Courage to stand up

and to stand by someone

Hi all,

Thank you for joining me for today’s song, “Courage” by Bob Blue, sung by Anne Feeney. If you’d like to hear the song before you read, there is a YouTube video below the article.

🔰Note: today’s article is written at a level of TOEFL (PBT) 350, Pre-2, CEFR A2. The words in bold are given in Japanese below.

(575 words)

The writer of this song was Bob Blue. He was a teacher and one of the people who started the Children’s Music Network in the U.S.

The song tells the story of a girl who is in junior high school. There is a girl in her class named Diane. Diane is bullied by students who don’t want to let her join their activities. 

In school, the singer learns about other times in history when people were bullied. She starts to change her mind about Diane, and then she does something…!

A small thing once happened at school

That brought home a question for me

To “bring home” means to understand something better.

And somehow it taught me to see 

The price that I pay to be cool

Diane is a girl that I know

She's strange, like she doesn't belong

I don't mean to say that that's wrong

We don't like to be with her, though

And so, when we all made a plan

To have this big party at Sue's

Most kids at our school got the news

But no one invited Diane

Well, the thing about Taft Junior High 

Is secrets don't last very long

I acted like nothing was wrong

When I saw Diane start to cry

(Photo: Unsplash)

I know you may think that that’s cruel

It doesn't make me very proud

I just went along with the crowd

It's sad, but you have to at school

You can't pick the friends you prefer

You fit in as well as you can

I couldn't be friends with Diane

'Cause then they might treat me like her

(Photo: Unsplash)

The singer has a history class. One day, the teacher tells them about World War II. The students learn about Auschwitz, in Germany. That was one place where the Nazis killed millions of Jewish people in gas chambers. They also learn about the planes that dropped bombs on Japan during the war. They hear about another terrible thing that happened in Vietnam during a war there in the 1960s. American soldiers killed many women, children, and old men and women in a massacre in a small village called My Lai [mee•lie].

In one class at Taft Junior High

We study what people have done

With gas chamber, bomber, and gun 

In Auschwitz, Japan, and My Lai

The singer thinks deeply about what she has learned. Many people could have done something to help stop the killing, but they didn’t. Many innocent people died.

I don't understand all I learn

Sometimes, I could sit there and cry

The whole world stood idly by

To watch as the innocent burned

The singer wonders why no one did anything. Were they just following the rules? Were they just groups of bad people? Did they think that they couldn’t do anything? Did they think it was okay not to? Did they just stay quiet?

Like robots obeying some rule

Atrocities done by the mob

All innocents, doing their job

And what was that for? Was it cool?

The world was aware of this hell

Yet, how many cried out in shame?

What heroes, and who was to blame?

The story that no one dared tell

I promise to do what I can

To not let it happen again

To care for all women and men

I'll start by inviting Diane

Maybe we all have to look inside us and ask if we are part of the problem or part of the solution.

(digitalcollections.nypl.org, free to use image)

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Question:

What is one way we can stop bullying?

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VOCABULARY

to bully (someone) （人を）いじめる

invite 招待する

cruel 残酷な 

be proud 誇りに思う

prefer 好む

Jewish people ユダヤ人

gas chambers ガス室

massacre 虐殺

bomber  爆撃機

innocent 無実の

stand idly by ぼんやりと傍に立っていた

obey 従う

atrocity 残虐行為

mob 群衆

shame 恥

blame 非難

dare (to do something) あえて（何かをするために）

solution 解決

SOURCES

https://childrensmusic.org/

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Like Anne Feeney? Here’s a song she wrote:

https://louisehaynes.substack.com/p/have-you-been-to-jail-for-justice