Introduction

                My name is Connor Whamond, and I am currently a junior at Westborough High. This year I had the chance to take Facing History and Ourselves and when I first walked into the class I thought that it would be like any other class, where on the first day we go in and the teacher just tells us what we are doing for the semester and that’s all you do for the first week. Facing History and Ourselves is a class that is offered for the students to take different historical events and relate these different historical events to ourselves and also for us to think about what we would do if we were in these different situations. The class is also driven towards me and the other students and what we would do and not what the teacher would do. I chose to take this class this year because last year my brother took the class and everyday he would talk about what they did that day in this class, and what he was saying sounded very interesting to me. He would also keep telling me that I should think about taking this class because of how powerful it was towards him. So I decided I mine as well take it, and I couldn’t disagree with him about how interesting and powerful this class truly is, and how different your views are on different subjects after completing a semester of this class. Also after taking this class, I wish I could go back in time and take back all the rude/racial jokes I have said in the past.    

What Facing History

Facing History and Ourselves benefited me as a student and who I am in many different ways.  It brought new ideas and beliefs to my eyes.  It also made me become more open minded about everything around, and in some ways, it changed my opinion about people and it also made me stop and think before I say any rude and racial comments. It also made me a different person now, and hopefully a better person, as a result of having been a part of this class.

Facing History has also helped me with thinking independently in the fact that Facing History is about ourselves and connecting with what we do in the class, to who we are as people. It also made better with making my own decisions about events in the past for what I would if I was in the people in charge. It is also a class where no two people have the same opinion and whatever your opinion is neither right nor wrong.   

               Throughout this past semester we have watched many films, read numerous documents, and looked at several different pictures. Out of all of these learning experiences, there are three things that have really stuck in my head, and I will never forget. The first thing is the movie “Freedom Writers.” This year was the third or fourth time I have seen this film and every time I find different parts of the movie that I didn’t play close attention to and this time around I realized that I might not have all the things I want to have, but there are people who have nothing and if they lived like me they would feel like I have everything. So I feel I should be granted for everything have and not complain about the things I don’t have. Also I should feel granted that I wake up every day because there are kids out there who don’t know if they will wake the next morning in their homes or next to their friends and family. The film also showed me that there are people out there who truly do care and want to make a difference. I admire these people for what they do because they don’t do it because they have to. But they do it because they feel like it is the right thing to do.  In this movie the main character wanted to make a difference in the kids’ lives.

            Another film segment that we watched that had a great effect on me was ‘The Choice”. The part of the film that was the most interesting was this woman who had to choose between her two kids with which one she will stay with after she enters the concentration camps. This one choice she has to make is the one choice I couldn’t make. I feel like I have had to make some pretty tough decisions to make. But after watching this film segment, I feel as if none of the decisions I will ever make will never truly live up to the choice that she had to make.

Another film that we watched, which I will never forget, is called “Boy in the Striped Pajamas.” I found this film to be very emotional, and at some parts very hard to watch. It hurt me inside to know that there were human beings out there who had no respect for Jewish people. Not only did that have no respect for them, they were willing to hurt or kill. What they did to the children was especially upsetting. At the end of the film there was an SS soldier’s son that had found a friend that lived in one of the camps that was trying to find his father. The son of the soldier wanted to help the other kid out so bad when his family was moving away. So he had the Jewish get him a uniform and changed into, after changing into the uniform he dug under the barbed wire fence that would electrocute him, once he got into the camp him and his Jewish friend went running to a barracks to search for his father and when they got there another soldier was coming to lead the people from the barracks to the gas chamber. So the son of the soldier was gassed. At this point in the film, two innocent boys were killed for no reason at all except that one was Jewish, and the other was a friend trying to help the Jewish boy find his father, so he could be a little happier with a parent that loved him.   This prejudice way of thinking is hard for me to imagine, and I keep asking myself why these innocent people are being killed just because the people had different religious beliefs.  I know that discrimination still exists, but this film really opened my eyes to the hatred people have been subjected to in years past and I never knew the full extent to what happened then after seeing this, my jaw literally dropped.  It makes all of us be more aware of how our words and actions can impact people around us, especially in a negative way.

I truly believe that this class was the way it was because of Mr. Gallagher, the course teacher. He was not afraid to hold back and showed us films and documents that I never would have seen if he hadn’t shown them. Also, you could tell how dedicated he was to the class. He watched every film with us and was not afraid to answer questions or help us understand what was going on. I have gained an incredible amount of respect for Mr. Gallagher, as a person, a teacher, and a mentor.  He has been a great influence on my life as a person. He has opened my eyes to real life issues and helped me to be able to go out into the real world and help other people.

This course has taught me a lot about what has happened in the past, especially the Holocaust, which has been the main focus of the class. I had some knowledge of the Holocaust before taking the class, but I now have a better understanding of what really happened.

Works Cited

The Boy in the Striped Pajama’s. Google Images. Image 25 May 2012
Facing History and Ourselves. Google Images. Image. 25 May 2012
Freedom Writers. Google images. Image. 25May 2012
Gas Chamber.Google Images. Image. 25 May 2012
Holocaust. Google Images. Image. 25 May 2012