The most difficult thing about teaching history to young people is bringing the reality to their minds that we are talking about real people, people who lived, loved, hurt, and died. Thinking back to the lifeless battlefields, the memorials, the tombs and gravestones, it is hard to imagine these people once human…but they were. Many of the young men who died in honor of our freedom (and continue to do so) may not have been as old as some of those young men that sit in my classroom every day. When I think about this sacrifice, my mind always seems to go to the soldier and the sacrifices of the family, but on this day one piece of art really hit home – the realities of life and that cost we as survivors pay in the circle of life, none greater than the hurt of losing a child.
Until I was blessed with the joy of children, having my own precious babies to hold in my arms, I never could truly appreciate children. I remember being pregnant and the only thing on my mind all of the time was the health and well-being of the beautiful life that was completely dependent upon my every decision. I wanted then only what was best for them as I do now. It is hard to imagine loving so much, but until you have children of your own, this can be hard to comprehend. These feelings are age old, mothers make this bond and no time period or circumstance could change that.
One piece of art really struck with me. It was an image of a young girl not seeming much younger than my own daughter. Her skin was pale with hues of yellow. Even in death she was beautiful. Her mother, adoringly standing over her deathbed overcome with anguish and loss, and a single tear running down her cheek told the whole story. Death in childhood was not only common, but more so the norm during this period in history, but the human pain looks as current in that painting as it would today. The realities of death always seem to help us understand the value of life in our time and in history. And this painting illustrates the human in these people, not just a retelling of a dry old story on a shelf somewhere.
I believe that this story needs to be told and I believe that this piece of artwork speaks a novel. Maybe just a bit of emotion in the classroom might help bring out the human in our history.
Wendy Kay Derr 