Using the Blog Itself as a Teaching Tool

A student reading the "Derry Walls" blog post.

Every Spring, our students examine what was on the table for the Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998 and then--in pairs--make decisions about what they would choose as the most important provisions and which provisions they would be willing to let go (power sharing, an end to parades, stopping punishment beatings, decommissioning of weapons, etc.  -- ten provisions in all). Then they compare their decisions to what was actually accomplished, in the 1998 agreement and in the 2007 additions, and what has still not been accomplished. 

Students are often surprised by what was judged as valuable and what was left out. Their plan for peace can be quite different than the choices made in the actual peace agreement.

This year, we want to look past the agreement a little bit and start to judge how things have worked out. This could involve a look at Brexit and some speculation about the changes it will bring. But all of that is still very uncertain. 

What the blog can provide is a feeling of visitation accompanied by some historical context from our own learning. We can at least fill in some of the gaps by exposing students to what we felt and observed while we were over there. It's imperfect of course (we were only there for a week in the summer), but we can at least give a little more of a sense of the feeling in the streets of Derry and Belfast than we could in prior years. 

For a start, I chose the blog posts "Derry Walls" (https://teachingthetroublesatnha.blogspot.com/2017/08/derry-walls.html) and "Stormont and Other Surprises" (https://teachingthetroublesatnha.blogspot.com/2017/08/stormont-and-other-surprises.html). With the Peace Agreement fresh in their minds, I thought these two posts might have the most ambience in terms of the Unionist-Nationalist divide in its current form. In the space of the second half of a block period lesson, this seemed possible to get through.

It was interesting to see who most engaged with these readings by their teachers and who did not. It did not fall along the same lines as the students who most engaged with the other activities. This felt like a very different mode for learning about the conflict. For this reason, I wonder if this blog might be good to use more often, to differentiate for a sort of learner who doesn't always respond to the other sorts of teaching modalities that we typically use in Facing History classes.

A student makes notes based on the blog posts.

How much do you teach? How much do you let students discover?

The Seven Documents

Previously, we would jump into the Northern Ireland unit with an Inquiry Activity. After practicing questioning technique with a single image and a discussion about what makes a good research question, pairs of students--or groups of three--look through seven compelling documents searching for clues to what was going on, making inferences and bringing up questions to be used for further research.

The lesson is good for building curiosity but is also a balancing act. How much do students need to already know about this conflict to make connections between the things they are seeing? How much preliminary information is too much and limits their curiosity?

This year, the inquiry activity comes after the new flag lesson. The students have read a poem about the symbolism of flag burning in Belfast. They have posed some questions about it and found answers. They have looked at photographs captioned with the stories of the Belfast children and teens who took the images, images describing a struggle. They have looked at the Union Jack and the Irish Tricolor. They have drawn them into their journals. They have discovered the difference between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.

So, this year, I wondered if they already knew too much. But they didn't. Overall, I think their enthusiasm for the activity only increased. They knew enough. 

And they needed a little more. To know that "Republican" in Northern Ireland means Nationalist and frequently Catholic, and to know that "Ulster" in an organization's name indicates a Loyalist leaning and usually Protestantism helps them to navigate a document that is a timeline of the murdered: "Wait, this guy is Catholic but was killed by a Republican organization!" "Maybe it's like with gangs... like he snitched..."

The students need to know just a little. Then, they need to embrace the search to know more.

Students engaging with the activity

The final page of the capture sheet, filled out.

Another sample of the final page.

Flags

Union Jack flags, Moorgate Street in East Belfast

Irish Tricolor flags in Derry City Cemetery

"There is no action without an equal but opposite reaction... It was early morning on an August Sunday in 2003 and there were bonfires being built to commemorate the republican men who were interned in the 1970s. Internment-remembering bonfires burn the Union Flag in an equal but opposite reaction to the Boyne-remembering bonfires burning the Irish Tricolour. It felt as predictable as the seasons and as dependable. The only motion is on an axis of its own." -- from "Welcome to Belfast," a prose poem by Padraig O Tuama.

