WAR: What is it good for?

That question came up today... and not out of my mouth.
(and not even by a student who was making a pop culture reference... however old it may have been.)

It was a real question. From a real inquiring mind.

And the class went silent.

"That is a big question," I said. "A big question. Seriously. Such a big question that you will be asking that of yourself your entire life. I don't know. I still don't know. But I think about it. Often. That is what kind of an amazing, big question that is."

Amazing.

And all because of Nena's "99 Luftballons".

This is the first time I've ever discussed the song. In the past, I just feed them the fact that the German version is more heavily political.

This time we read through the first verse... and then stopped to ask, "What might this mean?".

It spawned beauty.

Before we talked about the middle, we talked about the end... and about taking a balloon, thinking of someone and letting it go.

I got an answer from a student (all about the prior knowledge here) who said maybe it was about the split of East/West Germany and how they couldn't see their loved ones (remembering the slide I have of "To: Astrid Maybe Some Day we will be together")

I hadn't even considered that. So I gave it kudos and let it sit. And we discussed.

At the end of our discussion we talked about the time period... Korea, the cold war... and the symbolism of red.

And it fell together with his comment of the loved one. It was beautiful. I couldn't have scripted it that way. Exhilirating.

And all because of processing time together... and those poignant, essential questions that everyone has on their mind.

Awesome.