I had an interesting morning today. I decided to show my rowdy Y9 class a video of last night's news, specifically the lead story on channel 1. The police wanted to interview a certain National Front member in connection to an assault on some Somali chaps, and they were interested to see if he knows anyting about the desecration of the Makara cemetery. The article covered the suspect, the Makara crime, and a Holocaust denier who wants to come to NZ. This stirred up some interesting comments from the class.
Probably the best thing was that I prepared them for viewing the article by going over (in inredibly broad strokes) WW2, the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, left-wing and right-wing thinking, and the concept of consecration and desecration. I think it was unusual enough, and current enough, to spark some interest.
The Holocaust denier who was featured later in the item did not receive a warm reaction from the class, though of course several of them were lost by this point, having had more information crammed into their brains in 4 and a half minutes of news than they'd encountered in weeks. They were, however, aware enough to pick up on who they were 'supposed' to like and dislike, from the programme and from classmates, and there were some pretty strong comments made about racism and people being liers. Much fun, on a rainy Wednesday morning...
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