You tackle it in class. I'm also not avoiding anything related to the war in our classes. I remember as a student, this is really important as well, when I was a student we were discussing African American history or Native American history. And then I think that at one point, I raised my hand and said, “Oh, I see so many connections to our recent war, how universal some of the themes are when it comes to conflict and so on.” And I remember my teacher at that point, just cut me off, in a sense of, “No, no, we're not discussing that right now at all”, right? And I remember that until the end of that whole year, I never raised my hand again to make critical connections that relate to not only the war but also just generally something that I thought could be an issue if I were to raise it in class.  So I always remember that emotion that I had as a student. And I try not to do that with my students. So even though I ask myself, “What do I do now, when we raise these questions?” I really try to work on them. So yes, I tackle these issues when I see that there is something that's of interest to them. 

So we had topics students chose without my input at all topics such as, first of all, rape during war.  So they would discuss what it meant, and what it represented for women who were literally ignored. Women who were raped during the war and literally ignored after the war, or completely forgotten, and a sense of not being allowed to speak up about what happened to them…

Whatever they work on, when they discussed women who were raped in war, usually they would come to me to present their idea that they would like to do, and it would usually come from the perspective of one group during the war. And then I would tell them, okay, what about the other two that were involved in the war? They would be surprised and say, “Is it important to talk to them as well?” (And I would answer), “Very important.”...So this point of multiple perspectives, I think is key if we want to move forward in, you know, working with our future generations on these topics…

They (the school administration) don't know that I am working on these things. So that's why I said it could be a problem if they knew. Because I don't know if it, maybe not, I don't know to be honest. I've tried to talk to some of the members of our administration, and some of my senior colleagues in the Department as well. So I really tried to talk about what I do. What I usually get as a response is, “But what's the point in discussing that? How is that related to the English language?” Although I'm supposed to work on critical thinking skills related to contemporary issues, right? Mostly, what I get is “yes, but critical issues in the US and the UK.” 

So, that's when I decided, oh, I'll just work under the radar on the critical thinking of my students, and they really appreciate it, they love the topics we cover. So we're not the history department, right? So there is no sense of this cross-curricular understanding and connection in what we do and you know having our students really look at their lives but also look at generally the world from as I said, multiple perspectives, in the sense of multiple disciplines, multiple topics multiple and so on. So for now. It is what it is.

-O