Period 1: Genocide in Rwanda, Day 7 - Class Recap

The real Paul Rusesabagina and Don Cheadle on the set of Hotel Rwanda.

Students,

Do you guys know what a treat it is for me to get to come and teach you every other day? You may be a little talkative and somewhat restless, but my goodness, when you can focus and listen to each other, the types of responses that I get to questions and the content of the class are absolutely outstanding. Thank you for that. It was obvious today that everyone was fully invested in the movie - I'm excited to read and respond to your thoughts!

Essential Questions: How does conflict arise and in what ways have various people responded? Is genocide inevitable?

Soundtrack: "So What" by Miles Davis (from the album "Kind of Blue"). No lyrics, but what a mighty fine tune. Probably my favorite jazz song.

AGENDA 1/12/09
Weekend Recap
Hand Back Work
Last time on...
Hotel Rwanda, Pt. 2
Reflection

HW: Finish and turn in any missing work to either Mrs. DeFrance or me, check blog.

You are successfully completing one of your homework assignments right now if you are reading this, so congratulations! Please get everything else in that we haven't seen on Wednesday. We will be starting a little final project next class, which I don't think you will have much difficulty with, but you will need all your focus on for the next week. So don't delay, act now, supplies are running out...

Weekend Recap: I am always excited to hear interesting things that are going on in your lives and around the world. If you can believe it, I think that this was our very first Monday class together (we have never met for three days in a week until this week as well) so I think this was the first time that I got to hear right after the weekend about how things were. Points of interest: the Blazer game, the Eagles (you have no idea how excited I am about them right now), and the 24 season premiere, which featured a reference to the Rwandan Genocide and a similar situation going on as well. Remember, I'm not asking you to, but if you happen to catch the show tonight or the rest of the season, be watching for ways that the African genocide storyline plays out. Is the new President doing what should be done? The second two hours are on FOX tonight from 8-10.

Hand Back Work: I actually handed back most of your work as class started, so this was basically a time for you to just look over everything. Everyone who participated in the group speech should know the group portion of your grade. I am hoping to type out all of the individual grades for Wednesday (though I might have to sacrifice writing the responses to your Hotel Rwanda thoughts until later in the week to do so). Again, if you have any questions or concerns about this, I would be happy to talk to you, either before or after our class, or during any time that you see me at school (I am usually only supposed to be at Westview for the mornings until later in the year). You can also always e-mail me at any time and I am usually very good at getting back to you quickly. Overall, the grades were very high, and again, everyone should be very proud of themselves for that day.

Last Time On...: I was very happy to hear the responses to my questions about what was going on in the movie from last class, as well as some general questions about the Rwandan genocide. I will be asking a few more like those in the coming days, and we might have a short little test/quiz on finals day over the basics as well. I also addressed some of the main points that were brought up in the responses, like: why did the United Nations only evacuate white people?

Hotel Rwanda, Pt. 2: Like I said above, I loved how it seemed like everyone was involved with watching this. Very moving and powerful stuff in the movie that should not be ignored. Hopefully you felt a little better about watching it, even though it is, on the whole, pretty depressing. We are going to talk about this in class next time, but I think one of the key scenes in the movie was shown last Thursday, when the cameraman tells Paul that people in America will see the violence in Rwanda and say "oh, that's horrible, and go right on eating dinner." This has got to stop. We cannot just ignore stuff like this and pretend to be compassionate human beings. I'm as guilty as anyone of this as well, but it has to stop and it starts with us - people who actually care.

Reflection: In the short time after the movie, I asked you to write down your thoughts and feelings about what you had just seen. Specifically, I wanted to know what it was like to watch a portrayal of something we have been learning about for the last few weeks. What was that like? I'm very interested to see what you guys wrote.

Overall, another excellent class. For Wednesday, please bring your colonialism to genocide flow chart, as we will be using it in class for your final project.

Have a fantastic evening, and go Blazers at Chicago (5:30 PM, KGW - Ch. 8)! Remember to look for similarities to the Rwandan genocide if you choose to watch 24 (8-10, FOX - Ch. 12)!