Published in the Peninsula Daily News: Written 11-4-2014
Jackson vs. Hitler
I used the article and Sheila's daughter's website to teach my senior seminar on Nazi Germany today. The task was to compare the 1904-9 genocide of Germany against the Herero and Namibia to the Holocaust.
They compared that to the parallels between German atrocities to the Trail of Tears and inevitably contemporary American policies that kill thousands came up as well.
It all feeds into the current academic debate over the Holocaust namely intentionalism v. structuralism/functionalism. Here's the wiki primer:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_versus_intentionalism
Shiela's daughter, Karen Sixkiller, whether she knows the jargon or not, is clearly the current MVP for team structuralism with her powerful piece called 'Hindsight is 20-20.' It opened a lot of eyes and got the fire going, The kids had a frank and useful discussion that spilled over at the end of the period into lunch.
I'm looking forward to more tomorrow - and perhaps a future where my students will recognize this stuff happening again and will have the fortitude to oppose it.
Thanks to Karen, Sheila, and you for making me and by extension my students aware of it.
Danke to you both!
I used the article and Sheila's daughter's website to teach my senior seminar on Nazi Germany today. The task was to compare the 1904-9 genocide of Germany against the Herero and Namibia to the Holocaust.
They compared that to the parallels between German atrocities to the Trail of Tears and inevitably contemporary American policies that kill thousands came up as well.
It all feeds into the current academic debate over the Holocaust namely intentionalism v. structuralism/functionalism. Here's the wiki primer:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_versus_intentionalism
Shiela's daughter, Karen Sixkiller, whether she knows the jargon or not, is clearly the current MVP for team structuralism with her powerful piece called 'Hindsight is 20-20.' It opened a lot of eyes and got the fire going, The kids had a frank and useful discussion that spilled over at the end of the period into lunch.
I'm looking forward to more tomorrow - and perhaps a future where my students will recognize this stuff happening again and will have the fortitude to oppose it.
Thanks to Karen, Sheila, and you for making me and by extension my students aware of it.
Danke to you both!