Teaching Outcomes Achieved.

My power-point presentation, “Expressionism, Art and Nazi Propaganda” to my year 10 history classes, over the last two school days, has had a varied and mixed reception. The 28 slide lesson, including definitions for words like Fascism, Propaganda, Neo-Classicism, Romanticism, Degenerate Art and Pre-Raphaelite, including wonderful examples of Expressionist artist such as Chagall and early modernist paintings such as the famous “Scream”, was hopefully entertaining even though no one in the room had the slightest clue as to what I was really talking about…this is not true, really, because I spent most of my time explaining these terms in their proper historical context, repeating myself often, and observing every little expression on their little faces, I believe the vast majority achieved the teaching and learning outcome: a comprehension of Fascism in Action and the power of propaganda through Art.

Because we are studying the rise of the Nazi Party and the many reasons for Adolf Hitler’s early success with the German people through his unrelenting propaganda and violence, I had hoped this lesson would provide a slightly different perspective on the social engineering techniques of the Nazi Party and their all out (brutal) rejection of ‘modern art’.

Although strictly a ‘history’ class, this lesson was also the opportunity to cross disciplines, revealing a major shift in the art world’s sensibilities during and after WW1. This point in time was truly a drastic change in the outlook of the artist, including major shifts in music, literature and philosophy.

As a teacher, my job is to make the topic under study as interesting as possible, and sometimes, with teenagers, “everything is boring”, thus one is doomed from the start. Because it is our duty, we continue plugging away and occasionally come upon an activity or new perspective on an old, well worn subject, and the light bulbs around the room above their developing frontal lobes begin to flash, blinking with genuine interest.

In this particular lesson, (a risk considering the sophistication of the subject matter) turned out to be about 60/40, that is, 60% seemed to understand while the other 40% were more concerned about what they were going to do on Friday night. Considering the lesson was done on a Friday before lunch with the sounds of grumbling stomachs and wayward glances out the classroom window, I thoroughly believe this outcome to be acceptable; however, a focused follow up with each student will be necessary next week as we move along the time line towards the Holocaust: a topic that has never failed to leave an impression.

As I reflect on the lesson, it was indeed a risk, however, my instincts proved correct, that is to say, knowing the minds of these specific students, I believed they could handle an intellectual stretch, preparing them for the near future proverbial academic hoops they will have to jump through in this current system we call the VCE.

Overall, a productive day, and a successful outcome for my students.

Teaching History: Emotion vs. Dates & Expressionism vs. Fascist Art.

In my Year 10 history class, we are examining the rise of the Nazi Party pre ww2 and specifically the personality and political machinations of Adolf Hitler.

The female students in the class find, generally, the subject of war, boring. On the other hand, the male students are more engaged than usual. They are particularly interested in the personality of the 20th century’s most notorious dictator. Hitler has become a household word for a variety of reasons. Ironically, however, you ask a 15 year old boy to tell you who Hitler was and why he is so infamous, their eyes roll back into their little heads and the response is usually vague at best.

It wasn’t until I did my ‘chalk & talk’ lesson on Adolf Hitler for the class this week that the sound of penny’s dropping throughout the classroom told me that these young adults didn’t have a clue as to who and what this famous man was responsible for during the first quarter of the 20th century. To my astonishment, while I paraded around the classroom, gesticulating and screeching my chalk against the black board, (yes, our school, in certain rooms, still use this antiquated teaching tool) every eye and ear payed attention, hanging on my every word.

Why do these young minds have such a fascination with a man responsible for literarily millions of innocent deaths? How does such an evil individual continue to reach out from history and grab the full attention of our cyber drenched youth’s of today? In all fairness, your guess is as good as mine…but the fascination remains.

Because History in our State curriculum focuses, for the most part, on names, events, dates and movements of the period under study, there is not much time to capture the feelings and emotions of the people involved. That is to say, history is a story of our past, and it is not just about names, dates and events; history is about motivations, emotions, circumstances and atmosphere.

In order to involve my female students, attempting to make it a little more interesting for them, I devised a small research project, where they had to investigate the life of Eva Braun, Hitler’s beautiful and intriguing mistress. Once in a while a teacher will hit a subject on the nose where the students will dive into the subject matter with full enthusiasm – this was one such case.

During their research, they came upon something that I was not even aware of, and that is the home movies that Eva Braun shot while at Hitler’s home in the Black Forest, Berchtesgaden. Eva met Hitler while working as an assistant in a photography shop. She shot meters and meters of film depicting Hitler’s numerous guests, his inner circle, Speers, Himmler, etc., but until a few years ago, we could not determine what was being said at those gatherings. New software has been developed to analyse the lips of subjects on silent film, and through an interesting process, can determine with 100% accuracy, what is being said. I believe a group of Oxford Historians used this process on the Braun home movies, and with interesting results.

(To view the documentary on the new software and Braun’s home movies go to Google.com and type “Hitler Speaks”, you can view the entire doco on line.)

In terms of History as a subject, approaching the human side, so to speak, has opened whole new vistas for the young student in the academic study of our past.

