How Young is Too Young to Teach About Genocide?
I look forward to Saturday mornings the entire week. If I'm lucky, D'Assise will wait until 6:30 am to wake me up, giving me a whole glorious hour of sleeping in. And then I make us some coffee (watering his down with lots of additional hot water and more milk), and we either play card games, watch Beatles concerts on YouTube, or if we tried to watch a movie the night before but were too tired to finish, we watch the rest of the movie on Saturday morning. It's peaceful outside and the morning sunlight streams into our house, and he snuggles up next to me on the cushions in our living room.
Last night, we'd started to watch The Sound of Music, one of my all-time favorites, but we were both full of pizza and nodded off shortly after Maria gets kicked out of the convent. D'Assise had seen the movie before, when I would regularly watch it with the nuns I lived with as a Peace Corps Volunteer (the nuns would sometimes jokingly call me "Maria" as a result), but he was too young to remember.
This morning, he was entranced by the seven Von Trapp children singing together and delighted when they all fell out of the canoe on the lake. But there were several parts of the movie that were confusing to him as well. When Captain VonTrapp ripped down the Nazi flag that was hung at his house in the movie and when the family flees to the Alps to escape the soldiers, D'Assise asked me what was going on. Why were they so scared? Why were the angry soldiers trying to catch the family?
I have wondered many, many times this past year when it's appropriate to start telling D'Assise about genocide. He's eight years old, and I have parsed my memory trying to remember how old I was when I heard about such atrocities, and wondering when I could talk to him about it without overwhelming him.
Perhaps if we were in the U.S., I would choose to wait a little bit longer to explain the terrible things that humans are capable of. The earliest I could remember learning about the Holocaust in elementary school was fourth grade; D'Assise is in third grade. But we live in Rwanda, where the country still commemorates the million lives lost in 1994 each April, where there is a genocide memorial nearby the route to D'Assise's school, and where human skulls are displayed right outside of the church that we attend on Sundays. A month or two ago, D'Assise asked me after school if he is Hutu or Tutsi. I was shocked and saddened to hear that question from him. I responded that he's Rwandan. I asked D'Assise where he heard those terms, and he responded that he heard kids at school talking about it and was just curious.
D'Assise was born in 2008, fourteen years after the genocide in Rwanda. Since he was abandoned as a baby, we do not know his biological parents, and I couldn't answer the question any other way, even if I had wanted to. He is, and will always be, truly a Rwandan.
This morning, I decided that it was probably a good time to talk about it with him since he was asking questions anyways. I started by talking about the events that were confusing to him in the movie. The movie was based on history, and I gave him an overview of the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, the Holocaust, and the invasion of Europe, while trying not to go too far into some of the horrific details.
I then asked him if he knew what the word genocide meant, and D'Assise responded yes, jenoside---the kinyarwanda-ized version of the same word. I asked him if he knew what the word meant, and he said it was a type of war, but he didn't know much more. I asked D'Assise if knew that Rwanda had experienced a genocide, and he said yes but he wasn't born yet. I asked D'Assise if he had learned about genocide in school, but he said no. He had overheard the Sisters he lived with talking about how one nun in their order had gone out to buy potatoes during 1994, but she was found later with a machete through her skull. I was horrified and incredibly saddened. I asked him if kids at school talked about the genocide, but he said no, that if they ever talked about it, they'd be sent to the police.
I asked him why he thought people committed genocide and how it happens, and he said "because they hate other people." I said yes, but also because a lot of people--their friends and neighbors and community members--- looked the other way instead of doing anything. We both sat there in silence for awhile--I could tell that he was processing what we had discussed. Finally, I gave him a hug and he went out to play soccer.
I know that this won't be the last time we discuss these difficult topics. But I hope that by starting the conversation now, instead of staying silent if his classmates ask him if he's Hutu or Tutsi, that he'll be able to respond that it doesn't matter, that they're all abanyarwanda, Rwandan.
Last night, we'd started to watch The Sound of Music, one of my all-time favorites, but we were both full of pizza and nodded off shortly after Maria gets kicked out of the convent. D'Assise had seen the movie before, when I would regularly watch it with the nuns I lived with as a Peace Corps Volunteer (the nuns would sometimes jokingly call me "Maria" as a result), but he was too young to remember.
This morning, he was entranced by the seven Von Trapp children singing together and delighted when they all fell out of the canoe on the lake. But there were several parts of the movie that were confusing to him as well. When Captain VonTrapp ripped down the Nazi flag that was hung at his house in the movie and when the family flees to the Alps to escape the soldiers, D'Assise asked me what was going on. Why were they so scared? Why were the angry soldiers trying to catch the family?
Perhaps if we were in the U.S., I would choose to wait a little bit longer to explain the terrible things that humans are capable of. The earliest I could remember learning about the Holocaust in elementary school was fourth grade; D'Assise is in third grade. But we live in Rwanda, where the country still commemorates the million lives lost in 1994 each April, where there is a genocide memorial nearby the route to D'Assise's school, and where human skulls are displayed right outside of the church that we attend on Sundays. A month or two ago, D'Assise asked me after school if he is Hutu or Tutsi. I was shocked and saddened to hear that question from him. I responded that he's Rwandan. I asked D'Assise where he heard those terms, and he responded that he heard kids at school talking about it and was just curious.
D'Assise was born in 2008, fourteen years after the genocide in Rwanda. Since he was abandoned as a baby, we do not know his biological parents, and I couldn't answer the question any other way, even if I had wanted to. He is, and will always be, truly a Rwandan.
This morning, I decided that it was probably a good time to talk about it with him since he was asking questions anyways. I started by talking about the events that were confusing to him in the movie. The movie was based on history, and I gave him an overview of the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, the Holocaust, and the invasion of Europe, while trying not to go too far into some of the horrific details.
I then asked him if he knew what the word genocide meant, and D'Assise responded yes, jenoside---the kinyarwanda-ized version of the same word. I asked him if he knew what the word meant, and he said it was a type of war, but he didn't know much more. I asked D'Assise if knew that Rwanda had experienced a genocide, and he said yes but he wasn't born yet. I asked D'Assise if he had learned about genocide in school, but he said no. He had overheard the Sisters he lived with talking about how one nun in their order had gone out to buy potatoes during 1994, but she was found later with a machete through her skull. I was horrified and incredibly saddened. I asked him if kids at school talked about the genocide, but he said no, that if they ever talked about it, they'd be sent to the police.
I asked him why he thought people committed genocide and how it happens, and he said "because they hate other people." I said yes, but also because a lot of people--their friends and neighbors and community members--- looked the other way instead of doing anything. We both sat there in silence for awhile--I could tell that he was processing what we had discussed. Finally, I gave him a hug and he went out to play soccer.
I know that this won't be the last time we discuss these difficult topics. But I hope that by starting the conversation now, instead of staying silent if his classmates ask him if he's Hutu or Tutsi, that he'll be able to respond that it doesn't matter, that they're all abanyarwanda, Rwandan.
You're an amazing person, compassionate, thoughtful and a wonderful mama and teacher. I aspire to be like you. Xoxo
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