My class then made a good point--if they were to be researching what happened during the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement, shouldn't I be as well? Of course I had done a good amount of prep work, but I figured 1. It wouldn't hurt (at least not too much) to learn more--I feel like many teachers feel as if they need to portray a facade of all-knowingness, and I don't like that. 2. Doing research alongside my students would set a good example for them. Some of the teachers in the night school program (at least according to my students) sit on their phones during class. To me, that is just appalling.
Since this research would eventually be used for a compare/contrast paper, I looked up several pieces of information about the two topics and tied some together. I found out some pretty interesting things, many of which I had not previously known.
According to the Nuremberg Laws established during the rise of The Third Reich, someone would be considered "Jewish" (and therefore inferior) if three or four of their grandparents were Jewish. In a similar vein (something I had already known) slaves in the United States were only considered 3/5 of a person when a census was to be taken. This "defining one's worth by numbers" seems to be a recurring theme when people with racial bias--or any type of bias--are concerned.
I feel this theme continues into the present day. We generalize other groups of humans based on statistics. We consider someone to be a "slut" based on how many sexual partners they have had. People are defined on social media by their numbers of friends or followers, and in business by dollar amounts. I love statistics, but oftentimes numbers make one lose sight of exactly who others are, and what experiences they have had.
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