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[CCBC-Net] Holocaust
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From: Dipesh Navsaria <dipesh>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 09:56:43 -0500
Hi, everyone. I'm a relatively recent member of this list, so this is my first posting here.
I agree with other's observations regarding a seeming "conspiracy of silence" about topics such as the Holocaust -- I never quite understood it myself until I got to high school. Perhaps in NYC there was some sort of assumption that you couldn't not know about it since there's such a large Jewish population, but when you're the child of immigrants who weren't necessarily too clear on it themselves... (same went for Vietnam -- I had no idea who or what was involved in that war until later on.)
It seems our society borders on two extremes with children: on one hand, we expose children needlessly to all sorts of graphic images and ideas; the all-too-common sight of young children being taken to fairly intense movies comes to mind here. On the other hand, we also can be overprotective, believing that shielding children from misery, suffering and death is a favour. Unfortunately, as we all know, developmentally not all children are the same, nor do they necessarily respond the same.
As this discussion evolved, I found myself considering Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning as a framework -- the reasons behind the Holocaust may not mean anything to a child in the preconventional stages of moral reasoning. ("They must have done something bad, otherwise why would they be punished?") Conventional thinkers may identify with the guards, actually -- "Everyone else was doing it, so they had to as well." I suspect it's only once you reach the inklings of postconventional moral reasoning ("This was wrong, very wrong -- you don't do this to other humans.") that the very enormity of the situation would really resonate with a child. This is not to say you don't discuss the Holocaust, but rather a musing on how much to tell when.
Of course, as I noted above, we have no easy way to tell where someone is along a developmental path with precision, so I'm not sure I'm adding anything to this beyond rambling. :-) There's also the troubling fact that many adults never move beyond Kohlbergian conventional moral reasoning, but I'm going to not go further with that disturbing thought. :-/
Peace and Prosperity, Dipesh
(moving from Champaign, Illinois to Madison, Wisconsin in about 4 weeks...)
-<*>---------------------------------------<*>- Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MS(LIS), MD Prospective Resident Physician Physician Assistant, Pediatrics Champaign, Illinois, USA e-mail: dipesh at navsaria.com web/blog: http://www.navsaria.com
Received on Fri 21 Apr 2006 09:56:43 AM CDT
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 09:56:43 -0500
Hi, everyone. I'm a relatively recent member of this list, so this is my first posting here.
I agree with other's observations regarding a seeming "conspiracy of silence" about topics such as the Holocaust -- I never quite understood it myself until I got to high school. Perhaps in NYC there was some sort of assumption that you couldn't not know about it since there's such a large Jewish population, but when you're the child of immigrants who weren't necessarily too clear on it themselves... (same went for Vietnam -- I had no idea who or what was involved in that war until later on.)
It seems our society borders on two extremes with children: on one hand, we expose children needlessly to all sorts of graphic images and ideas; the all-too-common sight of young children being taken to fairly intense movies comes to mind here. On the other hand, we also can be overprotective, believing that shielding children from misery, suffering and death is a favour. Unfortunately, as we all know, developmentally not all children are the same, nor do they necessarily respond the same.
As this discussion evolved, I found myself considering Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning as a framework -- the reasons behind the Holocaust may not mean anything to a child in the preconventional stages of moral reasoning. ("They must have done something bad, otherwise why would they be punished?") Conventional thinkers may identify with the guards, actually -- "Everyone else was doing it, so they had to as well." I suspect it's only once you reach the inklings of postconventional moral reasoning ("This was wrong, very wrong -- you don't do this to other humans.") that the very enormity of the situation would really resonate with a child. This is not to say you don't discuss the Holocaust, but rather a musing on how much to tell when.
Of course, as I noted above, we have no easy way to tell where someone is along a developmental path with precision, so I'm not sure I'm adding anything to this beyond rambling. :-) There's also the troubling fact that many adults never move beyond Kohlbergian conventional moral reasoning, but I'm going to not go further with that disturbing thought. :-/
Peace and Prosperity, Dipesh
(moving from Champaign, Illinois to Madison, Wisconsin in about 4 weeks...)
-<*>---------------------------------------<*>- Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MS(LIS), MD Prospective Resident Physician Physician Assistant, Pediatrics Champaign, Illinois, USA e-mail: dipesh at navsaria.com web/blog: http://www.navsaria.com
Received on Fri 21 Apr 2006 09:56:43 AM CDT
