After reading Juzwik’s article: “The Ethics of Teaching Disturbin Past: Reader Response, Historical Contextualization, and Rhetorical (Con)Textualization of Holocaust Texts in English,” I found myself feeling lost. I think this may be one of the first times that the moral implications, the moral factors, of teaching English Language Arts really strikes me. Then again, I feel like I should have seen this coming. I myself have learned a lot about myself and my morality from reading.
Juzwik says that she wants to avoid simple moralizing. And she is correct that often teacher use simple moralization to tackle difficult subjects. However, I do have to push back against this. I believe that there is right and there is wrong. A teacher’s duty is to help students wade through the grey and see that right and wrong. I don’t think Juzwik would disagree.
But what about other difficult moral situations? What about Andrew Jackson? He is the seventh president of the United States of America. His face greets you on the twenty-dollar bill. He also attempted to perpetrate racially drive crimes as well. He institutionalized the “Indian Removal Acts” which almost whipped out a significant portion of the Native American population. He also seriously opposed the Abolitionist movement. But, he’s also one of America’s presidents, a leader of the country and a symbol of the nation.
I’ve chatted with a lot of fellow students who are incoming history teachers. When I ask them about how to talk about these things with students, they respond: “you should just tell them like it is.” And that’s a very valid response and absolutely true. History teachers should be fearless in telling their students the unabridged facts whenever appropriate. But I feel like it’s missing something.
It reminds me of the Onion’s piece “Man Always Gets Little Rush Out of Telling People John Lennon Beat Wife.” Just telling students about dark or difficult history, it simply not sufficient to give them the information and then go home for the day. As Juzwik points out in her article, students can find themselves sympathizing with Nazi propaganda if left to their own devices. (Juzwik) And there’s no want of evidence to back her up. We live in a society where in certain circles; it is hilarious to try to make the Mountain Dew corporation name a soda drink: “Hitler did nothing wrong.”
I remember during my school days, whenever Hitler and the Nazi party even remotely came up, my one teacher became incredibly serious and solemn. She repeatedly hammered into us students that we should never, ever, make light of the Nazi party. She hammered into us that we had a moral responsibility to not make jokes about it. At the time, I thought she was being overly protective. Now, I am so incredibly grateful to her. She wasn’t protecting me. She was teaching me moral responsibility and maturity.
Teachers should give students the unabridged facts; but they should also remember that they have a moral responsibility to the future world. That is why, as an English teacher, I think it is so important that teachers present students with morally difficult texts. There are a variety of texts, both fiction and non-fiction, that present serious moral dilemmas. As teachers, rather than run from them and protecting our students, we should face this head-on and prepare our students to find the morally right and wrong in our society.
Works cited;
https://local.theonion.com/man-always-gets-little-rush-out-of-telling-people-john-1819578998
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/dub-the-dew {Author’s note: due to the content of the controversy, reader discretion is advised.)
Juzwik, M. M. (2013). The ethics of teaching disturbing pasts: Reader response, historical contextualization, and rhetorical (con) textualization of Holocaust texts in English. English Education, 45(3), 284-308
From the Round Table 
I think that this post really brings to light one of the serious struggles we will face as teachers. We as teachers, particularly english and history teachers, are going to be walking a fine line when it comes to keeping things appropriate but exposing are students to the very real and very scary realities of our world. As teachers its true that the easiest thing to do would be to present the facts as they are and leave it at that but I feel as though we would be doing a disservice to our students; some of the most compelling and important pieces of history are the ones that bring to light the emotions of those who lived out these events. I think that is also our duty as teachers to present our kids with ALL sides of history. As I was growing up we learned all about the holocaust and the horrors surrounding the internment camps. We watched videos and listened to interviews of Holocaust survivors to really emphasize to us just how traumatizing and truly horrendous these events were but we never put as much effort into learning about the Japanese internment camps that were in our own country. It does a disservice to our students to shelter them from these sometimes hard to stomach topics. We as teachers want to prepare our students to be well informed and productive citizens in our society and they never will be if we shelter them throughout their school careers. So in my opinion yes teach those hard topics and show students the effects of these events in hopes that it will stick with them and teach them to be better than those who came before them.
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This is a very interesting post. After sifting through it several times I agree with you in a general sense, I think. In the sensitive world of 2019 when someone in any crowd will take offense to anything you say, I get the gist of simple moralizing, but also have more cons against it. For the people like me and you who like to “tell it how it is”, I do think there’s a difference between spitting raw and undisputed facts as opposed to political opinions. My only concern is your point about emphasizing morally difficult texts. I wouldn’t look for a controversial topic, but I certainly wouldn’t avoid or beat around the bush something I have to teach. Thanks for sharing.
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I find it interesting that in your first paragraph, you didn’t think about the moral implications you as a teacher have on your students. However, as I continued reading your article, I like how you said that you have “to push back” against teachers moralizing different readings that students have to do throughout their lives in schools. Clearly showing me what you were going to dive into and talk about.
But, I was wondering why you chose to quote Andrew Jackson? Did you put him in the article to prove your point of something, because he has a lot of negatives about him?
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