Learning resource
From love to hatred
General objective: developing an awareness about the link between (mis)integration into society and personal feelings; being able to detect possible persons at risk
Concrete objective: understanding the power of emotions and their possible influence on the behaviour of human beings; understanding how and why certain persons gradually arrive to life situations in which they act extremely violently and destructively, like in terrorism.
Work individually, in pairs or in small groups
Students receive a hand-out (see attached pdf.file) and are asked to try and complete the poem. Afterwards their "results" and the meaning of the poem are discussed. Possible topics for the discussion are suggested below:
1. Fill in the missing words:
This poem shows how love can change into hate. Please try to insert the following words into the proper gaps:
hatred, feared, feared, respected, respected, recognized, recognized, accepted, accepted, noticed, noticed
2. Presentation of results and discussion:
- What do you think personally of this poem? Do you like or dislike it? Why?
- Which general groups or specific persons you know are at risk of hatred because they don't receive enough love, understanding, integration into society?
- How can the described steps in the poem be related to people eventually destroying themselves and the life of others in outbursts of violence or acts of terrorism? Do you know any movies with a similar development of emotions? Name some.
- Moderator
- Copies of the template (attached file) according to the number of students and pens (1 for each pair or each group).
- For the the follow-up task 3: flip-charts, newspapers, magazines, photos, scissors, glue, rulers, and colour pens for collecting ideas.
In the first step the results are presented and discussed in a plenary session (please refer to task 2 of the guidelines). The teacher makes sure that everybody understands how the change of emotion from love to hatred occurs.
In the second and final step, students imagine meeting in their free time a school colleague, who missed the workshop. In a role-playing activity they try to explain to their colleague what they did in the workshop, trying to reformulate the point of the workshop in their own words. Authenticity of expression including slang and regional or local informal expressions is explicitly desired. A group of volunteers performs the simulation in front of the whole class.
- If you used the English version of the text, give the completed text translated into the mother tongue or other languages.
- If you teach digital literacy, tell the learners to translate the text with the aid of online dictionaries at smart phones or computers.
- If you teach creative skills, let students rewrite the text in decorative letters/fancy types, cut it into single lines, stick it on a huge poster and illustrate each line either with clippings from newspaper headlines or photos (alternatively let the students draw symbols for the related feelings).
- If you wish to address art classes, ask the students to create their own representation of the poem (through dance, film, painting, mime, etc.). Let them work out a new version of the poem, for example by turning the words the other way around: from hatred to love.
Neither specific order nor pre-requisite required, therefore suitable as a basic tool.
English
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Slovenian
Portuguese, Portugal
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Italian
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