How do you teach the unspeakable in Rwanda?

Amidst brightly-coloured uniforms and texts on math, science and English, there's no mention of genocide in Rwanda's classrooms.

Marc and Craig (right) Kielburger.
Marc and Craig (right) Kielburger.  (SUPPLIED PHOTO)  

In a Kigali classroom, a Rwandan child raises his hand to answer the teacher's question.

It's remarkable he's even there. Fifteen years ago, the genocide not only left 800,000 people dead, it also left the education system in tatters. More than 600 classrooms were destroyed and 75 per cent of teachers either killed or imprisoned.

As anniversaries passed, those schools were rebuilt with incredible speed. New teachers were trained and students flooded the classrooms. Eagerly, they learned — just not what you'd expect.

Amidst the brightly-coloured uniforms and texts on math, science and English, there's no mention of genocide. That's been the norm since 1994 when the government placed a moratorium on its teaching.

The reasoning is straightforward. Manipulation of history fuelled the genocide. So, the government disallowed its teaching until consensus was reached on how to do it right.

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Fifteen years later, that consensus has yet to be reached. And, the subject's absence is doing little to help the healing.

"Kids are absorbing the subject everywhere. It's not like people aren't talking about it around them," says Karen Murphy, director of international programs at Facing History, an organization that develops educational material for post-conflict countries. "The question becomes what does the school system do when they have students coming in with all kinds of versions of the events?"

It's a scary thought — but one that Murphy's organization taking on.

About 42 per cent of Rwanda's people were born after the genocide. Although about 10 per cent of the population was killed in 1994, it quickly recovered as birth rates steadily rose, today resting at about 5.25 children per woman.

Despite having no direct memory of the genocide, it's nearly impossible for these children to escape it. Memorials have popped up around the country and bullet holes still scar Parliament's walls. It's not uncommon to see a survivor's missing limb or the pink uniforms that identify prisoners.

As government programs and international aid deal with myriad post-genocide problems, from infrastructure to orphans, the history of the 100 days that caused those problems has largely been accounted for in movies like Hotel Rwanda or books like Shake Hands with the Devil. They're popular here in North America but not nearly as accessible in the country that inspired them.

In 2003, Murphy, in partnership with the University of California Berkeley set out to change that. Together with the National University of Rwanda and the Ministry of Education, they began tackling the history question.

"There is a lot of shame and humiliation when it comes to teaching the genocide," says Murphy. "Teachers need to create safety — a space for kids to learn about their own violent past and the rest of the world."

By training teachers to facilitate debate and developing educator resources, the partnership has created a model for teaching. The trick is to use case studies of the Holocaust, apartheid, Bosnia and even the civil rights movement. Murphy explains this takes away the personal.

Instead of focusing on what happened to or what was perpetrated by the children's parents, the resources connect them to the greater humanity.

"Sometimes young people are better able to make connections through the distance of another case study than by shining a bright light on their own history," says Murphy. "Then they recognize it's not just a Rwandan problem."

On the contrary, it's a problem that many others must wrestle themselves. South Africa must teach apartheid and Germany the Second World War. Closer to home, we must tackle our own demons with the civil rights movement in the United States and residential schools here in Canada.

Yes, mistakes were committed by everyone. But, it's in teaching those mistakes that the next generation can learn and work towards a better future.
