still very careful about what information I give her -- not that I hide things from her, but that I choose how I speak, /as we all do/ -- what topics we will bring up and in what depth we will discuss them. She is extraordinarily bright, and she is caring, but she is also breakable. I have no desire to give her more than she can handle. She has the rest of her life to learn, and then some... and even at the end of her years, she will only have a start on it all. So be it. She will do the best she can, and my job is to help her grow strong, hopeful, empathic and conscientious. Not to punish her with what was, but to give her the tools to create what will be. And isn't that the reason we tell stories?
Maia
Norma Jean wrote:
>I appreciate Monica's concern about the picture book crowd being too young
>for books about the Holocaust but I disagree. This is a country in which
>young children grow up playing romantic games about cowboys and
>Indians...cops and robbers...war games....when there is nothing romantic
>about being shot at, or shooting someone. And then there is "friendly fire,"
>the accepted euphemism for being dead...as if being killed by one's comrade
>is any different than being dead by a bullet fired by an enemy.
>
>The Holocaust is history/real...just as the current "ethnic cleansing" in
>Iraq is real, as is the war, 9/11, and a host of other horrors. Our
>geographical isolation permits a romantic view of war that folk in other
>countries do not enjoy. If picture books about the Holocaust can put a dent
>in "those" childhood games/assumptions...I say, kudos...to the writers, the
>publishers, and the folk who introduce them to young children. Norma Jean
>
>
Received on Thu 20 Apr 2006 10:54:40 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 08:54:40 -0700
Norma Jean,
While I understand your concern about children learning warfare as a game, and then extrapolating that to real warfare -- and I share the same concern -- I think that injudiciously teaching them about the horrors of war will create a kind of overload after which most children will be unable to grasp, incorporate and move to action from that information. I know so many /adults/ who are overwhelmed by the horrors of the world, so many who have "seen/heard it all" that they do not know where to begin, or if beginning even can make a difference. And these adults are many of them activist-minded and caring people who do make a difference in the world, yet feel hopeless. They could do so much more with hope.
To force on a child the overload that many (most?) adults cannot well withstand is cruel. A child's ability to place events and experiences within context grows as they grow, and we must be careful what we teach to whom when. To gauge timing is incredibly challenging for those in a public school school environment developing curriculum -- most teachers do not have the (I would say critical) freedom that Monica has, to expand or retract information levels based on the needs of her specific students. And even in Monica's case, she has a whole class to consider. An amazingly difficult thing, I think.
When I hear adults talk about how children "should learn" the "real story" I am unsettled by the anger I hear. Perhaps it is an anger that arises from guilt, or regret, or from a sense of hopelessness that the adults cannot make a difference anywhere else, but at least they can
/make/ the children. No children living today are responsible for the Holocaust. They are not guilty of it. Neither, for the most part, are those of us here. And where does guilt and hateful recollection get us? To a place of a better understanding, a willingness to action? Rarely is it so, I think.
Instead of ignoring a child's developmental capacity and punishing them with the horrors of their ancestors (or other people's ancestors), of even the horrors in which their parents, teachers, and librarians are currently complicit, I think we need to watch and listen to children carefully, hearing their place on the path -- and their ability at this moment to wisely use the stories we want to share. I think that if we ever feel ourselves to be teaching a child something in anger -- with the "you should know how it /really/ was (or is)" tone in our voice... then I think we have to pull back. Stop. Reconsider. These children are not responsible for what was. They are responsible for what will be. And if we care about the future, then we should teach for that. For the hope of the coming generations, and those of us already living.
As to romantic war games, most of the children I know do not play them, and they know why. My seven year old knows the meaning of genocide, and some of the groups that have survived it; she knows about the war in Iraq; the Holocaust, the wars in Palestine and Israel; the potato famine and the British oppression of the Irish. She does not need to know about the daily explosions in Iraq, or of the Towers and the planes, the soap and gas chambers of the Holocaust, or the rape of California Indian women during genocide, to know and call the horror as it is and was. She knows that yearly the Wiyot people gather on the Island here to remember what happened when white men came and slaughtered the women and children of the tribe during celebration -- and to remember themselves into the future. She doesn't need to know more details than that now. To play cowboys and Indians is so far off the chart for her that I can't fathom the circumstance in which it would happen.
Yet, when she was perhaps five (a far distance from seven!), she saw the Sound of Music for the first time. She was already much aware of the wrongness of war, but little aware of the details. After the movie, she copied the heil, not knowing it for anything other than a dramatic inflection. We recoiled, and with that "how it really was" tone in our voices made it clear she never should do so again. We were right to explain it to her, I think. But wrong to do so with any anger or fear. She had no context. She was free of wrong.
My daughter is an unusual child. After much pleading, she is skipping most of the cleaning this morning so that she can hide in the bedroom and read Jane Eyre. Her ability to process information meaningfully is unusual. (I do not take much credit for this, for she was born rather unusual, which has been a delight to watch as she grows.) But I am still very careful about what information I give her -- not that I hide things from her, but that I choose how I speak, /as we all do/ -- what topics we will bring up and in what depth we will discuss them. She is extraordinarily bright, and she is caring, but she is also breakable. I have no desire to give her more than she can handle. She has the rest of her life to learn, and then some... and even at the end of her years, she will only have a start on it all. So be it. She will do the best she can, and my job is to help her grow strong, hopeful, empathic and conscientious. Not to punish her with what was, but to give her the tools to create what will be. And isn't that the reason we tell stories?
Maia
Norma Jean wrote:
>I appreciate Monica's concern about the picture book crowd being too young
>for books about the Holocaust but I disagree. This is a country in which
>young children grow up playing romantic games about cowboys and
>Indians...cops and robbers...war games....when there is nothing romantic
>about being shot at, or shooting someone. And then there is "friendly fire,"
>the accepted euphemism for being dead...as if being killed by one's comrade
>is any different than being dead by a bullet fired by an enemy.
>
>The Holocaust is history/real...just as the current "ethnic cleansing" in
>Iraq is real, as is the war, 9/11, and a host of other horrors. Our
>geographical isolation permits a romantic view of war that folk in other
>countries do not enjoy. If picture books about the Holocaust can put a dent
>in "those" childhood games/assumptions...I say, kudos...to the writers, the
>publishers, and the folk who introduce them to young children. Norma Jean
>
>
Received on Thu 20 Apr 2006 10:54:40 AM CDT
