"Wear green on St. Patrick's Day or get pinched." That pretty much sums up the Irish-American "curriculum" that I learned when I was in school. Yes, I recall a nod to the so-called Potato Famine, but it was mentioned only in passing.

Sadly, today's high school textbooks continue to largely ignore the famine, despite the fact that it was responsible for unimaginable suffering and the deaths of more than a million Irish peasants, and that it triggered the greatest wave of Irish immigration in U.S. history. Nor do textbooks make any attempt to help students link famines past and present.

Throughout the Irish potato famine there was an abundance of food produced in Ireland, yet the landlords exported it to markets abroad.

During the first winter of famine, as perhaps 400,000 Irish peasants starved, landlords exported 17 million pounds sterling worth of grain, cattle, pigs, flour, eggs, and poultry ---- food that could have prevented those deaths.

A trial role play helps students reflect on responsibility for the deaths of Irish peasants during the so-called potato famine. By Bill Bigelow.  If you have used this lesson, please share your story.

Join the Howard University School of Education, D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice (a project of Teaching for Change), and the Zinn Education Project on Saturday, April 13 for a teach-in on Reconstruction as part of the Teach Reconstruction campaign.