Veteran's Day Essays for Gifted Advisory Classes
Listen to This I Believe Podcasts on November 11
Nov 8, 2009
For those students who have not explored "This I Believe", teachers should give a background of the program, which is simple: people submit short essays to NPR about a central personal belief, and NPR presents selected essays in different formats. Two essays that will appeal to gifted kids because they present views less often heard in schools are very appropriate to complement Veteran's Day.
"Resilience is a Gift" by Joel Schimdt
Originally broadcast by NPR on as part of their Veteran's Day segment on November 11, 2007, "Resilience is a Gift" is a perfect essay for students to use in a discussion circle. The short essay is a 3 1/2 minutes long podcast. The author, Joel Schimdt, is a psychologist for the Department of Veterans Affairs. In his essay, he describes how much he admires veterans for being able to adapt to civilian life despite horrors experienced in overseas wars. Dr. Schimdt works has worked with:
- a Bataan Death March Survivor
- Vietnam, Afganistan, and Iraq war vets
- airmen, medics, and infantry soldiers.
In his essay, he writes, "I make it a point to compliment the strength and ingenuity of the people who sit in my office." This is raises an excellent question to present to the advisory class:
- How can students compliment the strength and ingenuity of war veterans?
Dr. Schimdt's essay highlights something that students may not be aware of: the psychological stress and burdens that veterans can face upon returning to the new normal of life after war.
"The Connection Between Strangers" by Miles Goodwin
Another short podcast for students weighs in at just under 3 minutes. NPR first broadcast Miles Goodwin's essay, "The Connection Between Strangers" on May 1, 2006. Mr. Goodwin describes his lonely return home from Vietnam, sitting on the plane and intensely aware that he would not be greeted as a war hero as social conflict over Vietnam grew. In his essay, he writes of a smiling girl, about the age of 10, who, "timidly handed me a magazine. I accepted her offering, her quiet “welcome home.” All I could say was, “Thank you."...Her small gesture of compassion was the first I had experienced in a long time."
By using this essay, teachers can underscore the importance and need for Veteran's Day and ask the class:
- What small gestures of kindness can students do for soldiers?
The purpose of his essay is not actually related to Veteran's Day. Instead, he is writing to thank the young girl, and to illustrate how he has been inspired by her compassion Hopefully students will follow through on their reasoning and perform acts of kindness, respect, and compassion for soldiers.
Why Highlighting Veteran's Day is Important for Schools
Through these two essays, students can see the need for Veteran's Day. The first is that society needs understand that veterans have to adjust to life upon returning. Not everyone will grow up to be a psychologist like Dr. Schimdt, but understanding that veteran's have a variety of responses to war is a significant growth in children.
One way that students can help veterans adjust to returning home is through compassion and kindness, which is what Miles Goodwin's essay illustrates. A child – around the age of the students in class, perhaps – welcomes home a soldier and offers him a magazine, and the small gesture was so valuable and so needed that it continued to have a positive affect on one soldier for over three decades.
For advisories or classes already using NPR's "This I Believe" series as part of the curriculum, some of the essays related to veteran experiences might have been discovered by students already, but listening to them and discussing them together creates a meaningful lesson and a new window of understanding on Veteran's Day.
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