The ?millennial generation? ? made up of those born between 1982 and 2002 ? has been called ?the most sheltered generation in history,? as paranoia of scarring our children seems to be the trend in today?s Western society. This may not seem like such a bad thing when it comes to modern advances in basic safety, as there?s obviously no reason to deprive a child of a car seat or bicycle helmet. Taken toward education, however, this approach promises to have a deleterious effect, as any discomfort caused by teaching is met with the reactionary equivalent of a bike helmet ? the kind that?s too big and covers your entire head.
Case in point: French President Nicolas Sarkozy?s recent approach to Holocaust education. Mr. Sarkozy?s plan to implement a curriculum in which each child learns the personal story of a French child killed in the Holocaust has been met with criticism from all sides, according to a New York Times article, in part because ?requiring students to identify with a specific victim would traumatize them.?
That?s where paranoia rears its ugly head. Though Mr. Sarkozy?s initiative may indeed prove problematic for a number of reasons, fear of ?traumatizing? a 10-year-old child should not, in this case, be one of them.
Since political incorrectness has recently become a societal faux pas, it is easy to fool ourselves into thinking we?ve made real progress in our understanding of grave issues like racial tension, oppression or genocide. It is true that we?ve advanced the discourse, as previously ignored problems are finally finding a voice, and are ? at least by some ? being heard. But let?s not forget that speech is not the equivalent of action, and that it is actions, not words, that ultimately demonstrate whether societal progress has truly occurred.
I don?t want to be negative, but it does appear we often overestimate our capacity for acting on our promises and rhetoric; in getting caught up in the persuasive power of our words, we often don?t notice how inconsistent they are with our actions.
No matter how much we talk about the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. and discrimination in schools, racism doesn?t go away and is not likely to disappear any time in the near future. And let?s not forget that at the time of the Holocaust, Germany?s Jews weren?t exactly living on the fringes of society; they were, by most accounts, integrated ? working high-paying jobs, residing in the same neighborhoods as other Germans and living in ostensible harmony with the rest of German society. So even if the West appears to be integrating ? and I?m not even sure this is the case ? this supposedly inclusive society is nonetheless more precarious than it seems.
By sheltering children from a personal, possibly traumatizing connection with a serious issue, we separate them from the problem. An abstract understanding of empathy as an important quality is nothing like the actual act of empathizing. This inability to experience what is being taught, especially with regard to human rights and basic ethical claims, undoubtedly has the potential to prove more harmful than the ?trauma? of exposure to a tragic event.
Greater trauma will follow from schooling?s inability to instill willpower and conviction in the ever-important values it attempts to teach; if past troubling events are made to seem abstract and far away in school, there is no reason they would all of a sudden begin to feel relevant when they occur in the present. Students are not prepared to grasp the weight of atrocities if they are protected from a world where they exist. No personal connection means no personal sense of responsibility, which in turn means no drive to take action.
For instance, regardless of extensive studies of past war crimes and genocides, we still have not grasped the full effect of the Iraq war ? and no amount of public discussion and mourning has proved successful in significantly increasing action. The death toll rises every day, but despite our heightened awareness, the situation remains largely unchanged.
Of course we should not expose toddlers to distressing narratives and gruesome imagery, but it is not preposterous to expose elementary school-aged children to historical or current affairs by giving them the opportunity to draw parallels to their own lives. So, the exposure must be doled out sensibly, so as not to risk real psychological damage, but it must nonetheless be present, even in the lives of young children.
Viewing Mr. Sarkozy?s plan in this context, we must ask ourselves what is more important: discomfort ? even trauma ? caused by a forced reappraisal of one?s own values, or the insight gained from such an experience? I would argue for the latter, especially at a time when it is so easy to use intellectualized discussion of issues as a means to hide from actual action. Learning the story of a child who perished in the Holocaust is personal, and it can be emotional and somewhat traumatizing. But if it can forge an understanding that can inspire action through direct, rather than abstract, understanding, then perhaps it is a possible antidote to our incessantly cyclical history of ignorance-induced apathy.
Hannah Shtein ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in philosophy.
