by Dorothy Marie Kucera

Created on: December 03, 2009

Teaching the facts behind the famous quotation about why history repeats itself in each generation can help students focus on cause and effect and how to interrupt that dangerous spiral downward. Instead of being helpless, they will have power. Without that knowledge, they will get lost in the morass of human suffering, bitterness and anger that was experienced by those cultures. Controversial periods in history that come to mind are World Wars I and II, the Vietnam War, various coups in Africa which left thousands of children and adults in refugee camps and various nations' economic and political crises along with enemy attacks and issues about how responses were handled. Teaching must include factors that started the events, including the reigning philosophy of the public in those regions as well as the various leaders' political decisions and goals that changed the course of their nations for good or for destruction.

In the example of Nazi soldiers taking over villages and cities during World War II, our students of today do need to recognize the practical effects of that type of suffering and how it disrupted every facet of victims' lives and community operations, leading to death after separation from all that was familiar and helpful to them. Otherwise, they will feel no urgency to prevent it from happening to themselves or to their children. Seeing the warning signs happening again in current events and remembering the history about earlier consequences should help them to switch from apathy and continuing everyday self-centered indulgent pursuits to making a plan.

You cannot merely teach what happened, leaving them feeling powerless to stop it again. They need to learn how to create course corrections or escape to safety. In the most alarming course of events, apathy or denial will leave them sitting there, waiting for history to drag them off, forcing them to board ghastly trains to death camps. Instead, you have to teach them how to rise above those emotional factors and human weaknesses so they are not immobilized by events. You have to instill in them a desire to take charge of their destiny instead of waiting for someone else to tell them what to do all the time. That requires a fine line of balance and teaching them deference as well as creative appeals; you do not want them running to extremes, defying all good authorities.

The teacher must include lessons about psychology, so the students understand their own thinking and what makes them react

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