Flags weigh heavy on Belfast and Derry. In the summer, particularly in Belfast, you pass through neighborhoods draped in them. They set a tone for pedestrians. You might feel they are beautiful flapping in the breeze, or you may be intimidated. Flags ask you to pick a side. If they are the Irish Tricolor and the Union Jack, they will rarely be seen together, except in some sort of conflict.

At NHA, we are struggling with how to introduce this foreign but meaningful conflict in a way that invites inquiry. How do we reveal just enough to invite questions, without revealing so much that the process of student-led education is stifled? We are thinking maybe the questions should start by looking at the flags themselves, and also looking at Padraig O Tuama's prose poem "Welcome to Belfast," that relates the experience of arrival in Belfast through observation of its young citizens' relationship to those flags. 

Our new first lesson will begin with these details and the questions they raise: What is internment? What is the Boyne? Why are flags being burnt? Why are flags being protected?

We will also use photographic images taken and explained by children (acquired at the Wave Trauma Centre in Belfast) in a gallery walk that we hope will make our students feel the way the symbolism of the conflict makes people feel in the streets of Northern Ireland's cities. This lesson may also include images of everyday objects transformed by the "Troubles" (acquired from Healing Through Remembering, also in Belfast). 

We hope that questions will be raised and feelings will be felt that can be furthered as they learn more in future lessons. But the first step is to feel what the conflict feels like, and to start to question how it came to be so.

Doing the Work

Donal at work at the Institute Library in New Haven

One of the benefits of doing research in Ireland and Northern Ireland was to meet up with Donal O'Hagan again and to get back to work on our play, Fathers Without Sons. A grant from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland has followed, and now Donal and I are working together to further revise our play draft in New Haven.

More information on the play can be found here:

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/fussiner_ohagan/

...and here:

http://facingtoday.facinghistory.org/after-parkland-this-play-by-two-teachers-is-more-relevant-than-ever

I will add to this blog as the play and possible productions develop, and of course I will add to the blog as we begin to teach our New Haven Academy Northern Ireland unit again in the Spring.

Kate Turner: Healing Through Remembering

Kate in her Belfast offices, with Saul and Dave

When we met Kate Turner, she was packing up her offices on Ormeau Avenue in Belfast. Her small nonprofit, Healing Through Remembering (it consists of only four employees and a handful of interns) was downsizing. She made us tea and we sat around in a circle as she gave us a generous supply of teaching materials and pedagogical handbooks that her organization has produced. We promised we wouldn't keep her long, that this was just the beginning of what we hoped would be a long and fruitful conversation and partnership over time.

We were made aware of Kate and her organization through Alan McBride, our friend at the WAVE Trauma Centre, who dedicated his own life to trauma work after the death of his wife in the Shankill Road bombing. He is a founding board member and adviser for this organization.

Kate described her organization's mission as a question, "How do we deal with conflict?" They have developed core principles under three headings: Society; Process; and Individual.

Under Society, the core principles are Commitment to a Better Future; Not Forgetting; Healing and Hurt; Centrality of Truth; and Realistic and Hopeful Goals.

Under Process, the core principles are Language and Terminology; Structured and Holistic Approach; Trust, Transparency and Engagement; Independence and Political Commitment; Recognition and Appreciation of Existing Work; and Flexibility.

Under Individual, the core principle is Inclusive, Diverse and Participative: "This is an issue for all of society and across these islands. The approach must be participatory to enable everyone to have ownership so that the lessons learned can be understood and shared amongst the widest possible cross-section of society." In everything they do, Healing Through Remembering makes sure the group is diverse, "but no head counts."

When they surveyed Northern Irish people to ask what sort of memorial they would need, the overwhelming response was that "the memorial people wanted was that it never happen again." So the organization's mission is making remembering an active and present activity, not just something about the past, but something that informs actions in the present, something that stays with you. "How you are remembering is about the here and now."

