Nick Cibell's Blog: January 2011

I chose to take the course Facing History and Ourselves based on reviews some of my friends had given me, who took the course and or who had the teacher that taught it. They only had good things to say about the course as well as the teacher. At the beginning of the school year I really didn’t know what to expect going into the class but after a few classes I was happy I signed up. In the course Facing History and Ourselves we watched films, read articles and had group discussions. We visited topics ranging from the Holocaust to American civil rights. The course primarily consisted of watching documentaries that contained actual footage and clips, which made it as though we were really there when these events were taking place, although they may have taken place close to seventy years ago. Watching the films in class made me realize how much history that had taken place not too long ago I had no idea about. In school I have probable learned about the American Revolution for three or four years, but the most I had ever learned about the Holocaust is that about six million Jews were killed. After taking the class and watching all the films the Holocaust was not given any justice in school before. In the class we did not just have to memorize fact after fact then have to take a test on it a few weeks later, the material was presented in a way that stayed with you and had a shock appeal to it that really changed the way you thought after learning about something. Although in short some of my friends had described the class as watching movies every day, but that is not at all what we did in class, history was brought to our eyes via film but we learned much more than in a typical history class we were taught to find our identity’s and make sure that some of the evils of history do not repeat itself.

The course Facing History and Ourselves, taught by Mr. Gallagher, benefited me as a student and as a person in many ways. The course educated me as a student, on many important events that took place not too long ago, some right here in America and others throughout and around the world. Some of the topics I had heard about in the past but didn’t really know many of the details that shocked me after we explored the events in its entirety. As a person this course benefited me looking at the horrid conditions and situations people were put in that made me realize how messed up these things were. The Holocaust stood out to me after spending a great deal of time examining exactly what happened to the people involved and treatment of human beings by other human beings. Also the civil rights movement that took place all over America in the 1950s stood out to because of the treatment and hatred of a race of people all because of the color of their skin. I had no idea of the levels people would go through discriminate and the struggle blacks would undergo to get their rights equal to whites. Lastly the Mailgram Experiment shocked me because of the power to turn a perfectly well human being into a killer with such little ease. Learning about these events benefited me as a student and person because I learned about some of the most moving history to this day and as a person benefited me by opening my eyes and seeing how other people before me treated other human beings and made me realize I could have done just as they did, but now I hopefully would never do such things after looking at the aftermath of peoples actions.

Learning about the Holocaust benefited me as a student because I learned about the all the different facts a figures of what happened to the victims involved. We learned about leader of the Nazi party and his unique talent of speaking to the people of his country and convincing them of his plan. We learned about how the camps were constructed and how the people were gathered and brought to them. Learning the facts was only a small part about learning about the Holocaust. As a person I learned and benefited from seeing the actual video of the people put through these great ordeals. As a person I learned and benefited from watching the videos and telling myself how anybody could put another human being through all this torture because they are remotely different. I learned as a person that, not because they looked different, or acted different, that you could be killed just because of something you cannot control but were born into. Watching the film The Pianist showed me how people were rounded up and thrown into train cars for doing absolutely nothing wrong other than belonging to a group that they had no say in belonging to. Learning about all of this benefited me by how easily the mass killing a millions of people can be, but at the same time how easily it could have been to stop it if people were to realize what they are really doing to other people.

The American civil rights movement follows along many of the same principals used in the Holocaust. Discrimination against a race of people just because they are a different color lasted for hundreds of years and brought with it hatred towards these people. Learning about how the blacks tried to overcome this hatred made me sick to my stomach because of efforts they had to make for something as simple as eating in a restaurant. Seeing whites use water cannons to physically blast away blacks down the street, and see dogs used to break their efforts in the films we watched during class showed me the great forces of hatred for no other reason than being a different color. The film about Little Rock High School took this to the extremes where the Army was called in to escort a group of students to school. After seeing the whites reactions I couldn’t understand what those students had ever done them to make then that unhappy or what anyone had done for that matter. It benefited me by taking the emotion out of the situation and put it in perspective. I have heard stories from my grandfather about how he was discriminated against because he was an immigrant to this country many years ago. I sometimes see him make comments about immigrants that are coming to this country presently, and it’s hard for me to understand how he can say something like that when he personally didn’t like it seventy years ago when he was a recent immigrant. After seeing the films about this subject it opened my eyes to this problem and if enough people were to realize this, discrimination could be abolished. The course benefited me by seeing how history repeats its self and how I could make sure what the blacks went through doesn’t happen again.

Lastly the Mailgram experiment benefited me by showing me how under the right circumstances anyone could be made to do anything. Some people say that they could have never been a Nazi and treated the Jews like they were but that is false as the experiment shows. It showed me how easily the Holocaust was carried out after people could potentiality kill a person in present day as long as they did not have to deal with the responsibility of it all. It benefited me as a person to do only what I feel comfortable doing no matter how much pressure is put on me. This experiment pretty much raps up the Holocaust and the civil rights movements efforts. Ordinary people can act out and do extraordinary horrid things to other human beings just like them in some cases and in others only skin deep differences.

Facing History and Ourselves meant a lot to me. It benefited me both as a student and as a person greatly. During many of the films we watched I got a sick feeling in my stomach from the treatment of people from others people. It’s hard to understand how far they could take a hatred of people and the amount of damage they could cause to others. The course really opened my eyes to things that could have been avoided if people put aside their differences. The course, and many of the images will stay with me for the rest of my life and always remind me of what human beings can do to each other.

Nick Cibell's Blog

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Introduction

Make a difference essay

Works Cited