Kony 2012: Through the Eyes of Middle School Students

“Kony 2012″³ is still going strong. The video about the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony has gotten 83 million hits on You Tube since it was posted two weeks ago.

It’s also generated a lot of controversy for being short on accuracy and over-simplified. The video is designed to get young people to care about a distant conflict — the case of Joseph Kony who’s accused of abducting tens of thousands of children and turning them into soldiers.

The World’s Jason Margolis visited an 8th grade history class at Cambridge Friends School, a private school in Massachusetts, to get a sense of what the students there think of the film and its message.

Students were both inspired and turned off by the film. Reactions about the movie ranged from “inspiring” to “hype” to “self-indulgent.”

Will you support The World today?

The story you just read is available for free because thousands of listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Every day, reporters and producers at The World are hard at work bringing you human-centered news from across the globe. But we can’t do it without you: We need your support to ensure we can continue this work for another year.

Make a gift today, and you’ll get us one step closer to our goal of raising $25,000 by June 14. We need your help now more than ever!