Justice is served

The BBC reports that former Rwandan Major Bernard Ntuyahaga has been sentenced to twenty years in prison for the murders, thirteen years ago, of ten Belgian Peacekeepers in the early days of the 1994 genocide.

I'm sure there's something in there about justice delayed and justice served.

And granted it's a small thing, considering that at least 800,000 people, probably more, were killed in the most horrific ways imaginable, while we watched, during those one hundred days between April and June.

I want justice for all those that died, and for all those that lived.

I am privileged enough to know a survivor. A wonderful young man, who with his sister, is one of only two remaining members of his family. His mother, his father, his seven brothers and sisters all died in the genocide. Only one of their bodies was ever found.

He coaches youth soccer and he's been kind enough to come and speak to my kids when I've asked, sharing his story when I teach my unit on genocide. On the block schedule, I've been able to find the time to do this with my kids for the last several years.

I bought the PBS Frontline video Ghosts of Rwanda, created the handouts, the worksheets, the lessons, and carved out the time in my schedule to give a huge chunk of classtime, two to three weeks, including time in the media center to negotiate the website.

I did this away from a strict interpretation of state mandates and department guidelines regarding time spent on units, to cover the event in depth.

Because I think it's important.

The kids never fail to start the unit bitching and moaning about the amount of work they need to do to get to the video, especially since most of them have no knowledge of Africa or events in pre-history such as things that happened in 1994.

But they also never fail to get into the unit. And they never fail to be moved by the sight of all those bodies. They never fail to be righteously indignant about the failure of the West to intervene. Even when I make them factor in the lingering after effects the deaths of American servicemen in Mogadishu had on the Clinton administration.

Even knowing the number of deaths in the genocide, they still never fail to ask if those bodies are real.

And that's why it's important. Because the bodies were real. All of them. And they were not getting up. Ever again.

Because it wasn't a game. There was no reset. It wasn't gratuitous violence on the big screen, the small screen, or on someone's PSP. It was real. And it is still going on.

And my kids will never know that unless I show them.

Which for the first time in over five years, I may not be able to do.

Under the trimester system, which saves money for financially strapped districts converting from block, under the crush of NCLB and state mandated standarized testing, under the crush of increasing demands to cover more in less time with less resources and a more needful student population lacking the skills to do so, in classrooms crowded with over 35, I face the very real possibility that I will not be able to find a way to work this unit into my curriculum.

I can't imagine anyone telling me I shouldn't. It happens. It is a tragedy.

Because this is what I believe social studies teachers are supposed to do.