Introduction

         One of the first things you are asked in this course, is who are you? With this course you will learn about yourself and will be able to answer this question. You will also learn why people act the way they do and why people do what they do.   Many people say that this course is just watching movies about the Holocaust, but it is much more than that.  Yes, you will watch movies, but you will also, participate in group small group discussion, look at photos from the Holocaust and read about other decisions people have made.  In this course you will experience what it would have been like to go through these hard times and see how truly awful it was.  Through this course you will learn about civic agency and how to improve your own.  You will be able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, who has been put in a difficult situation, and figure out what you would have done.  You will not only watch movies about the Holocaust, you will learn from them about the decisions made by both sides of it.  These all relate this to the idea of who people are and why they do what they do.

                Like I said earlier this course makes you think about who you are as a person. When asked this question I would say I am a good friend, a sister, and a daughter.  I am kind, friendly, outgoing, sensitive, loving and filled with laughter.  I am someone that goes with the flow.  I am not one that likes to make all the decisions, which can be a good and a bad thing.  I come from divorced parents and my mom has gotten remarried.  I have an older brother and two younger half-sisters.  I am 18 years old.  I am going to Endicott College next fall.  I am majoring in Hospitality and minoring in photography.  I played field hockey for three years and was the manager this year.  I just finished my tenth and hopefully not last year of dance.  I am also, a dance teacher for three to five year olds.  So, when asked who I am this is that is what I would say.

                There are many reasons I wanted to take this course.  There are the general reasons and the more specific ones.  I had Mr. Gallagher when I was a sophomore.  One day in class he told us all about the Facing History Course that he teaches.  He showed us some clips of what his students were watching in class.  I was interested from the start.  I have never been the biggest fan of history, but there has always been one topic that I have loved learning about, the Holocaust.  From then I had wanted to learn more about it.  The more generic reasons I wanted to take it are because I needed another elective for my senior schedule and I wanted one that didn’t seem to have a lot of work.  On another level I had heard that this course changed people and their lives.  I heard that this course changed the way people think and made decisions.  I thought this would be a perfect senior year class, and see if what all those people said was true.