Power of the clip
GEETA PADMANABHAN
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A school project that went far beyond the classroom , yet one that ensured that everyone learnt the lesson!
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Photo: R. Ragu
Joe Fab : It’s all about paper clips.
What do you do when you’re given a project in school? You read books, Google for information, check wikipedia, find pictures, talk to people and then put it all together. You take mom/dad’s help to bind it into a booklet, write the headline and submit it. Then you forget about it.
Eighth standard students of Whitwell Middle School in Tennessee, US did something different. As they researched for their project on World War II, they were horrified to find that millions of Jews were killed by the Nazis. They also found out that the people of Norway pinned a paper clip to their shirt to show their anger about occupation, cruelty and killing.
Through their project the students wanted to send a message of hope and the power in all of us. They thought: why not write to famous people about the project and ask them to send paper clips? They would collect 11 million clips – one for each person killed in the holocaust.
Amazing response
Clips started pouring in from different parts of the world. Their project was shown on TV. Some survivors of the Nazi camps to which Jews were sent visited the school to tell the children about their experiences. People wrote letters praising them. Finally the kids counted 27 millions paper clips.
What would they do with the clips? Principal Linda Hooper had an idea. With the help of two German journalists, the school found an old railcar used to transport the Jews to the camps. The coach was shipped to the school and was made into a museum for the clips and a memorial.
Joe Fab, a writer, made a movie of the whole project. He shot it as it happened during 1998 – 2003. In this documentary film, “Paper Clips”, teachers tell us about the project, survivors narrate their stories and kids talk about their feelings. What a way to learn about history and its lessons for us!
Director Joe Fab was in Chennai to conduct “Power of One” workshops for children based on Paper Clips. In these, kids were shown the film and were asked what they thought about it. They were asked what they wanted changed in society. They were encouraged to think that every one of us has the power to do something to improve life around us. That prejudices and intolerance make life difficult for all of us.
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