The organization has declared every June 21st, the longest day of the year, as a "Day of Reflection" and has prepared a guide for how to approach this day. "It is... an inclusive and positive experience that emphasizes a commitment to a peaceful new society. It provides a voluntary opportunity for everyone in Northern Ireland, The Republic of Ireland, Great Britain and further afield to reflect upon the conflict in and about Northern Ireland and the future that is before us."

When talking about the period of greatest sectarian violence (roughly 1968 to 1998 and a little beyond), Kate says it is important that each individual use whatever term they are most comfortable with: The Troubles; the War; the Terrorist Campaign; the Conflict; et cetera. 

"What do you call it?" I asked Kate. 

"We call it the Conflict in and around Northern Ireland. This emphasizes that it happened beyond just here. It did happen here, and also in the Republic, and in Britain, and in Europe, and in the World." 

Storytelling is central to Kate's vision, and she has organized a storytelling sub-group consisting of fourteen or fifteen people, who have issued reports and were the authors of the core ethical principles listed above. Kate's own background, before becoming Director, is in Psychology and administrative work in the voluntary sector.

"Some people want a Truth and Reconciliation Commission," Kate says, referring to the South African judicial process that is also a central part of our teaching at NHA. "But that's not the question. The question is, 'What will work for us?' We already have truth recovery, but the question is whether we can do something better."

Healing Through Remembering's voluminous "Conversation Guide to Dealing with the Past" includes beautiful images from its traveling exhibition "Ordinary Objects Transformed by the Troubles": a milk bottle used as a petrol bomb; a CS canister made into a lamp; a tobacco tin transformed into art at Crumlin Road Prison; a political T-shirt; photographs of burned out cars and buildings; PO boxes re-painted all-green or in the tricolors of the Union Jack; defaced coins; "Ulster says No" matchboxes; "We are the spongers" badges from 1974; a baby doll marred by a rubber bullet; a shrapnel fragment from the IRA bombing of the London Post Office tower; 1970's platform shoes used to smuggle bullets into prison; and on and on. This material just begs to be used by any teacher hoping to teach the Troubles period. Like a good playwright or storyteller, Kate's organization has recognized the revelation that is the character's relationship to an object. The Troubles are opened up and made everyday, so that we may feel empathy and impact all these years later, so that we may learn from it all as inquisitive and thoughtful students.

She put her hand on the enormous binder of materials she was giving us for free. "We are using objects as a way of opening up to story sharing."

While trauma work is a serious business, Kate maintains a great sense of humor. Dave pointed out that the back windows of her office seem to face the windows of the Adelaide Street flat we had rented just three days earlier. "You may have seen me coming out of the shower in a towel," he joked.

"Could be," she said, "I thought I felt a twinge of excitement the other day." 

It could not have been anywhere near as powerful as the twinge of excitement Dave and I both felt when we realized that Kate was actually giving us these teaching materials, which we both instantly recognized as a key to a magical door that will make this period both relevant and present in the minds of the students of NHA.

Gorgeously presented and deep materials donated to us by Kate

Still more amazing materials from Kate

Bringing it all Back Home

Some materials donated to Saul and Dave's classrooms by the WAVE Trauma Centre

Speak Your Mind, a collection of stories and photography by Belfast children and teens

Danielle's photograph in Speak Your Mind

Page facing Danielle's photo in Speak Your Mind

My lifelong friend Anastasia, a dual citizen from Texas now living in Tobercurry, County Sligo, recalls the way that Ireland saved her from a life she never wanted. She was a producer at HBO at the time. She had just spent a solid day choosing among naked women for a stripper sequence on a show and she was sick of that life. She quit, bought a ticket for Shannon Airport and was in Galway the following day, name-dropping and buying every round at the Quays in the Latin Quarter until her friend grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out onto the cobblestone streets to tell her she was making an arse of herself, that this was Galway, not Hollywood. That no one name-drops here, that no one buys every single round. That moment was a major turning point for her, a lecture she feels she needed to hear. "Galway" became a synonym in her mind for living honestly and humbly, for being real. She lived there for many years after, and met her husband, a tech director at the Druid Theatre. They moved up to a lovely farmhouse in Tobercurry just a few months ago, with a beautiful blonde German Shepherd puppy.

