Category: Inspiration

Déjà vu – divide and conquer lesson!

Copied from a friends share – author unknown.

One of my friends told me about a powerful lesson in her daughter’s high school class this winter. They’re learning about the Salem Witch Trials, and their teacher told them they were going to play a game.

“I’m going to come around and whisper to each of you whether you’re a witch or a regular person. Your goal is to build the largest group possible that does NOT have a witch in it. At the end, any group found to include a witch gets a failing grade.”

The teens dove into grilling each other. One fairly large group formed, but most of the students broke into small, exclusive groups, turning away anyone they thought gave off even a hint of guilt.

“Okay,” the teacher said. “You’ve got your groups. Time to find out which ones fail. All witches, please raise your hands.”

No one raised a hand.

The kids were confused and told him he’d messed up the game.
“Did I? Was anyone in Salem an actual witch? Or did everyone just believe what they’d been told?”

And that is how you teach kids how easy it is to divide a community.

Keep being welcoming, beautiful people. Shunning, scapegoating and dividing destroy far more than they protect.

That is not the purpose of every girl but we do need plenty of them whose purpose it is to be nourished and nurtured in that direction.

Living in a world run by evil people does not even scare me. After all, we’ve been doing it all our many lives. It just inspires me to spread truth to more people so we can improve things.

Child – “How old are you, Grandpa?”

Grandpa – “I’m 81, dear.”

Child – “So does that mean you were alive during the Coronavirus?”

Grandpa – “Yes, I was.”

Child – “Wow. That must have been horrible, Grandpa. We were learning about that at school this week.

They told us about how all the schools had closed. And mums and dads couldn’t go to work so didn’t have as much money to do nice things.

They said that you weren’t allowed to go and visit your friends and family and couldn’t go out anywhere.

They told us that the shops ran out of lots of things so you didn’t have much bread, and flour, and toilet rolls.

They said that Easter holidays were cancelled. And they told us about all those thousands of people that got very sick and who died.

They explained how hard all the doctors and nurses and all essential workers worked, and that lots of them died, too.

That must have been so horrible, grandpa!”

Grandpa – “Yes, that is all correct, but I was just a kid back then. But to tell you the truth I remember it differently…

I remember playing in the garden for hours with mum and dad and having picnics outside and lots of bbqs.

I remember making things with my Dad and baking with my Mum.

I remember learning how to do hand stands and back flips. I remember having quality time with my family, even when they were being my teachers.

I remember Mum’s favorite words becoming ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea…’

Rather than ‘Maybe later or tomorrow I’m a bit busy’.

I remember making our own bread and pastry, growing our own vegies and having fresh eggs from our new chooks. I remember having movie night three or four times a week instead of just one.

I remember we got to put our Christmas lights up in the middle of the year, just because we wanted to.

It was a horrible time for lots of people you are right.

But I remember it differently.”

Remember how our children will remember these times.

Be in control of the memories they are creating right now, so that despite all the awful headlines and emotional stories they will come to read in their future years, they can only actually remember the happy times….
Author unknown