HMD 2012 Special Educational Needs - First They Came
Resources you will need:
- large piece of black fabric
- drum
- red paper or fabric flags
- bread
- triangle or gong
- menorah candles or a single candle if you don’t have a Menorah
- tags the students have made – see tag instructions below
Introduction
This poem is presented as a sequence of meditative movements and sensory experiences enabling students to experience it in a variety of ways. The PowerPoint will lead you through how to deliver these experiences. The movement starts with a line of students at one side of a room, who gradually retreat by moving backwards at the turn of each page, symbolising the way people retreat from things that frighten them.
The poem can be experienced individually or in groups or even performed as a whole school – it is up to you!
As a preparation for studying this poem students can make tags (labels) to represent the different groups persecuted by the Nazis, this can be your opportunity to introduce learning about each of these groups at a level which is appropriate to your students (If you would rather you can prepare these labels for the students).
Be prepared to react to spontaneous insight from your students as they experience the poem. For example you may find that someone reaches out to stop a friend being taken away, this is your opportunity to say what would have happened to people who tried to do that in Nazi Germany. You may be able to ‘show’ rather than ‘say’ this if you feel that it is too complex to be understood in language. You could for instance, wave the blanket in such a way that the child trying to rescue the other is scared back, or you could swallow them up in the blanket as well. There are lots of ways something like this can happen within this poem, you know your students best and can react as you see the learning opportunities arise – encourage other staff to do the same.
We have kindly been given permission to use an excerpt from The Terrible Things: An allegory of the Holocaust, by Eve Bunting. If you feel it is age appropriate you might like to look at this as well with your students to add further insight to this work.
If you want to study this poem over the course of a lesson, a possible teaching sequence has been set out for you below. However it is likely that you will want to return to this poem little and often as you study related subjects if you are doing this you may want to borrow aspects of the lesson plan to support your student’s learning. If you want to use this poem for a school performance a possible way of doing this has also been set out below.
We hope you enjoy sharing this with your students and find it meaningful for all.
You may choose to cue students into this lesson by lighting a candle.
Please download the full lesson plan below.
- Special Educational Needs - The Poem (PDF: 565687 KB)