Shadows Of Childhood

Increasing your knowledge in many cultural backgrounds can be beneficial to you and to understand how life is for other people with different cultural upbringing than you. Three stories I found that would be really interesting to not only the students but also to the other teachers that I could be working with are “From Shadows of a Childhood” by Elisabeth Gille, “From Catfish and Mandala: A Two-wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam; Last Gamble” by Andrew X. Pham and “Shadows on the Wall” by Charles Mungoshi. I have chosen some articles that will provide more information on the topics and to help understand and explain that learning about other cultures will help the children become more educated with other cultures that

they are not around every day.
The short story of “From Shadows of a Childhood” by Elisabeth Gille is about the Holocaust.

The location of this story took place in a hotel in Paris, France. A young girl named Lèa has been staying with one of the Sisters at their church, since her mother and father were taken to the concentration camp in Auschwitz. After Lèa was finished with school, she and Sister-Saint Gabriel went to Hôtel Lutètia to see if her parents had returned. Lèa thought that her parents would stay here from returning from their “vacation” since she did not know what actually happened to them. They spoke with one of the ladies in the cubicle office setup to see if there was a way that she would be able to help find Lèa’s parents. The lady gave some papers to Sister Saint-Gabriel to place Lèa into an institution until she is old enough to be on her own, a family member comes along, or so that she receives her parents’ death certificates. The lady sent Lèa to go and wait while she and sister talked. As Lèa was waiting, she followed one of the staff that was bringing food to the people in the hotel. Lèa went into an empty room to eat her bread and chocolate. She sat on the bed ready to eat and suddenly someone’s fingers were touching her hands which appeared out of nowhere. She gave him the bread and chocolate and then he dumped her box of beads over her head. She told him why she was there and her name. Lèa asked him if he knew who her parents were. He did know who they were, he replied, “Gassed.

Poisoned like rate. Burned in an oven. Turned into black smoke. Poof, your parents. Poof” (Gille, 17).
In many high school English classes, students usually study or read about topics that the teachers are interested in or topics that are easier to teach. We should teach topics that are multicultural, topics that will prepare students for the real world when the move to another city or when they go to college. The students should learn more about the effect after the Holocaust, for example how people looked and lived after this mass extinction. The chapter “From Shadows of a Childhood” was an eye opener not only for me, but it could also get the students to be more intrigued by how they can help others and the world when something horrific happens. We as teachers in the English and Social Studies department have already taught the Holocaust about how and why it happened. So, why not expand the topic and increase the students’ knowledge in how life went on? In A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America in chapter 15 “Out of the War” is talking about the Holocaust and says, “The “most urgent” problem was not bigotry and hatred; “the most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem [was] silence” (Takaki, 393). This is a powerful statement that was made and we should teach our students to stand up for things that they believe in and to voice their feelings. We do not want to live in a society that silences when tragic events occur. We should be able to ask questions about why does this happened and how can we as a whole fix this. This chapter also explains how many Jewish people got involved in the Civil Rights Movement in America because they knew that there is a difference between “racism and anti-Semitism” (Takaki, 394) and they were treated inhumanely. The students should know the difference between the two (Takaki).
The learning and teaching that should be acknowledged from the next short story the chapter “Last Gamble” from Catfish and Mandala: A Two-wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam by Andrew X.

Pham. “Last Gamble” is about how a family wants to flee Vietnam and go to America since the father has escaped a labor camp in Saigon. The father was put into a re-education prison to learn the new ways of the government since South Vietnam was taken over by North Vietnam. One night the whole family was over at the Grandma’s house discussing how the escape was going to take place. An and Chi were sent outside so the adults could talk, so they went up on the roof to pick some star fruit and they made some wishes to the aliens. An wished for the aliens to take the family to America and Chi made a wish not to the aliens, but to the angels for them to take care of Grandma while they are away. While they were up on the roof the neighbor girl Hoa asked to talk to An. She had her speculations that the family was going to leave because of all the fisherman that go in and out and staying late in grandmother’s house. An did not want to admit it because he liked her, but he knew that he had to tell her the truth. That next morning very early Mom, Chi, Hien, Tuy and An took off in ragged clothing so that they would look like peasants. They were dressed like this because they were going to be walking in the country to meet the father and then meet the fishermen before dawn that

next morning. Escaping became easier, An says, “I almost forgot that this truly was our last gamble.”
Reducation camps were to help the south learn the north’s governmental ways. These camps were not just a couple of weeks or months, they were years long. One personal postscript was written in the Saigon camp where An’s father was located. The father is in this postscript did the same as An’s father did the in “Last Gamble.” He and the family left for America so he stated “I had the good fortune to depart with my family and fly to America, where we could once again live in liberty” (Metzer, 5). The students should learn about this because it could happen in any country that a new government or way of leading could change. For example, passing laws that some people do not agree with, but we have to follow them anyway. It is also like going through schooling for different careers, to become more educated in a specific field of study. These people had to make a choice on whether to stay and learn how to deal with change or they could flee in hopes that they are not found in the process. Student’s should be taught that there are other consequences, once they leave one thing it tends to become a pattern or habit to leave when things get hard or you just do not want to do it (Metzer).
The last short story that should be included in our students learning is “Shadows on the Wall” by Charles Mungoshi. Charles observed the life a young male child and how he was afraid to talk to certain people. This boy and his parents lived in an unknown village in Africa. His father was not a happy person. The father would hardly talk to the boy. The boy started watching people’s shadows instead of the actual person because the shadows would listen and would answer back. The shadows were easier to talk to. One morning he woke and his father and mother were both gone and they did not return until later that night. While they were gone, he became silent, he watched the chickens shadows roam around the house since the door was left open. He heard one of the chickens to just go to sleep and never come back. Then, later that night his parents came back and moved him from the floor to his bed. They knew that the boy was ill since he was very warm. He could see that his parents were talking to him, he could hear them, but he would just not reply. His mother left since they were not getting along. Now it was just him and his dad until his new mother came. The dad would rather speak to his boy rather than to the boy’s new mother. The boy still did not speak to anyone; he said, “He had taught me silence… He cannot talk to me because I don’t know how to answer him, his language is too difficult for me.” (Mungoshi, 264).
Another significant culture that should be included in our teachings is the Zimbabwe culture in Africa. Africa bases its practices off of their own ethnic groups and other groups as well. Each of the ethnic groups has their own way of communication with others. In some groups, the older generations take the first approach and in others the younger generations are to start. This barrier could not have been made clear to the child when his father was trying to talk to him. The boy should have known the specific way of communication before this time. In every culture, there are unclear or unspecified traditions that some people learn and others do not. Also in some cultures a child does not talk unless they have something worthy or useful to say they are not advised to talk at all. We should teach our students that their voice is important and that they should not be ashamed to speak (Gall).
We as teachers want to help students understand that there are differences that they can make in the world. We also want students to be able to study other cultures besides those that we are most familiar with. Students should not be afraid to interact with other ethnic groups. The students should go beyond what the normal is for our society, and they should not be timid to share their opinions with others including those of different backgrounds and cultural status.