History lessons

In 1917 the Iradi National Council met in Talas: priests, teachers and townspeople asked for autonomy inside a Russian federation. In 1918 the Tashkent Soviet closed it. That is the whole of it in the old textbook, three lines.

I ask the 11th class to write a speech for a member of the Council: a teacher, a priest, a merchant. What is each afraid of? What does each hope? The best speeches are those where the person hopes for something small, a school for his village, because that is how people really hope.

A lesson in history is a lesson in how to imagine another person. The test is only a test.