Truth in Museums - Day 3

Sunday we had an early departure to two contrasting museums in Pretoria. We began the day at the Apartheid museum. I wish we could have had a day to soak in all the information and history this museum has to offer! Those of you who know me well know that my love of history and thirst for knowledge played a primary role in my decision to go back to school for teaching. Additionally, since teaching 6th grade, I have made the subject of social injustice throughout history a focal point of the literature I choose to select in my LAL class. Starting with short stories of Gandhi, a young Mandela, and US Civil Rights...all of which lead to a novel study on the holocaust. Social injustice is my favorite unit of the year because it is the one I am most passionate about and the students too become enthralled in learning the history of influential historical figures. Today I was moved beyond words to be able to learn about apartheid from THE Apartheid Museum in South Africa! I hope to be able to draw a fraction of these emotions out next year when teaching this unit!!
After spending the morning learning more about the struggles of the majority of South Africans during the times of apartheid, our group headed to the Vootrekker monument to hear the story of the Afrikaans' decedents. Without getting too much into detail about the story our guide told us, I will say that there are many times individuals can explain it all without saying a word through their nonverbal communication, actions, and omissions. I understand the necessity of visiting both museums, especially the impact it had on me and my peers to visit them back to back. It gave us all a lot to process both mentally and emotionally.
Later in the evening, we met with the brilliant professor Edwin Smith. His incites into the political policies of South Africa were very interesting and exciting to listen to. He answered many of the questions the group had formulated throughout the day's activities. One of the memorable things he mentioned about apartheid was the quote "None of us are guilty of innocence."
An interesting thought to end with...