Community and a bite of cereal

So, I had this deep thought in Social Studies today as we were talking about how History repeats itself.  When I was snacking on Kim's cereal, I reflected more about the book we read today in class.  We said History repeats itself, why don't we learn from the past?  Some people view the events in the past such as World War II and the Jews, the concentration camps for Japanese Americans, and what we read about today, Native Americans being forced into "our" civilization; and these people "repeat" these type of events, because they believe that maybe this time it will give them power and that this worked in the past at another way of getting rid of or dewindling down another race or religious group.  This brings up the point of how community is so important.  I never thought about how important community is until this class.  I was always taught never to judge anyone no matter the color of their skin, their religion, their family background, etc.  But, I think some people think, "well I don't judge them, but that doesn't mean that I have to be friends with them."  To be honest, this is what I thought in some ways myself, not as harsh as it sounds, and I even had these thoughts toward people in my own community that I shared the same beliefs with and had similar background with.  Just because they were like me, did not mean I had to get to know them or even try to be friends with them.  But, just tolerating someone just because its what we think we have to do, doesn't make an effective community.  Understanding where people come from, who they are as people, what they believe, experiencing their culture, communicating, etc. makes a community function more successfully and the outcome is far greater.  This is a subject area that students need to be engaged in and everyone involved. 

Last semester, I really got into learning more about the Holocaust and Hitler.  I had read and learned about this time period in school, but did not really get a grasp of what happened until I read the book Upon the Head of the Goat.  I started thinking, Why didn't anyone stop it?  Why would someone do this?  What was their point?  Who did Hitler and his soliders think they were? I still do not know a lot about this time period, but just because Germany needed someone to blame their problems on, Hitler picked on the Jews and the gypsies and others.  Where was community in all this?  There was none, except very riged and separate communities, Jews and Anti-Jews.  Again, I still don't know why and what all truly happened during this time, but I feel like if people of different cultures, religious practices, race, etc. would enrich themselves with each other's way of life and experience what each experiences, then outcomes these history events might have been differently.

Community--being in one and acting like one, are two different things.  As teachers, teaching it and experiencing it, are two different things.  It can make a difference.