Controversial Issues

I felt that our last discussion section contained some of the most interesting topics to date. One of the most fascinating topics to me was the compensation given to those with a Native American ancestry. While controversial, it appears to me that this is something that may never come to a definitive solution, making it all the more interesting to talk about. We discussed how monetarily compensating Native Americans can be seen as almost negative, attempting to place a value on the suffering they incurred. While I somewhat agree, we as a nation are in a difficult place. It is clear that there is nothing we can really do that will change the atrocities that occurred. There is no "undo". That being said, one of the most important actions should be to educate children in depth about what really occurred. Beyond that however, I see no way other than monetary compensation to even attempt to make amends for what we as a nation have done. Also, it should be taken into consideration that this contribution is really intended repayment for the land and resources that we took from the native Americans, rather than direct compensation for their suffering.

I also found the conversation about early education significant. I believe that there are several considerations that must be taken when determining what is an appropriate age to educate children on particularly sensitive or graphic topics. First, we should not underestimate our youth. Often I believe that we wrongly assume children will be incapable of understanding something or that they are too young, when in reality they have likely already been exposed to similar content through television, etc. However, there is one idea not discussed in class that I felt was very important. There are many issues that can be discussed and understood on a basic level, however are in reality very complex and may have dimensions that a younger child simply cannot understand. Take for example the discussion of the holocaust we had. On surface level it is not hard to explain the events that occurred in Germany during WWII. However, a young child may understand at a basic level and at the same time not fully grasp what was going on or make false connections. For example, something that does not necessarily bother me (as my family was there at the time) but I see frequently is the connection that Germany was evil and responsible for what occurred, rather than Hitler's regime. Many people that have not been fully educated on the topic fail to realize that it was a small group of people that forced their beliefs on a nation who are responsible for what occurred. Many, if not the majority of German people were equally disgusted with Hitler's policies. At that time, an individual had no choice but to go along with the policies enacted. Many adults were drafted and forced into service for the Nazi party, and had to fight and die for something they didn't believe in. Many, many non-Jewish Germans were jailed and killed for offenses as minor as listening to the wrong radio station. There was a great deal of suffering occurring outside of the concentration camps, and without the proper education and thorough understanding misinterpretations are easily made. Therefore, we must take into account the complexity of each issue before deciding when an appropriate time to begin a child's education on the subject is.