Overview
In this lesson, students will define what genocide is and explain some of the root causes. Furthermore, students will learn what reconciliation is and identify ways in which this may be useful when applied to their own lives. Lastly, students will evaluate how dialoguing can facilitate reconciliation.
Notes for Teacher
Country:
“Rwanda is a landlocked country in central Africa, known as, ‘the land of a thousand hills.” Prior to the 19th century, the country of Rwanda was ruled by the Mwami or Tutsi King. Under their rule, there existed many clans (18 according to the Kigali Genocide Memorial). Within these clans existed the socioeconomic statuses; Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa.
In 1994, Rwanda’s population was composed of three ethnic groups: Hutu (85%), Tutsi (14%), and Twa (1%). Rwanda was ruled by leaders of the Hutu majority from the time it gained independence in 1962 until the genocide in 1994. During this period, the country’s Tutsi minority suffered systemic discrimination as well as being targets of periodic outbreaks of mass violence, causing hundreds of thousands of Tutsis to flee the country in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1990, a Tutsi rebel force invaded Rwanda from the north. Hutu politicians accused Rwandan Tutsis of supporting the rebels. After the war reached a stalemate, Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana signed a peace agreement that declared a transition of shared power between the Hutus and Tutsis. The agreement angered Hutu extremists who responded with arming Hutu paramilitary forces and waged a vicious propaganda campaign against the Tutsis.
On April 6, 1994, President Habyarimana was killed when a surface-to-air missile shot down his plane as it was landing in Kigali, the country’s capital. It is still not confirmed who fired the missile. The Hutu majority used this event as a catalyst to launch a carefully planned campaign to wipe out the country’s Tutsi population. They also targeted moderate Hutu leaders who might have opposed this program of genocide. Violence spread throughout the country as political and high-profile leaders who might have been able to prevent the genocide were killed immediately. Tutsis looked for places of refuge including: churches, schools, and government buildings. These places of refuge became sites of major massacres. In addition to mass killings, thousands and thousands of Tutsis and people suspected of being Tutsis were killed in their homes, fields, and on the road. Militias set up roadblocks, preventing anyone from fleeing. Hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Hutus participated in the genocide that killed as many as one million people, 10% of the population, in 100 days.
The three-month long genocide ended when the Tutsi-dominated rebel movement, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), captured Kigali. The RPF overthrew the Hutu government and seized power. The new government announced a policy of “unity and reconciliation.” It adopted a new constitution that guaranteed equal rights for all Rwandans regardless of their group” (EIHR, 2021, Adaptation from Imagine: Reflections on Peace).
In this lesson students will meet Omar Ndizeye who was ten years old when the genocide against the Tutsi that shook the world began in Rwanda in April 1994. His story starts with reflections on a happy childhood, before Omar goes on to share the painful memories of the shocking moments when his father, young brother and other members of his beloved family and community were slaughtered right before his eyes.
Life and Death in Nyamata is his memoir that brings the reader to an unimaginable place of fear and disbelief, when at any moment life could end. Yet Omar manages to tell his story with a sense of gratitude and joy at being alive.
Student Ages or Grade Level
9th to 12th Grades
Essential questions the lesson will address:
Can learning about the reconciliation processes transform our educational community?
Can our generation create peace in our communities using dialogue?
Learning Outcomes
Students will be able to . . .
▪ Define genocide and explain some of the root causes
▪ Explain what reconciliation is and identify ways in which this may be useful when applied to our own lives
▪ Evaluate how dialoguing can facilitate reconciliation
Common Core State Standards (11th grade)
▪ CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1.B Work with peers to promote civil, democratic discussions and decision-making, set clear goals and deadlines, and establish individual roles as needed.
▪ CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1.C Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that probe reasoning and evidence; ensure a hearing for a full range of positions on a topic or issue; clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions; and promote divergent and creative perspectives.
▪ CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1.D Respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives; synthesize comments, claims, and evidence made on all sides of an issue; resolve contradictions when possible; and determine what additional information or research is required to deepen the investigation or complete the task.
▪ CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.2 Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.
▪ CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
Curriculum Glossary and Key Concepts and Ideas
● Genocide: The deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group. Oxford
● Reconciliation: The action of restoring estranged people or parties to friendship or harmony. Oxford
● Dialoguing: a conversation between two people or discussion between representatives of parties to a conflict that is aimed at resolution. Merriam Webster
● Transitional justice is an approach to systematic or massive violations of human rights that both provides redress to victims and creates or enhances opportunities for the transformation of the political systems, conflicts, and other conditions that may have been at the root of the abuses United Nations
● Perpetrators: 1: to bring about or carry out (something, such as a crime or deception): COMMIT 2: to produce, perform, or execute (something likened to a crime) Merriam Webster
Formative assessment strategies (What will you be looking for in their work, and how?)
