Albany teacher under fire for assigning essay on why 'Jews are evil'

An American high school teacher assigned their students an unconventional – and to many, scandalous – creative writing exercise: The teenagers were told to write a letter to the Nazis explaining why “Jews are evil.”

The controversial assignment was given to students at Albany High School as preparation for a planned class reading of the memoir 'Night' by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.

Students were told to research Nazi propaganda and to imagine that they are living in the Nazi Germany of the 1930s, and write a letter to the Nazi government to convince them that “Jews are evil and the source of our problems.”

“Review in your notebooks the definitions for logos, ethos, and pathos,” the assignment said. “Choose which argument style will be most effective in making your point.”

The assignment sparked a wave of public criticism. The teacher, whose name has not been disclosed, was put on leave after the case went public.

On Friday, District Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard held a news conference to apologize for the assignment, which “displayed a level of insensitivity that we absolutely will not tolerate in our school community,” she said.

Many of the students felt deeply uncomfortable with the assignment, and some refused to write the essay.

“I was putting it off because I didn't want to think about it and I didn't want to say anything bad about Jewish people," one of the students was quoted by the Times Union newspaper as saying. "We thought it would make more sense if we were Jews arguing against Nazism," she said, adding that she felt "horrible" when she turned in her essay.


http://rt.com/usa/american-teacher-nazi-letter-831/

Oh, cry me a bleedin' river, it was an assignment, clearly designed to do that which we often criticise schools and tutors for not doing enough of - encouraging out of the box and critical thinking skills.

But, as per usual, no, no, no, no, that will never do, the sky will fall in lest we do that in a scenario in which Jews are involved, eh?

Fine to let the kids read plagiarised fiction like 'Night', from a fraudster, not fine to encourage a critical thinking exercise.

Pathetic.

 

A smart teacher would have challenged the students who were uncomfortable with the assignment to write an essay explaining why they were uncomfortable

 

A smart teacher would have steered well clear of such an assignment. An alternative, and safer, assignment would have been to write a letter explaining to Nazis why Jews were not evil.

I just wonder sometimes - where are people's brains?

 

'Safer'?

Why.

Were the students going to explode trying something 'unsafe'?

 

Well I am not sure about that. Understanding an opposition point of view really does help to add context to historical studies

 

Safer because the teacher wouldn't be asking the students to buttress a bigoted position. Where there any Jewish students in the class? If so that would have been awful for them.

Safer because the teacher wouldn't be asking the students to buttress a bigoted position. Where there any Jewish students in the class? If so that would have been awful for them.

 

Jack, you would have aced it.

 

The veteran teacher who gave the controversial assignment was suspended but the teacher's personal details are not revealed to the public and it's unclear what motivated the English teacher to risk her job by engaging in indoctrination not education. School officials say they don't believe the teacher who handed out the assignment had malicious intent but some teachers are sympathetic to National Socialism and a female gym teacher was removed from class few years ago after she supported the ideology while mentoring her students.

 

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Critical thinking skills are undervalued at state education level.

Having such skills, esp in a debate scenario for instance, often requires that one is able to demonstrate an argument from the other side, irrespective of previously or personally held positions.

That is called thinking development. NOT 'indoctrination'.

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Critical thinking skills are undervalued at state education level.

Having such skills, esp in a debate scenario for instance, often requires that one is able to demonstrate an argument from the other side, irrespective of previously or personally held positions.

That is called thinking development. NOT 'indoctrination'.

 

True enough, but that kind of goal can be achieved in such a way that it doesn't beg a loaded question - or response.

Put another way, if you had a kid in school, are you saying you'd be fine knowing he was writing a paper on why Palestinians are evil? Or Iranians? Or Scots?

 

Jack,

how much do you want to bet the teacher is a muslim?

 

The best assignment is the most controversial one.

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The best assignment is the most controversial one.

 

Discussing a controversial assignment is supposed to prove that one is a racist? Such responses cause the assignment to become all the more interesting. I mean, after writing a controversial assignment letter to the Nazis, it seems that one will then have to write another assignment arguing why one doesn't hate anyone due to the other assignment.

