May 1, 2008

Homework:
None

Today:
Buzzword
Discussed "Scapegoat"
Watched the "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street."

Today's discussion was quite interesting. I wanted to explain the origin of the word "scapegoat" because the idea is central to the show we watched. The source of the word is Leviticus in the Bible. I explained that the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, used two goats as part of the ritual. Two unblemished goats were chosen. Lots were thrown, and one goat was chosen to be sacrificed, and the other was the scapegoat. The priest would place the sins of the community onto the goat, and the animal was sent into the wilderness. On Yom Kippur today, that ritual is read about during the services. The sacrifices are not done today.

But before I told them all this, I did a little activity which they thought was pretty weird. I didn't tell them what we were doing, but I had them write their name on a card. Then I asked them to think about some dark fear or bad thing in themselves that they wish could be taken away. We all have them. Wouldn't it feel great to have it removed? I told them to think about that and symbolically place that fear onto the card. (I did not want it written down.) I put the names in a bucket and asked if they felt better. Most did not.

Before that, though, I had two students put on t-shirts. One was red and the other was orange. They flipped a coin to decide who would get what color. With the fears in the bucket, I then told the class that we would be "sacrificing" the red t-shirt animal. They had not learned about the scapegoat yet, so they were confused. The student just sat down, but the bucket was still there with our fears in it. Then I gave the bucket to the orange shirt animal and sent him away. I pointed out that our fears were gone. They were confused, but the demonstration made the idea of the scapegoat clear.

Then I showed them this picture and explained the history of the word as I said above. We then watched "The Monsters...," and I had them watch for the idea of scapegoat. The people in the movie were scared, and they wanted an explanation for the events. They wanted a scapegoat to remove their anxiety. One person was killed out of irrational fear. Steve says, "You're standing here all set to crucify- all set to find a scapegoat- desperate to point some kind of finger at a neighbor." He has it right. They will either kill something or place the blame on someone, just like the scapegoat: one is killed, and the other is sent away.

I see the idea of the scapegoat all over, especially in a society like we have now where someone else is always to blame. I will be thinking about where this next unit will go over the weekend. I want to explore the idea of misplaced blame. One idea I am thinking about is bullying. Students this age are so worried about fitting in that they will often make a scapegoat of another student. They place their anxieties on the weakest of those around them.

I would not talk about all of these with the students, but I am also thinking about the economy. Everyone wants to know why it is going down hill. What about education? Surely there is plenty of blame to go around. What about our own relationships, families, marriages? Do we ever scapegoat someone for things that we should be figuring out about ourselves? What about larger horrors like the Holocaust and Rwanda? Can we even escape from scapegoating as human beings? Is it just in our nature? I will be thinking about this over the next few days. I also want to explore if the piece will be written or some kind of public service video.