Charlotte uses day to teach war's realities
- From: "Catherine" <Catherine@yahoo!!!.com>
- Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 18:16:51 GMT
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051112/NEWS/511120526/1060/
INDEX01
Charlotte uses day to teach war's realities
Instead of a holiday, students go to school to learn what Veterans Day is really
about.
By ANNA SCOTT
CHARLOTTE COUNTY -- Iraqi police trainer Chris Alexander faced hard questions Friday.
"What are those silver things on your boots?" a third-grader asked.
"Those are my dog tags," Alexander said.
"Do they protect you from bullets?"
"No," Alexander replied. "Heaven forbid, if something had happened to me, like a
bomb, and they couldn't see my face, they would look at my dog tags and see who I
am."
The idea that a metal tag could stop bullets, as though Alexander were a superhero,
reinforces the reasons Charlotte County schools are open on Veterans Day while most
other students have a day of vacation.
"We have a generation of people who don't really grasp what it means to be handed a
gun and stuck in a war," said Kenny Kincaid, a Charlotte High history teacher and
Gulf War veteran.
"They turn on the TV and play video games where they get to die three times for 25
cents."
Other schools in Southwest Florida close on Veterans Day and invite veterans to speak
earlier in the week.
That's not enough for Charlotte's school leaders, who reserve the day to teach a
generation raised with violent video games and war movies about the difference
between what's real and what's not.
"We actually do a better job of educating our students about veterans and the
sacrifices they made by being open," said Fran Holleran, the county's head social
studies teacher. "Otherwise they'd be hanging out at the mall or the beach and they
wouldn't know why they had the day off."
Having students touch real war medals and hear the stories that go with them makes
Veterans Day come alive.
"You can't teach them war and peace in a day," Holleran said. "But you can have them
talk to veterans who have been there."
Paul Cleveland, a teacher at L.A. Ainger Middle School, said students of this
generation are fascinated by war because their means of experiencing action and
conflict is usually nonviolent, through computers and movies.
"There are people in our community currently serving in the armed forces and some of
the students in this community may end up fighting in war, too," Cleveland said.
"It's important they realize that veterans are moms and dads in the community.
They're not just people in movies like 'Saving Private Ryan.'"
High school students especially struggle to form opinions about the war in Iraq.
Kincaid said some are desensitized to news shows and unwilling to listen to people
whose knowledge is based on secondhand accounts. Books about prior wars are static.
"At this age, students try very hard to look at the world around them and see how
they fit into it," Kincaid said. "It's very confusing for them, they're looking for
someone with experience, not a talking head on TV, but someone who's been there."
Alexander, a former Punta Gorda police officer who has spent the past three months
training Iraqi police officers, talked to students at Sallie Jones Elementary about
Iraq.
"You can't shelter them," said Alexander, who has three children in the school.
"You don't want them to start thinking they have to worry about just themselves in
this world. They need to worry about their brothers and sisters, here and overseas."
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