S3 Ganges develops empathy for the Stolen Generations…

This term in reading groups, we have been learning about the Stolen Generations. At first we thought it sounded a bit like adoption.

But… we did some activities to develop empathy [putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes to feel what they feel]. We pretended we were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids who were forcibly taken from our families, then we wrote a letter to our parents telling them how we felt and what they had missed out on.

We also read The Island by Armin Greder about a man who is isolated and treated badly when he arrives on an island. We brainstormed emotive language from the story and created still images outside to illustrate the different words and how they could relate the the Stolen Generations. Here are some of our still images:

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“…let the man have scraps”

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“…they seized the man”

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“…the people stared at him”

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“…they showed him where they could sleep on some straw”

When we fully understood the Stolen Generations, we wrote our own apology to the Stolen Generations just like Kevin Rudd did in January 2008. These apologies will be on display in the hall for Reconciliation Week.

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