Awesome Caesar Projects... Late, Late, Late!

Here are a few of the amazing Caesar Projects. Sorry I am so late putting them up!

Thank You, American Heroes.

Thank You, American Heroes.... from CHS English II Honors, Fall 2009:

"Superheroes may not be real, but the closest to a superhero is you protecting us and fighting the bad guys."

"I think a true hero is someone who puts their life on the line for what they believe in."

"The thought of someone risking their life so I can sit here, free, today, is an incredible thing to me. Thank you. You are the reason why I can hold my own religion. You are the reason why I can dance. You are the reason I have free speech to writ this. You are the reason I am the girl I am today. I will probably never meet you, but despite this, in a sense, you have saved my life."

"I think we citizens take for granted our rights and freedoms and forget who is helping to protect these freedoms."

"In this life, there are always the people who take chances, who take what they have and try to make something out of it. There are also people who take all that they have for granted and just live until they die, leaving nothing behind. But in the end, it's all possible thanks to the people who are willing to serve before being served. People that sacrifice all they have so that their children have time to play and never worry about their lives and whether or not they are going to make it through. This great life we have is thanks to people like you."

"I know it takes a lot of courage to call yourself and be a soldier and people should realize that you fought for them and their future generations. Without you, brave soldier, I can honestly say that I might not be here to enjoy the wondrous joys of freedom that I have today."

Honor to Whom Honor is Due

You all might have noticed that I changed the song on the blog. I just thought that with Veteran's Day coming up this week, and the Holocaust unit, this would be a great time to reflect on the honor we owe our veterans and current armed forces personnel. You guys have seen as we have gone through this unit how blessed we are to live in America. The rights that we enjoy (the same rights which were taken from the Jews in Nazi Germany) are protected by our military personnel. Your political persuasions don't come into play, your personal opinions about our current war don't matter, and your like or dislike for the way our country is run has nothing to do with the fact that we are a blessed people. Today, you wrote a thank you letter to a veteran. I would like for you to spend some time between now and Wednesday and reflect on what it means to be American, and what kind of a debt of gratitude we owe to people like that.


*Note: Feel free to comment on this (I would love it if you did), HOWEVER, it does not count as your Holocaust unit comment.

Week of November 9-- Is it starting to feel like a balancing act???

I am enjoying this unit with you all so very much. I am proud of your maturity and your insightful comments. There have been so many things stated this semester that feel much more in depth than what I have heard in previous semesters. Thank you for taking the topic seriously and for respecting me during this unit.

Monday, 11/9
Rescue/Resistance/Liberation Notes
Responsibility
Triangle
DUE: HEL Paper

Tuesday, 11/10
Night

Wednesday, 11/11
Night

Thursday, 11/12
Night
Seminar/Test

Friday, 11/13
"Life is Beautiful"
DUE: Journals
Essay Packet

Your Cause

In some of my previous classes, Sonja DuBois challenged them to pick one cause to devote their time, energy, and resources to. As you age, there will be lots of requests and demands of you for social causes and charities. One lesson of the Holocaust is that "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." (Edmund Burke) We are responsible, throughout our lives, as citizens of a democracy, of a society, for doing our best to correct injustices around us. Too often we do one of two things: we either ignore these problems or we try to give a little to everything to ease our guilty consciences. As Sonja so eloquently pointed out, imagine if each person chose ONE cause and devoted him or herself to it for life?

Obviously my passion is respect for your fellow man. I have devoted myself as an educator to a study of the Holocaust in the hope of educating those around me about making the world a safer place. I feel that every human being deserves respect. As far as my "cause", beyond being a Holocaust educator, I am committed to a ministry for abused and neglected children called Royal Family Ministries. My church does a camp every summer for nearly forty children in the foster care systems of Bradley, Hamilton, and McMinn counties. I have served as a counselor at that camp almost every year since its inception in 1999. This is our tenth year for Royal Family Kids Camp, and we have expanded that ministry to include a middle school retreat about five years ago. I serve on the Royal Family board at my church, Kraig and I are both counselors, and we have chosen to make this ministry the source of our financial support. You know that I try not to ask you to do anything I would not/am not doing, so I wanted to answer the question that follows before I asked you to.

My question to you is, what is your cause going to be? What are you passionate about? What do you see as something that merits your time, energy, and resources? Or are YOU going to stand by and do nothing?

Kristallnacht-- the November Pogram

If you are interested in learning more about Kristallnacht, check out the link above to the USHMM online exhibition. Again, feel free to leave any comments. For example, why were their places of worship attacked? Can you think of other examples in history where places of worship were attacked?

Father Patrick DesBois

I read this afternoon about a French priest who has taken on the mission of discovering every mass grave of Jews in the Ukraine. It is a pretty interesting story and the link to the NY TImes article is below. I am also linking a podcast (below that) from the USHMM about it.

NY Times article:


Podcast:


If you read the article or listen to the podcast, I would love to hear your thoughts on it. These would have been the victims of the mobile killing squads we talked about today.

What is the importance of knowing where someone is buried, of having an actual grave to visit? Why do people return to the scene of accidents and deaths? Why are these things so important to us as humans?