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Sender: American Memory Fellows <AMFELLOWS@RS8.LOC.GOV>
Poster: Leni Donlan <donlan@INTERNET-CATALYST.ORG>
Subject: Re: Kosovo teach-in
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Carolyn,
What a wonderful learning opportunity Urban created for its students.
BRAVO! Will there be any "action outcome" from this experience? I'd love
to hear what further evolves from this beginning.
Leni
At 05:14 PM 4/28/1999 -0700, Carolyn Karis wrote:
>Hello to all,
>Today, at Urban School of San Francisco, we held a half-day "teach-in"
>about Kosovo--not just the current situation but the history and
>background of the Balkan region.
>
>Two history teachers prepared the presentation that included
>-- overhead maps
>-- an audio tape of the song "Konjanik= The rider on horseback" (which I
>located by entering "Kosovo" into the AM Search of all collections. The
>song performed by Peter Boro in Servo-Croatian was recorded in San Mateo,
>California, in May, 1939, and appears as part of the California Gold
>collection.)
>--video clip of a PBS presentation about the current Kosovo situation
>
>Most importantly, the two teachers presented historical background,
>starting with the Byzantine Empire and moving up through history: the
>mythology resulting from the "martyrdom" of Prince Lazar in 1389 and its
>resulting "Homeric" type poetry, the Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian
>Empire, the ethnic divisions, the religions groups, the 4th crusade, the
>1912-1913 Balkan Wars, World War I started by the assassination by Princip
>of Archduke Francis Ferdinand on June 28, 1914--the exact day of Prince
>Lazar's death, the formation of Yugoslavia, WWII, the collaboration of
>various Balkan groups with the Nazis, the Utasi (?sp), the aftermath of
>WWII, Tito, the post-Berlin Wall tear-down in the Balkans, Milosevic's
>1987 speech in Kosovo, the independence movements in the Balkan/Eastern
>European states, the KLA (1993-present), the Dayton Peace conference and
>the Rambouillet, France conference, and "ethnic cleansing."
>
>The presenters fielded questions from the assembled group of teachers,
>9th, 10th, and part of the 12th graders. The above presentation lasted
>about one and one-half hours. After a break, students re-convened in
>groups of 15-20 for discussions. These smaller groups, which included at
>least 2 teachers/adults, were lead by members of the Model UN club (who
>had been studying the situation over the past several weeks). Many
>students of the Urban community tend to be anti-war (any kind of military
>action) and have already been involved in war protests. Their parents
>were the anti-Vietnam protesters. In the discussion, they raised many
>questions and points for consideration. Why are we involved now in Kosovo
>when we didn't get involved in Rwanda? or other African nation situation?
>or Tibet? Is this all about economics or is it really about human rights?
> And if it is about human rights, how is bombing/military aggression a way
>to support human rights?
>
>It was a powerful day. I know I learned much and now have a different
>reaction to the situation. I now have many, many questions and many
>wonders about how this problem with such a long history can be resolved.
>
>As one student pointed out, even removing Milosevic (by force or
>otherwise) could create an intense backlash reaction by the Serbs. Could
>they see him as another "martyr" like Prince Lazar? How can a problem
>that involves ethnicity, nationalism, religion, mythology, and twisted
>history be resolved?
>
>
>Carolyn Karis
>Urban School of San Francisco
>1563 Page Street
>San Francisco, CA 94117
>ckari@urbanschool.org
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