All About Mentoring Spring 2011 - SUNY Empire State College

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win. Students read two Tim O’Brien short
stories: “The Things They Carried” and
“How to Tell a True War Story,” the latter,
in particular, as a way to think about the
idea of emotional truth and the casualty of
truth in war. Also we asked the students to
begin a journal that they were to maintain
throughout the course as a place to sort out
their reactions to the stories, videos, films
and class discussions.
When the study met for the first time, we
handed each student a small plastic army
guy – the kind most of us played with as
kids – and asked students to use it as a
writing prompt: What feelings and memories
did it evoke in them What did such a figure
represent to them now After writing, we
asked students if they wanted to share what
they wrote. We were surprised by two of
our students who proclaimed, “These aren’t
toys, these are instruments of war.” They
went on to explain how they had kept these
“toys” in their pockets at all times while
they were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan,
as a way to communicate with the locals
about the U.S. military maneuvers in a
particular area. Because they did not share
a common language, using the army guys
allowed the soldiers to demonstrate
their intentions.
Module Two is War and the Media:
Militainment. Since the media plays a
major role in shaping our attitudes about
war, we want students to look critically at
some of the mainstream news sources (print
and online) to get a sense of the range of
information and opinions we are exposed
to about the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Students begin their work
by viewing and critically analyzing the
documentary Militainment, Inc.: Militarism
and Pop Culture which takes the position
that the Pentagon and Hollywood have
collaborated to depict war as entertainment.
Next, they write an essay comparing and
contrasting various media accounts of an
event of their choosing related to the war
in Iraq or Afghanistan. Abu Graib was
a popular topic the first time we taught
the study.
Students collect information about the
event from a liberal, conservative and
international media source, and then apply
specific critical thinking questions to help
them come to their own reasoned conclusion
about the information and the event. For
some of the students, this “compare and
contrast” assignment of looking at how
events are portrayed in the media is truly
eye-opening. They had no idea that the news
is so slanted. One student wrote that she
had not known that conservative and liberal
When the study met for
the first time, we handed
each student a small
plastic army guy – the
kind most of us played
with as kids – and asked
students to use it as a
writing prompt …
perspectives were so dramatically different.
Another student wrote that she’d come to
understand that “decoding media claims”
was daunting. Students came away from
this assignment convinced of the importance
of getting their news from more than one
venue and to be on the alert for bias.
Dick wrote:
At times it seems that civilians see
the military as a cohort of modern
day gladiators whose exploits serve
to entertain us. On TV we can watch
live pictures of the wars in the Middle
East. So called “reality programs”
show carefully edited scenes of combat
intended to excite but not offend the
viewers. We can watch as Predators,
flown by men and women who sit
in Texas and “fly” the unmanned air
vehicles through a laptop computer,
bomb villages in Afghanistan. It seems
that we are trying to make war into a
kind of video game.
For our in-class writing, we bring World
War II propaganda posters to class and ask
students to analyze the images and messages.
They are surprised to discover how powerful
the combination of images and words are in
manipulating our emotions and promoting a
particular notion of patriotism.
What Is Heroism is our question for
Module Three. Because heroism is so
much the public face of war, and the label
“hero” has become ubiquitous, we believe
it important to ask students to think about
what heroism means to them, and how our
culture defines it. In that spirit, we listened
to Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler’s Vietnam War
anthem “The Ballad of the Green Berets,”
and we read and discuss the biographies
and poetry of World War I soldiers Siegfried
Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Students
are also asked to read “The Banality of
Heroism” by Franco and Zimbardo.
Chris, a student who had recently served
in Iraq, was particularly taken with
Sassoon’s struggle:
Siegfried Sassoon was an interesting
writer. I was surprised by the letter
he wrote that told his superiors of his
feelings that the war was not win-able.
The words he wrote to his commanding
officer saying “I am a soldier speaking
for soldiers … I am making the
statement as an act of willful defiance
of military authority … I can no longer
be a party to prolong these sufferings
… The ends I believe to be evil and
unjust” were very powerful words. I
believe this was important to our class
because it showed that soldiers in a war
are often very conflicted about it, or
even adamantly against it.
In this module, students were asked to
view the films Glory! and Hurt Locker and
decide which of the characters are heroic
and why. Paul wrote:
… there are very few who have the
desire to volunteer this courage, bravery
and honor before they are called to do
so. The word hero is sometimes very
loosely thrown around; it is not a label
because a label can easily be removed.
To be a hero is a title, something that
you have earned and something that
never goes away unless it is replaced by
something nobler.
Module Four is dedicated to The
Homefront. It was important to us to
provide students the opportunity to consider
how war affects those at home, especially
children. We use short stories by Pirandello,
Faulkner, Alcott and essays from Operation
suny empire state college • all about mentoring • issue 39 • spring 2011