My name is Jake Sharkey and I am a senior at Westborough High School. I signed up to take the course Facing History and Ourselves last year. All I knew about the course is that it was taught by my sophomore year history teacher Mr.Gallagher. I also knew there were no tests or quizzes and not much homework. I had no idea what a great class I had signed up for. I learned many things like how much of a difference one person can make. I also learned how easily someone can be persuaded to do something at someone else’s expense. Words can not explain how important and interesting this course is.
In the beginning of the course we read a picture book called “The Bear That Wasn’t”. The bear in this book wakes up surrounded by workers after hibernation. He is constantly told by the workers that he is a human not a bear. Person after person everyone tells him the same thing, but he refuses to believe it. He knows that no matter what anyone says he is a bear. This book showed me that you should never question someone’s identity. Everyone knows themselves the best, so what someone else thinks does not matter. This is important because so many people worry about what others think of them. Without taking this course I do not think I would know what the bear book taught me. My opinion is what matters the most to me.
Towards the end of the course we watched a small youtube video on the risks of bullying. A thirteen year old boy committed suicide because he could not take being bullied as much as he was. We did not spend a lot of time on bullying, but I feel like this video benefited me. Before this video I was not aware of how much responsibility bystanders have when it comes to things like bullying. Ryan, the thirteen year old victim of bullying, was not helped by any of the bystanders when he was bullied. Everyone just stood around and watched it happen. Ryan’s dad now gives powerful speeches to schools all over. In these speeches he is not trying to reach the bullies. He is trying to grab the attention of the bystanders. This helped show me how much one person can make a difference. No one decided to help Ryan when girls were getting personal information from him and spreading it around the school. All it would have taken is one person, a student or an adult, anybody to step up and stop the bullying. Because no one did that Ryan is no longer alive. Before this course I am not sure I would have known how responsible I was for someone being bullied even if I was not doing the bullying. Now I know how important it is to do something if I see someone being bullied. Without this course I would be just another bystander watching it all happen. Now I am more then that.
I do not think there is any film or exercise that can possibly put someone in the shoes of a Jew during the holocaust. With that being said I was very surprised how close this course was able to bring me. We watched films on the holocaust that most people probably have not seen. These films were able to put us in Germany during the holocaust. We did activities that taught us important lessons related to the holocaust. We watched films on the Milgrim Experiment. The Milgrim experiment tested people’s ability to go against what they were being told to do. Even if they were being told it was suppose to be done. They knew they were hurting someone by continuing the experiment, but most people continued anyways. This is what the Nazis went through. Most of them said they were just doing what they were told when asked about killing all of those Jews. Hitler kept drilling into their heads that it was the right thing to do and to continue doing it. Just like the Milgrim experiment showed, the Nazis did what they were told and continued to kill the Jews. The films on the Milgrim experiment were great, but nothing made me stop and think like the PBS video we just watched. It was so hard to watch the piles of dead Jews being buried and the Nazis not looking like they cared. It is sickening to know that so many Nazis could just let this happen. Hitler needed to be stopped and the only way that was going to happen is if he was killed. No one had the courage to end his life. Sure it would not have been easy, but it was definitely possible to kill Hitler. Everyone followed the crowd and because of that a ridiculous number of Jews were killed. I know I am not going to have to face something like the holocaust, but because of this course I feel that it is now easier to go against the current.
Unfortunately this course is only half a year. I could not have expected the class to go as good as it did for the short amount of time we had together. I have never heard a negative comment about this class. This class changed my views on many things. The class puts judging someone in perspective. We read a picture book about a bear’s identity. You might think it is weird that a high school level class would read a picture book. After talking about the book I do not think little kids would understand it the way we do. The bear’s identity is challenged, but he knows who he really is. The book helped show me you can not judge someone because you do not know them better then they know themselves. Later in the course we watched a small video on bullying. This opened my eyes to a serious subject that not that many people know about. I had no idea before this course that bystanders are just as easy to blame as bullies themselves. Because of this course I know that I will think twice about ever bullying someone and letting someone be bullied. No one deserves to be bullied and this course helped me realize that. The last video we watched in the course was a disturbing video on the unfortunate truth of the death camps. There were thousands of Jews being killed from starvation and they had to be moved into death pits by fellow Jews. Everyone listened to Hitler because he convinced them they were doing the right thing. I learned that it takes courage to go against the crowd, but it should have been done during the holocaust. My name is Jake Sharkey and I am extremely happy I got the chance to take this course taught by the best, Mr. Gallagher.
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