cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
I have spent thirty+ years in education and few things made, or make me, as proud as the Vietnam Day Seminar at Moeller High School.
In 1991, while assigned to Moeller High School, I sat down with Bob Tull and Dave Faller of the history department and discussed the possibility of bringing Vietnam Vets and Vietnam era adults into the classroom and letting the students talk to them. "Think of it," we said to each other, "We'll have the kids face-to-face with people who lived throught the very history they're studying." We envisioned one whole day, a movie fest the night before, The Green Berets followed by Platoon, every bell a chance for the students to meet a new set of vets.
Those outside the education system will probably not believe the amount of political infighting it took to make it happen. Teachers in other disciplines were angered that they were losing all their junior students for a day. Administration worried about what veterans might say... 'fuck' is a good example... but they were more concerned with things like, "we should have bombed them back to the stone age," "we had no business being there in the first place," "the war was right," "the war was wrong..." and of course all those things were said. We even have a vet who defends Jane Fonda(!) while the rest of us promise that if she dies before we do we'll "Agent Yellow" the grass on her grave. Heaven forbid that the kids should see 'adults' disagree, or say something that angers parents.
Somehow we won. We ended up with something like 25 vets, many of them parents of students, that first year and every swinging Richard of a junior had his chance to talk to a vet.
As the years went on we have added and subtracted to the program. The band is on board and plays the National Anthem to begin the day and gives a patriotic salute at the end. The Things They Carried, The Killer Angels or Guns Up are read by various English classes, the social studies students go over the Cold War, especially Vietnam, the religion department goes over Just War theology... we still can't get the science department to teach about defoliants or the math department to go into map reading or how you adjust fire from indirect fire weapons... but we do get a good deal of support from the school. Most years the Ohio National Guard flies in a Huey or a cobra... this year it was a Blackhawk, all the Huey's are out of the inventory (he sighs) and the kids are fed MREs for lunch. We've added Korean War vets to the mix and this year had Moeller veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan back to talk.
I grew up surrounded by World War II vets, my dad and uncles included. My mom and aunts had all been a part of the Rosie the Riveter story. Al Bohlender, one of my 7th grade teachers flew a B-26 over the Normandy beachhead on June 6th, another teacher, Mr. Hall had been an infantry platoon leader in Korea. I'm sure there were more veterans than that and more adults who could have told us first hand what it was like to hear about Pearl Harbor, or how they lived under rationing, or what combat was really like, but they never got into our classrooms and we never heard their stories. What a tragic loss to us and to them.
Yesterday was the 15th Annual Vietnam Day, the 15th consecutive year in which every junior at Moeller had one whole day of exposure to veterans spanning Korea, Vietnam, The Gulf War and Iraq. Each student was free to ask questions and to see the history through the eyes of people who had 'been there and done that.' I'm worn out today and glad that Bob and Dave have to teach while I take a day off, but it's all worth the effort.
In 1991, while assigned to Moeller High School, I sat down with Bob Tull and Dave Faller of the history department and discussed the possibility of bringing Vietnam Vets and Vietnam era adults into the classroom and letting the students talk to them. "Think of it," we said to each other, "We'll have the kids face-to-face with people who lived throught the very history they're studying." We envisioned one whole day, a movie fest the night before, The Green Berets followed by Platoon, every bell a chance for the students to meet a new set of vets.
Those outside the education system will probably not believe the amount of political infighting it took to make it happen. Teachers in other disciplines were angered that they were losing all their junior students for a day. Administration worried about what veterans might say... 'fuck' is a good example... but they were more concerned with things like, "we should have bombed them back to the stone age," "we had no business being there in the first place," "the war was right," "the war was wrong..." and of course all those things were said. We even have a vet who defends Jane Fonda(!) while the rest of us promise that if she dies before we do we'll "Agent Yellow" the grass on her grave. Heaven forbid that the kids should see 'adults' disagree, or say something that angers parents.
Somehow we won. We ended up with something like 25 vets, many of them parents of students, that first year and every swinging Richard of a junior had his chance to talk to a vet.
As the years went on we have added and subtracted to the program. The band is on board and plays the National Anthem to begin the day and gives a patriotic salute at the end. The Things They Carried, The Killer Angels or Guns Up are read by various English classes, the social studies students go over the Cold War, especially Vietnam, the religion department goes over Just War theology... we still can't get the science department to teach about defoliants or the math department to go into map reading or how you adjust fire from indirect fire weapons... but we do get a good deal of support from the school. Most years the Ohio National Guard flies in a Huey or a cobra... this year it was a Blackhawk, all the Huey's are out of the inventory (he sighs) and the kids are fed MREs for lunch. We've added Korean War vets to the mix and this year had Moeller veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan back to talk.
I grew up surrounded by World War II vets, my dad and uncles included. My mom and aunts had all been a part of the Rosie the Riveter story. Al Bohlender, one of my 7th grade teachers flew a B-26 over the Normandy beachhead on June 6th, another teacher, Mr. Hall had been an infantry platoon leader in Korea. I'm sure there were more veterans than that and more adults who could have told us first hand what it was like to hear about Pearl Harbor, or how they lived under rationing, or what combat was really like, but they never got into our classrooms and we never heard their stories. What a tragic loss to us and to them.
Yesterday was the 15th Annual Vietnam Day, the 15th consecutive year in which every junior at Moeller had one whole day of exposure to veterans spanning Korea, Vietnam, The Gulf War and Iraq. Each student was free to ask questions and to see the history through the eyes of people who had 'been there and done that.' I'm worn out today and glad that Bob and Dave have to teach while I take a day off, but it's all worth the effort.
