Introduction

                                Facing History and Ourselves Introduction

        The first time I heard about the course Facing History and Ourselves was in the gym locker room my junior year. A senior at the time, who I knew from football, was talking about the class. I knew he was not the kind of kid who did enjoy school or even really care about it either. That’s why what he said stuck out to me. He talked about the class in such a way that it showed it truly meant something to him. He was someone who would happily sleep through every class of the day, but it was very obvious that this class had truly caught his attention and affected him in some way. He finished the conversation by suggesting that we juniors take the class. So when course selection time came around, I took what he said to heart and put it as my top elective.
         After almost completing the course, I can defiantly say I understand where he was coming from. I would consider myself your average high school kid. I go to school every day, work hard to get good grades, play football and work out after school, hang out with my friends on the weekends, I enjoy watching the Patriots and Celtics, etc. I could go on with that list forever, but my point is that I’m just like thousands of other high school students throughout the country. This course teaches us that everything that a person says and does, including people like me who consider themselves your typical teenager, can have a greater affect then you would think. From thinking your harmlessly using derogatory words to buying into a new and radical movement, everybody has an impact on this world. From this, the course teaches the students valuable lessons by making the class a microcosm of society in order to truly demonstrate why certain things in our past have happened, such as the holocaust, and what to do to avoid them in the future through our own individual efforts. It truly is difficult to explain the whole class in a few sentences, and to completely understand I think that a person must experience it for themselves.