“Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?”*

(Background: I’m currently in training to become a Social Science teacher, and am therefore doing an internship at a high school in a city close to Amsterdam. The teacher I am interning with is currently working on Human Rights and the United Nations.) The teacher has just spent two hours explaining and discussing the genocide that took place in Rwanda in the mid-90s. The class of 15-year olds is all out of concentration. In anticipation of this, the teacher has brought the film Hotel Rwanda, for a bit of on-topic ‘relaxation.’

After several horrifying scenes of death, murder and a narrow escape for the protagonist and the many, many people he is trying to save, the hero of the story has a moment of quiet alone with his wife. They are on the bed together, talking, and holding each other.

The class has been watching in silence so far. Then one boy says:

“You should never have sex at a moment like that! You just KNOW something bad will happen right then and you will be standing there with your pants down.”

I guess we all learn what we most need to know.

*(The title is a beautiful Bushism).