Fall of the Berlin Wall 20 Years Later: Remembered by Florida High School

By A.J. Plourde
GCC/Staff
Mar. 5, 2010

Berlin, after World War II was separated into two Germany’s, West Berlin, and East Berlin. A wall was erected as a border between the two that came to be known as the Berlin Wall. 20 years ago this wall came down and East and West were now once again just Berlin, and all the citizens were just Germans.

In a small town in Florida, called Osprey, High School students at Pine Mountain school decided to take a real lesson in history. They erected a wall on their campus that simulated the Berlin Wall and half of the students were taught on side while the rest were taught on the other side.

The ones on the side simulating East Germany, were taught just like they were in Communist territory, with teachers playing the parts of the educators of East Berlin.

On the other side of the wall the students were free to move about freely, but had no contact with the other side without permission to cross just as it was in Berlin at the wall.

This one day history lesson gave the students an opportunity to see what life was really like in the divided Germany’s. Everyone in this experiment found it useful to learn from and to remind them that this should never happen again where families, friends, and relatives are not allowed to see each other because of where they lived in a city.

This was a one day exercise and it will be remembered by all who participated.

This type of reality teaching is good because it allows the students to really feel the part of history they are studying.

For more on this see the following:

To learn more about the Berlin Wall go here:

Here is something for all of us to remember a quote by President Ronald Reagan:

“Freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children through our blood stream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children’s children what it was once like in the United States when men were free.”