The teacher can make a note of…
● Individual exploration and curiosity of Rwanda in the opening
● Class engagement and sincerity in learning of the Rwandan genocide
● Class participation during discussion and exploration of the Gacaca Courts
● Individual participation during head, heart, and conscience reflection
Materials for Instructor
● Video: From interview to COME
● Laptop
● Projector
● Speakers
● Large Sheet of Butcher Paper
● Whiteboard/Chalkboard
● Marker, Dry-erase markers, or chalk (depending on the writing surface)
Materials for Students
● Paper and writing utensils
● Colored Pencils, Markers, Crayons
● Imagine Journal
Lesson Plan
I. Opening Discussion & Rwanda Introductions (10 min.)
Step 1:
Ask students what prior knowledge they have of Rwanda. Solicit responses.
Step 2:
Once students have shared their prior understanding, the teacher should project and show the following National Geographic video: The Natural Beauty of Rwanda
Open up the room for discussion around the following prompts:
1. What stands out as interesting to you about Rwanda?
2. What part of Rwanda looks the most exciting?
3. Would you want to go and visit Rwanda based on this video?
II. What is Genocide? (15 min.)
What is genocide?
Step 1:
Have students sit quietly and explain to them that today’s lesson is going to contain sensitive material, and that at any time if a student feels uncomfortable about the material, they should let the teacher know so that the student may be accommodated.
Explain that the video we just watched is very recent and was created in 2020, however, in the 1990’s Rwanda had experienced a terrible genocide, which is thankfully in the past at this time, but that our lesson today is going to explore some of Rwanda’s past related to the genocide and their journey of reconciliation as a country.
Step 2:
Ask students if they have any prior knowledge regarding what genocide is by soliciting responses.
Step 3:
Once students have provided their prior knowledge, explain to them that they will be watching a short video which gives a brief overview of some aspects of the genocide in Rwanda: TBD
After watching the video, have students turn and talk with a partner by discussing the following prompts:
1. Based on this video, how would you define genocide?
2. What are some of the reasons mentioned for the cause of this particular genocide?
3. After brief discussion with partners, the teacher should bring the students together as a class, and solicit a few of their ideas.
Step 4:
Share with students the below definition of genocide United Nations
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
III. What is Reconciliation & What are the Gacaca Courts? (10 min)
Step 1:
Project the following definition of reconciliation on the overhead.
Reconciliation: The action of restoring estranged people or parties to friendship or harmony. Oxford
Explain to students that reconciliation takes many forms, and that each culture has different traditions around reconciliation. We are going to learn about how the Rwandan community initiated reconciliation through the Gacaca Courts.
Step 2:
Explain what the Gacaca Courts are:
The Gacaca courts were a system of community justice claimed by the Rwandan state to be rooted in "tradition" despite being a fundamentally novel punitive system based on incarceration and forced public labor (called TIG) (Source).
If there’s time or students would like to read more about the Gacaca Courts later, read more from Human Rights Watch.
Explain to the students that these are traditional courts established after the genocide. Community members were elected to negotiate a dialogue between the Hutu and the Tutsi. They facilitate a dialogue between the perpetrators and the survivors. This is a performance of justice; a type of transitional justice.
IV. Closing – Thoughts on Healing and Reconciliation by Omar Ndizeye (15 min)
Step 1:
Explain to students that the Gacaca Courts are one community’s approach to reconciliation and healing through dialoguing, but that it is important to reflect on how you can facilitate reconciliation in your own community to bring about healing.
The teacher should project and share the following video clip by Omar Ndizeye explaining the importance of reconciliation. [Video Clip Timestamp: 39:18 – 40:50]
Step 2:
After watching the video, explain to students that they will be journaling their final thoughts through a process called Head, Heart, Conscience
Debrief in your Imagine Journal by addressing the following prompts:
● Head: What information did you learn from this lesson today? What questions do you still have?
● Heart: What emotions does this lesson raise for you? What aspect of the lesson stands out to you the most and why?
● Conscience: What questions about right or wrong, fairness or injustice, does this lesson raise for you?
Once the class has had time to write, bring them back together for voluntary sharing as topics may be personal and students may not want to share. Remind students, the class is a safe space and we want to nurture an environment of trust.
Homework
Consider the following question for reflective homework. Feel free to write your ideas down in your Imagine journal.
What are your thoughts about forgiveness and reconciliation in the face of wrongs committed?
Resource Links
**All resources and excerpts are embedded into the above lesson**