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| Some student responses to a survey about what to add to the class next year. |
As always, we didn't have time to cover everything we might want to cover about Northern Ireland this year. Time is limited, and there are always certain things that we most want to hit home. The important thing is to educate students about this particular example of how people behave in groups and to show that peace is possible, but it is something that must constantly be worked at.
In response to a few students feeling they still did not know enough about the conflict, I surveyed them to see what more they felt might be important to know. Given three choices of major events in the struggle, it was the Hunger Strikes of 1981 that seemed to universally peak their interest, so the challenge is to figure out a way to fit that piece in next year.
In my own knowledge of this struggle, the hunger strikes were certainly a point when--as a child--the Troubles really appeared very strongly on my radar and America's radar as the newspapers and television were very taken with them. Whatever one thinks of the hunger strikes, that was undeniably a time when the attention of the whole world was very much riveted to the sectarian struggle in Northern Ireland.
I think our students were right to request it as a key thing for next year's students in this unit to learn about.
