sabotabby: raccoon anarchy symbol (Default)
sabotabby ([personal profile] sabotabby) wrote2008-01-11 07:41 am

Today's discussion questions

It's another one of those long days at school and I won't be around, so here are two discussion questions for you. Fight talk amongst yourselves.

1. What do we think of this news story? There's a lot in there, so let's pick it to pieces.

2. Speaking of genocide, the Toronto District School Board has a new history course dealing with the subject. It officially recognizes three genocides: Armenia, the Holocaust, and Rwanda. What's missing, and why do you think they chose to exclude the genocide that happened in the country where the course will be taught.

Have a happy Friday!

[identity profile] shelestel.livejournal.com 2008-01-11 04:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Undoubtedly, most notable in its absence is the total wiping out of the Neanderthals by the Homo sapiens some 30,000 years ago. After that, I would mention some of the notable biological species extinct due to human activity. Beyond that, what Chomsky says.
I'm assuming that most of us have studied about the Holocaust in school. But what is it that we really learned? In my opinion, there are some very important lessons on individual and mass-psychology to be learned that are rarely being explicitly mentioned. Political conclusions are rarely being drawn either. I think that there is a whole lot you can learn from "just" three genocides (which, I'm suspecting, is not going to be learned).