I Am Become Death

I thought we'd go over a quick bellwork and then finish up learning about Japan in WWII, but then... some classes really struggled with charts and graphs.  I feel hesitant to just plow through the material when students don't understand, but I'm also being pulled to move on because there's so much to teach...

I'm not going to discuss the charts on here though.  Students, you can show them to your parents if they want to see them.  (Unless you threw them away...)

Here's one of the enduring questions of U.S. History: Should The United States have dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of/ to end World War II?

Most classes watched these three short videos, some only saw one or two.  Here they are:

The test/ I am become death:






Truman warns the Japanese that they need to surrender:

America drops Little Boy on Hiroshima.

There's a lot to talk about when dealing with these actions.  They were brought up in the 40s, and they're still being brought up today.  Pearl Harbor was a naval base, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were cities containing many civilians.  Dropping the atomic bomb brought a swift conclusion to the war.  We haven't had to use atomic bombs in wars since, so that seems like shady justification to use them in World War II.  The Japanese would have kept fighting if we didn't drop them: they continued fighting after Hiroshima.

Again, the arguments are far too complicated to go into detail in a 7th grade classroom, but we can hit the basics.

In order to get credit for reading and discussing the blog, write a couple sentences about the discussion.  Do you think America was justified in dropping atomic bombs on Japan?  Why or why not?  What do your parents think?

Turn it in on Monday.

-Also, the library has a fantastic book on this topic.  A couple students have read it.  You can check out my review HERE.

Hey, if you happen to check this for extra credit, do you mind reminding your friends that they can get extra credit too?  Seriously, your friends are so forgetful.  All of them.  And yes, I'm talking to you.  Post it to facebook, or something.  Check it out, there are no ads on this site.  I'm getting no ad revenue from you.  I'm just doing this because I want you to learn more.  Geez...