History Lesson

Today started off with breakfast and lessons as usual. In Sara's group, the students began practicing their Reader's Theater play, The Three Little Pigs. The children are preparing the play for the Friday night performance in front of their parents. The other groups also worked preparing their skits and songs. The children had many opportunities to practice their conversational English skills while identifying, labeling and using vocabulary words in sentences.

For the fourth lesson, everyone gathered inside for Lori's presentation on Minnesota. The children learned all about the Mississippi River, as well as buildings, animals, plants, and sporting events in Minnesota. They especially enjoyed watching the Red Bull video clips!

In the evening, the children had a blast spending time together and singing karaoke to Polish songs!

During the afternoon, Sara, Lynn, and our Polish-based teen volunteers, Diana and Keshav, went on a journey to Treblinka. They were accompanied by Wojceich, who acted as the translator. (Wojciech is a former camper and works over the summer in some of the language camps as a counselor.) It was a long and bumpy ride, but well worth the trip. We walked through the museum and were especially interested in the photographs on the walls and the model of what the camp used to look like before it was destroyed. We walked through the forest and saw large blocks, representing the guards and border walls. We encountered a large stone memorial in honor of all of the people who died. The large stone was surrounded by smaller stones that were carved with the names of the cities whose people were killed. People had placed candles, flowers, and small stones around the memorial.

While I remember reading about these events in history books in school, it never really felt "real" to me until visiting Poland. I wish more people today would realize how important it is to understand the events of the past, so we can learn from them and make a better future.