I’m currently working on a power point lesson on Expressionism vs. Fascist Art. In this presentation, I’ll reveal the Expressionist art movement as an expression of the “inner world” and “emotion” of the artist of the time. In this case the drastic turn in art after WW1 from Neo Classicism & Impressionism to Surrealism & Expressionism and why this might have occurred.

This prelude will lead to the “Politics of Art” and Hitler’s realization that by including propaganda in culture and the Arts, one can change the consciousness of an entire nation.

During this time, Hitler went on a rampage, closing down galleries all over Germany and Austria, damning the expressionist art movement as “decadent” and part of a Jewish plot to influence the minds of the pure German race. Hitler imprisoned many artists and destroyed thousands of valuable art work from this period, replacing it with his notions of what Art really is…

In the presentation, I’ll show many examples of Nazi Art, Hitler’s somewhat distorted neo-classic style, depicting the German people and the Nazi party as Natural, Heroic and Superior to all other nations. By doing this, as this lesson is an extension of “What is Fascism?” show my students fascism in action, as it were, excluding all ideas, beliefs, self- expression other than the One, in this case, Hitler’s and the Nazi Party.

This not to say, of course, that I’m straying from the Department of Education and Training’s suggested curriculum, however, I’m attempting to include other dimensions, different approaches to our past, to maybe provide for the student a fresh perspective of what the subject of History is really all about.

Time will tell.

Discovering a Troubled Eco-System during an Afternoon in the Hills

Over the last two – five years, Australia has been experiencing a drought of such magnitude that the country’s entire ecosystem is being severely affected. Cattle and agricultural farmers across the continent are seeing their land turn to dust along with their livelihood. The Federal government is forcing local government to legislate laws imposing radical water restrictions and harsh penalties to those who use too much water.

A good example is the suburban dweller that is used to watering his garden every night after work. He now faces heavy fines if caught watering his garden more than twice a week and on specific days. One might think this a little harsh, that the government has turned fascist in their quest for total control over the masses, but unfortunately, the authorities have had to become draconian in their attempts to save Australia’s water supplies – the problem is that serious.

During times of crises, Australian’s are well known to band together and battle the problem, whether bush fires, floods, economic depression or war. Nothing has changed; most of the population are all too aware of the problem and have become conscious of how much water they are using. This is a very good sign; however, really, how bad is the problem?

Despite cattle ranches and numerous farms having to close down as a result of no rain, one forgets that the eco-system as a whole is affected.

What happens to our native wild animal population when the water dries up?

A somewhat unusual example:

This weekend saw the temperature rise (again) to 36 degrees centigrade. This has been one long hot summer, and most living things in the country are dead sick of the heat. To somehow escape the heat, and not use up precious energy by sitting under a blasting air-conditioner, my friend and I decided to pack a lunch and head for the hills…the Dandenong Ranges…a range of hills with dense forest to the East of Melbourne. In most cases, the temperature up there can be as much as two degrees cooler; so we headed out with picnic basket full of French bread, salami and cold apple juice.

We found a beautiful spot deep in the forest just outside the town of Olinda.

Getting out of the car, miraculously, dark clouds covered the sky and it almost felt like we were in a different country because the temperature was actually cool against the skin.

Laying our blanket down, we began to get stuck into lunch when, out of know where a Kookaburra swooped down and landed half a meter from us. Having lived in the Dandenong hills for ten years, it is not unusual for a Kookaburra to perch close to you, asking for a hand-out…but this was somehow different.

Suddenly the bird became aggressive, squawking at a high pitch, to give her our lunch…or else! My friend became really quite alarmed because the bird displayed such anger. The bird did look undernourished, thus out of sympathy, I threw her a piece of salami. She attacked the meat with alacrity and soon her mate, another seemingly undernourished Kookaburra, landed beside her, fighting her for the spoils. This was too much, wanting a quiet, cool afternoon meal, I raised my voice and stood up, where upon the birds flew to a near by branch, a lookout in the trees right over our picnic sight.

We continued with our lunch and conversation. Only minutes later, one of the birds swooped down, her wings actually brushing my face, took the sandwich out of my hands, returning to the lookout, sharing the booty with her cohort.

This behaviour for the Kookaburra, from my twenty year experience in the country and having lived with these birds for at least the last ten years, is unusual and alarmingly significant.

Why?

This aggressive behaviour is indicative of desperation and extreme hunger.

I began thinking that the drought has affected every living thing up and down the food chain, including the plant life… all creatures – the drought has actually upset our entire, highly fragile, ecosystem. Therefore, this begs the question, how big of an affect has the drought actually had, and have we really seen the extent of the true damage? In my opinion, we haven’t seen the entire damage wrought by this terrible lack of precipitation and extreme weather conditions over the past few years.

Too hot to think about the problem, we lay back and looked to the sky. The clouds above grew darker and suddenly spots of cold rain fell around us. There, directly above us, an opening in the clouds. As we lay on our backs looking up… small leaves appeared in the sky seemingly out of no where, falling, floating from afar and landing gently on our blanket on our faces along with the rain.

In only a few short minutes, those wondrous dark clouds blew to the south and the sun reappeared in all its glory.

We drove down the mountain to our hot little suburbs, worried, pondering and praying… for rain.