Separation of Church and Mind... a lesson in heroes
Catchy title, eh?
Unit 8 of my favorite text book is titled “Heroes,” so I figured, all right, there are a million resources for activities on heroes, writing exercises, discussions, this will be a breeze. I expected a week or two of generic “my grandma is my hero” talks, and of course the frequent mention of Gandhi, Mother Teresa and so on. That is how it started out. No problem. For the characteristics of a hero, we came up with the following list: Strong, intelligent, generous, brave. So, a combination of Superman and Mother Teresa, right? I put a list of people on the board and decided to have a discussion. Are these people heroes? Some were controversial.... Madonna, Che Guevarra. People that are either loved or hated. And yes, I got a little debate out of them over these figures. Then I expected to skim through the other, more obviously benevolent people I had listed (Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, etc) Then, all of a sudden, one of my students said “I don’t think Gandhi is a hero” and I said “...okay.... why is that?” They continued by explaining that Gandhi was a very important person for the people of India, but that was the extent of it. They said that in today’s world, everyone can be called a hero, without really thinking about it. She said Gandhi was important, but not a hero. I asked her to add some “real” heroes to the list. Her contributions were: Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II and the children/shepherds at Fatima. I pointed out the similarities in Gandhi and Mother Teresa, but she was adamant. I guess it turns out that in her world, all heroes are Catholic.
