Websightings:  Children and War

Kathleen W. Jones, Virginia Tech

This is by no means a comprehensive list of websites on the topic of children and war, but perhaps if you are looking for materials for class discussion or course assignments, these sites might provide some leads.  Many of these sites offer primary source materials  suitable for US history course use.  Sites designed with teachers in mind are, for the most part, aimed at high school-aged students and younger.  With relatively little effort, the suggestions these sites contain could be adapted for use in the college survey course.

The PBS NewsHour Extra Teacher Resources site offers a lesson plan, “Children and War,” for discussing contemporary issues related to the use of children in combat.  Designed to meet national social studies standards, the unit was created by Doug Dubrin, who teaches English in Bethesda, Maryland.  The site contains a link to brief testimonies of child soldiers from the webpages of Human Rights Watch.  The PBS site:   http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/lessonplans/world/childsoldiers_12-22.html

As a supplement to the materials on the PBS website:  see the description of the Emmy Award-winning documentary, CHILDREN IN WAR, described as “the tragic story of modern warfare and terrorism as told by the children of Bosnia, Israel, Rwanda and Northern Ireland.  http://www.videoverite.tv/childreninwar/thefilm.html

Another site specific to secondary education is produced as part of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute.  Pedro Mendia-Landa, author of the unit “History and War: What About the Children?” writes that the “principal objective of this unit is to use an interdisciplinary approach to prepare creative, critical thinkers who are able to use problem resolution strategies within their academic and personal lives as they explore the topic of ethnic conflicts and wars.”   http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/2002/3/02.03.08.x.html

It’s to be expected that children would be featured on Steven Mintz’s website, “Digital History.”  “Explorations: Children and World War II” offers students a broad range of primary source materials, including personal accounts from children in internment camps; and it offers teachers a separate section with ideas for incorporating the materials into classroom assignments.  The documents available for analysis are quite brief and they are US-specific. Visit:  http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/children_ww2/children_ww2_menu.cfm

The website also contains materials related to Civil War childhood at:  (http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/children_civilwar/children_civilwar_menu.cfm)/  The Civil War unit does not appear to have pedagogical suggestions, and coverage of topics such as enlisting, the battlefront, and the homefront, North and South consists of excerpts from primary testimony woven together into a narrative of child experiences.

One of the “four freedoms” by Norman Rockwell.
Poster printed by the Government Printing Office for the Office of War Information
NARA Still Picture Branch
(NWDNS-208-PMP-46)

In addition to Minzt’s site on World War II, check out the poster collection at the National Archives, “Powers of Persuasion: Poster Art from World War II,” at
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/powers_of_persuasion_home.html

Another World War II poster collection can be found at: http://www.library.northwestern.edu/govinfo/collections/wwii-posters/index.html   Use the search tool on this Northwestern Universtiy site to locate posters with children for discussing the image of the child as a tool of “persuasion.”