We learn lessons from Ireland, and carry them in our hearts. Once Ireland gets inside you, it doesn't go away. Today's post will be the first of several in which I discuss how the grant will affect our teaching here in the States.

Alan McBride at the WAVE Trauma Centre gave us a suitcase worth of materials of an intimacy and accessibility that we would not be able to find anywhere else. Scores of ordinary citizens of Belfast attempt to heal themselves by telling the stories of their wounded and dead and also the stories of what they love about Belfast. 

So far, I am especially taken by the book Speak Your Mind. It is a collection of photographs and very short writings by children and teenagers living in Belfast. I saw it as an opportunity for an inquiry activity in which our students bring up questions about Belfast based on what they see in this text early in the unit, questions that will help them guide their own learning about Northern Ireland, sectarianism and the Troubles as the unit progresses. 

But my colleague Kirk had an even better idea. Our students should do their own photos and explanations of their own inner-city neighborhoods, creating documents of their New Haven that can later be used to help them understand and empathize with these other young people and their Belfast. Two cities full of both love and violence, as all cities are. Understandings across race and sect, getting at what is universally human underneath it all.

I will continue to report on the use of these and other materials as we begin to apply them in our classes.

Saul and Anastasia at her farmhouse in Tobercurry, County Sligo

Belfast to Dublin

Saul and Daibheid Joyce at Glasnevin Cemetery

Cobblestone Pub Signage

Saul and Dave at the Cobblestone

In the morning, it was hard to say goodbye to Donal. He was our fair-minded sociologist/anthropologist of the Troubles, our patient interpreter of all things Northern Ireland, our tour guide, my writing partner, our gracious host, our running partner, our connection to Stormont, my drinking buddy, and the doctor healing Dave of his homesickness. Dave just kept saying, "Donal is a really great guy" as we drove out of the city. At the last stop petrol station, I spent all of my remaining British Pounds on Cadbury, Polo and Trebor candies for my kids, and we put the Pogues station back on Pandora as we speeded back down towards the Republic.

The last two things we had wanted to hit in Dublin were Kilmainham Gaol and Glasnevin Cemetery, but we only had the energy to do one today. We chose Glasnevin simply because it is the one closest to where our friend Daibheid Joyce is situated. He met us for tea and then took us to see his ancestor's mysterious and unmarked grave. We then had the official tour, taking us to the graves (or sometimes just the marker, for those buried at jails elsewhere) of O'Connell, Casement, Parnell, De Valera, Plunkett and other luminaries.  

At the end of the tour, a reenactor delivered Easter Rising leader, poet and Irish language activist Patrick (Padraeg) Pearse's fiery speech over the grave of his friend Rosa which includes the lines: "The fools, the fools, the fools! They have left us our Fenian dead. And while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace!" 

I recorded the entire long speech on the Go Pro, and I will post it into this blog at a later time.

In many places on our journey, people have lamented the Irish education system's unwillingness to bring the most difficult parts of Irish history into the schools. Some told us it is the psychology of a colonized people; others blamed the censoriousness of the Catholic church; others said it was to prevent the inevitable fights that would break out. But whether it is in the schools or not, that history is everywhere in this country: from pictures and clippings about the Easter Rising on pub walls, to the songs full of references to events, to the way in which a cemetery or a jail or even a Post Office becomes a richly detailed historical museum. Meanwhile, sit down for a pint in any Irish pub and you will get a history and politics lesson that may refer to figures like Cromwell or Parnell or Connolly or even Edmund Spenser so vividly that it's as if they were alive today.

In the evening, we strolled around the city, had dinner at an excellent Thai place in Temple Bar (it can't be bangers and black pudding all the time) and found our way back to the Cobblestone, for a final night of excellent music. I even got up and sang a song with the musicians (there's a video of this now up on Facebook). I'm not a great singer, but it was our last night in Ireland and I didn't want to go home without singing.

Saul at the Cobblestone

Padraig Pearse Reenactor at Glasnevin