This year in Global History II, we learned about many historical eras, from the Industrial Revolution, to the Cold War. To me, the event that has stuck with me the most that we learned about was the Holocaust. Different from most classes, we did not learn about it as an event that occurred in history in which we memorize facts about to "understand" it. The focus of this unit was to gain a deeper understanding of the people that were affected by this atrocity and although we can never fully understand what they went through, we can take away the fact that real people's lives were changed forever.
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
During the Holocaust unit, we watched a movie called "Life is Beautiful." For my entire school life, movies we watch are either Shrek 2 in French with English subtitles, Bill Nye, or Engineering an Empire. Rarely have we seen real movies that have historical accuracy and allow kids to actually connect to the people and the time period. This document is the movie review I wrote for "Life is Beautiful" as a part of the requirements for the honors level history. This assignment really interested me because we learned in a way that wasn't as boring as taking notes out of a textbook. I have been fortunate in my life to travel, and in those experiences I find that I am better able to understand other cultures and history than previous history classes have taught me. This year was an exception to that as the way we learned history drew me in wanting to discover more, which was not something I was used to. Once we learned in class about the Holocaust, we had a class project which required us to use creative freedom to evoke emotion from the audience. Never before had I had an assignment similar to this in school. I am proud of our finished product, a scrapbook featuring real first hand accounts, drawings, and letters that fit together to tell the story of the fighters and survivors. An important lesson learned not only by this unit, but by this class, is that history is not just sets of dates and places, but experiences that real people struggled and overcame, paving the way for the world we know today.
I believe this essay shows my interest in the topic because I put a lot of thought into the analysis and cultural understandings gained from the film. This assignment caused me to think about why we learn what we learn in school. The importance of history is to better understand how events affected people's lives and shaped our world today. One of the best examples of this learning was from the Holocaust unit, which is why it was the most interesting to me.