What I See What I Wonder
| – Kids walk in, Teacher checks who is late, gives a lunch meeting- Kids are reading while waiting for class to start
– Teacher reminds students to raise hand when they want to speak – Holocaust unit – Defining of terms- perpetrator, bystander – Student asks what is worse, being the perpetrator or bystander? Teacher says- I am throwing that question back at you. Student gives her opinion – Teacher lists some words the students need to know – Age of reason- do you know what this term means? Teacher calls on a student for an answer, student answers, the age a person becomes responsible for their actions – Teacher reviews questions she wants students to be thinking about while they are watching a film called Confessions of a Hitler Youth. – Students are given 5 minutes to answer three questions before watching the film – Students are quietly working and are given the instruction to read silently while they are waiting for all to be done, and have their pencils down, that is how teacher will know the students are ready for the movie – Student raises hand and asks for clarification on a question- teacher gives explanation through examples relating to the students life, asking him questions so she can get him to see the answer – After kids are finished, she calls them together to give a short explanation of the film- who narrates it and what it is about – There are three more questions to be answered while watching the movie – After they watch the movie they are to read one of three articles – Video is already set up and ready to go – The movie begins – Teacher covers over some of the film because the images of the holocaust are particularly graphic – The story is about one child who was part of the Hitler Youth – Students are all engaged in the movie (9:35) – A student shows the teacher how to get rid of the menu bar on the bottom of the screen – (9:40) Teacher reminds students that if they don’t think they will remember, they should take notes while watching the movie – Some kids are taking notes, some are just watching the movie – Teacher repeats one word that the narrator says often, because it is hard to understand with the narrators accent – A students asks a clarifying question, teacher says, I will come over to answer that (teacher was on other side of the room when the question was asked) – (9:45) A student gets up to go to the bathroom – Teacher points out the boy was ten at the time- this related back to one of the pre-movie questions – Teacher clarifies for another student a question – More students are writing now while movie is going on – Teacher clarifies a historical piece alluded to in the movie-she whispers more details to a few interested students – One student is leaning back in his chair – Student asks a question- teacher answers – Student asks another question- starts to be a domino effect, Teacher says this is important I will answer questions after the movie – Movie glitch-it pauses in the middle of a sentence- teacher quickly comes to remedy it- it is not working – Students start to have a side convo – Teacher says she will fix it by the time of their next period and says let’s switch to what we will do now then – Let’s look at the first three questions- actually the bell will ring in one minute, so pick a spot for your sheet, put it away, bring it to 6th period class where we will finish the movie then move into L.A – Students begin packing up their stuff and quietly conversing while teacher then continues to try to figure out movie glitch – Bell rings, teacher opens up door, and lets kids go. |
-This teacher has taught Holocaust to 8th grade for five years and works closely with the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center. She attended a Jewish Foundation for the Righteous Lerner Fellowship.
-This movie is so intense; I wonder how she does this whole unit now. I appreciate the difficulty of planning and implementing this unit so much more after being in this one class period. I spoke to the teacher after to learn a little bit more about how she does the unit. The teacher teaches ideas- Pre-World War 2 European Jewish life, bystander, perpetrators, rescuers, resistance, and implications for the future etc., not the history of the Holocaust. The history of the Holocaust is not developmentally appropriate. The Holocaust is a mode to teach these big ideas without getting into the details of the camps etc… If kids ask, the teacher answers (ie what is the Third Reich, you might think that the teacher is not doing their job if kids don’t know what the Third Reich is, but it is not about teaching the holocaust or how Hitler came to power) |
rebeccaaf 