by Svetlana » Thu Mar 29, 2007 1:12 pm
While the past should never be denied, It seems that some seem to want to focus on it:
Investigation into primary school teacher’s graphic torture pamphlet
By Elias Hazou
(archive article - Wednesday, March 28, 2007)
AN OVERZEALOUS elementary school teacher decided to enrich her 10-year-old students’ curriculum by giving them a paper graphically describing the torture of prisoners by the British during the EOKA struggle.
The Ministry of Education was informed of the instructor’s actions after the story appeared in Greek language Politis, and is investigating.
The contentious material was taken from the book The 1955-59 EOKA Struggle by author Georgios Assiotis. The pamphlet shown to the schoolchildren describes, in shocking detail, the sufferings of an EOKA captive at the hands of his British torturers. It came with vivid pictures of the victim.
According to Politis, the teacher not only told her students to study the pamphlet at home, but also to put it in their own words later in class.
She gave the assignment in anticipation of April 1, the official holiday commemorating the start of the EOKA liberation struggle against British dominion.
In the pamphlet, the EOKA fighter describes a variety forms of torture to which he was subjected: locked up in a casket, hung upside down, head in a vice, stretched out on four posts, injections, twisting and food deprivation.
One excerpt reads: “They placed my head in a vice and squeezed. It felt that my brains would burst any moment. Another time, they would pin me to the ground, place a wet handkerchief over my nose so I couldn’t breathe, and start pouring water into my mouth. I was drowning.
“My stomach swelled. Then someone would step on my stomach, causing the water to spurt out of my mouth. After that, they would shoot me in the spine with huge injections.”
The hair-raising testimony ends on an ominous note: “Today, this freedom fighter, who was so inhumanely treated, is alive. But he can hardly sit down on a chair, as a result of the unspeakable tortures he was subjected to. One of his arms is dislocated and is all but useless.”
The Education Ministry has said that it will investigate what happened in the classroom and possibly take disciplinary action against the teacher.
Officials are also considering circulating a memo to schools advising teachers to refrain from exposing children to violent content.
Studies have shown that abstractive thought is poorly developed in pre-teens.
Abstractive thought enables an individual to emotionally distance one’s self from depictions of violence. Without this buffer, a person’s psyche is extremely vulnerable to such exposure.
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Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2007
Of course they shouldn't do that sort of thing just because they are in a war zone. My point was THEY think they can do whatever they want simply because they can get away with it there.
