The Toronto Star
December 9, 2009 Wednesday
Genocide 101;
One Toronto history course is known to make students cry, and then
feel empowered. Its focus? Humanity’s worst acts
BY: Louise Brown, Toronto Star
There is a Grade 11 history class in Etobicoke that has been known to
make students cry. Teacher Shelley Kyte gets nightmares just from
planning some of the lessons.
In a course believed to be unlike any other in the country, the focus
is genocide, the worst of human atrocities. They have covered the
Armenian genocide and the Holocaust already; now they are discovering
Rwanda, a horror that happened during their short lives.
Here in Room 219 at Scarlett Heights Entrepreneurial Academy, near
Royal York Rd. and Lawrence Ave. W., students as young as 15 have
watched footage of a Tutsi couple kneeling before being beaten to
death. They have learned that "everybody took part in the killing –
even teachers," said student Joshua Watkis.
This week, they were to play Pax Warrior, a computer game that lets
you imagine you are a United Nations commander facing horrific choices
during the Rwandan bloodbath.
"It’s heavy, what we learn in this course," said Watkis. "It’s pretty
raw; it’s hard to watch, but it’s real and the more our generation
looks into stuff like this, the more we can stop it."
For the first time since the course was launched last year within the
Toronto District School Board, a genocide class opened its doors to a
reporter and photographer this week, plus two Scarborough teachers who
hope to run the course next year and the board consultant who will
help them with the highly charged material.
Despite initial controversy over the brutal subject matter, more than
10 school boards from as far away as Vancouver, Montreal and New
Brunswick have expressed interest in the curriculum.
"You could do this course very badly – ‘Here’s a bunch of atrocities,
humanity sucks, let’s all give up’ – but we try to give children the
tools to understand how those events are perpetrated so they can
understand how they can be prevented," said Kyte, one of 20 teachers
leading the course, and a co-author of some of its lessons.
"I screen out some of the more horrific material – that’s why I get
the bad dreams – and I limit the amount we do watch," said Kyte. "But
I actually like when students get upset, especially boys, when they
realize this isn’t a slasher film. This is real. Some hide their eyes.
Some cry, but they need to appreciate the gravity before they can
develop empathy and then hope."
Trustee Gerri Gershon proposed the course last year as a way to teach
teenagers "the depths of the darker side of human nature, because
sometimes when we are moved by some terrible thing, it can bring us to
some positive action.
"It’s sad and it’s horrific," she said, "but it’s also very real and
there can be a tremendous amount of rich learning about empathy and
civic responsibility and not standing by passively when these things
begin."
Students learn the eight stages a group goes through before committing
genocide, as outlined by U.S. law professor Gregory Stanton: classify
"us vs. them;" label them with symbols like the Jewish star;
dehumanize them with slurs, such as Tutsi cockroach; organize groups
to carry out the hate crime; polarize anyone who disagrees; segregate
those to be killed; exterminate them – then deny it.
"These students can see violence all over TV and YouTube," said Kyte,
but the course offers a way to analyze the roots of this type of
hatred.
"This course really hits you hard. Sometimes when I leave the class I
can’t stop thinking of it for a while," said Keisha O’Leary, 15.
"But it provides awareness so people like us won’t ignore it when we
see it starting."