As I mentioned in my previous post, last week I did something for the first time: I called a stranger an A-hole. This week I’m keeping up with that tradition, but this time I’m doing something a little more civil: I’m writing and researching with my students for the first time.
My writing teacher friends tell me they’ve done it. Research suggests that all teachers should do it. I’ve always thought about doing it, but today I’m actually doing it.
As usual, I have ulterior motives. When I was home for spring break, I had a little case of bronchitis. To keep from moving and breathing heavily, which would launch me into coughing spasms, I plopped myself on the couch and watched a lot of TV. I watched the news and saw story after story about Russia occupying Crimea. I heard of deployment efforts of our armed forces to places near Korea. I heard of the on-going debate about whether the U.S. should pull American troops out of Afghanistan. I watched war documentaries on Netflix, thinking I have never given a lot of serious thought to war other than as events in history. Then, I serendipitously watched the movie Full Metal Jacket and thought about my dad, who served in Vietnam, and wondered if he suffered any of the dehumanizing effects this movie depicts.
I also thought about my dad while watching this movie because my brother Steven and I were watching it the night my mom called to tell us our dad had died. Watching this movie again over spring break, I began to think seriously about the effects of the Vietnam War on my dad and other veterans, the effects of World War II on Joe’s dad (his dad stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-day). Mostly, though, I began to think seriously of my ignorance of my dad’s life vis-à-vis his war experiences. I’m not sure I’ll ever fully know what he went through while he was there. He, like other Vets from that war, never talked about it. But I can do my due diligence to understand how for a moment in our nation’s history he worked in service for our country to maintain its democratic ideals.
So that’s what I’m doing. I’m reading and writing with my students about the Vietnam War. We’re going to begin by reading the short story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and then using it as a springboard into any element of the Vietnam War and/or the Vietnam War era in America we want to learn something more about. I’m not sure what element of the war I want to explore, nor am I sure what to expect with this project, but that, for me, is the heart of teaching: learning something new.
Footnotes 