Victims

The p.d. I went to the prior to this seminar was absolutely frightening in its description as well. Facing History and Ourselves were launching their new curriculum to go along with Red Scarf Girl and the beginning activity we were asked to read the intro to this curriculum in which a group of young ladies stoned to death their assistant principal because she was one of the four old. I can't even imagine... One of the videos we saw was a series of interviews with some of the youth who took part in the Cultural Revolution and their "confessions" in some cases were chilling. Some of the perpetrators of violence saw it as a period they went through. A coming of age exercise while others held some deep regrets. In one case a young woman says that she was late in getting to the house of an old teacher and that by the time she got there her classmates had already beaten the woman to death. She is still haunted with the uncertainty of whether she would have joined in or not. One of the fellow participants commented that she is probably still haunted because she knows the answer is "yes."

The whole idea of giving power to individuals who had been in their minds "wronged" in some way is frightening. Where does it stop? I love using the FHO pedagogy of looking at the idea of "who matters" in a society and looking at why and how we alienate those "who don't."

My first encounter with Communist China was through Read Scarf Girl five years ago. I was told by my district to teach the book to my 9th grade English class. As I read the book to prepare my unit I was just amazed at the pain and suffering people experienced in China during the Cultural Revolution. My students, I believed enjoyed the book, because it was real to them. I wish I knew all the information that I'm learning in this Seminar back then, it would have helped to scaffold ideas and issues better to my students.