If someone tells you that you're one thing over and over again, you're gonna believe it. He was like one person standing up to 1,000. He's like a minority. In the span of five minutes, Snodgrass helps the students make connections between the fable and social status as power. She brings up the murders at Columbine High and school popularity.
Hands go up quickly.
A few girls believe the story is about freedom, making connections to slavery and the Holocaust. Taught in 82 Memphis-area schools and thousands nationwide, Facing History and Ourselves is not your parents history class. Rather than treat history as a museum piece in which rote memorization of events and dates ensures an A, the course gives life to words in a textbook by inviting Holocaust survivors, Bosnian refugees, civil rights activists, and World War II veterans to tell their stories. Realizing that every day is history, students stay abreast of current genocidal and racial conflicts, and are asked to relate those larger issues to their everyday moral decisions. Materials used for the course include a guidebook with testimonials about apartheid edited by journalist Bill Moyers and a comprehensive packet about the history of racial polarity in Memphis.