 

Why a Muslim? The teacher could very well be a Jew teaching the problems of hate propaganda and generalizations. Why should only Muslim teachers be capable of such?

 

Such an assignment could be a valuable means of teaching kids why it is wrong to hate Palestinians, Jews, Iranians or any other group of people. I mean, any sane person is going to be smart enough to see Nazi propaganda as being the nonsense that it is, and I highly doubt that the assignment teaches otherwise.

 

Controversial =/= Quality. Sure, I could teach math this way: "Shaquanisha has 12 babies from six different homeys. Her Welfare check is $1,200. If she buys each baby daddy a dime bag and spends 40 bucks on crack for herself, how much will each of her chillens have left?" Now, will it get the kids attention? Yeah. Will it get me fired? I'd be outta there faster than Joe Biden says something stupid. Will the kids remember how to do math better? Heck, no. All they'll remember is me trying to be controversial but the overall lesson will have been forgotten.

This isn't a means to teach critical thinking; it's just being insensitive. Or maybe controversial for controversies sake.

Twenty years of being a teacher myself is telling me different. Nevertheless, I'll ask you the same question: Would YOU be happy if you had a kid and they came home with a writing assignment penning an argument about how Palestinians or Iranians are evil?

Oh, one other thing: Teenager =/= sane.

 

Here is the way I see it.

Let us say I had two students, one who was a staunch N Irish protestant, and the other a Catholic from the south.

For me, it would be constructive, and likely challenging for them, if each had to assume the role of the other, that is to say, the RC would have to try, as an exercise, to make a case to justify his new position (as a staunch Prod), and vice versa.

It is all about thinking of new and different ways, to get the mind challenging, thinking, resolving, etc.

I think a fuss of this was made because it was Jews, it was likely some Jewish group that demanded all the fuss and removal of the tutor, and when all is said and done, all she was doing was using a point in history, to conduct an exercise that encourages lateral and alternative thinking.

It would not bother me.

If I was asked to write for any position, for an exercise, then I would do it, and the best I could.

 

That is true but the benefit in the exercise would be in understanding what it feels like to be in the other person's position. What is gained by explaining to people that a people they believed were evil indeed were? What understanding does this give the child?

 

Are you seriously comparing the Nazi vs Jew situation in Germany in the 30s with Protestant vs Catholic situation in Ireland?

 

That way works a bit better, although I'd still keep an eye on some of the more impassioned students out there. I have some old lesson plans that were somewhat similar, but it's been well over a decade since I used them, and they'd be buried in the bowels of my file cabinet. Maybe I can look for them tomorrow. I think what I did was use hotly contested propositions on the California ballots and have the kids use them for debating purposes.

Nevertheless, the lesson itself - how best to put it: You might as well ask the class to write a letter to the Ottomans explaining why the Armenians are evil. And Lord help you if any Armenians are in the class, they'd (rightfully) go Turbo and report the teacher - and I can't say I'd blame them.

 

It would stimulate thought, debate, and probably have been a worthy exercise.

Instead, a total storm in a teacup has been made over it.

As I have said, if as part of a tutorial exercise, I was asked to write for whatever position, I would just get on with the work.

End of story.

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Man, this is painful.

I was illustrating that arguing for a position that you may not normally take, can only be an interesting and challenging thing to do.

There could be 100 examples of this.

The premise is the same.

 

A smart student would not be uncomfortable. He would resolute in his refusal to do the assignment. What's ironic is that if he was an atheist student instructed to write an essay on why the theory of evolution is a lie, many here would see the problem without much effort. Why is it suddenly difficult in this case?

 

There could be millions, and any of them would have been an excellent topic for the essay, including yours. The problem is that some positions (i.e. extermination of millions of innocent people) and some historical events are indefensible.

I can just picture kids bragging to parents, friends and family "I just got an 'A+' for my 'Jews deserved the Holocaust' essay, the teacher was very proud of me, said I was more convincing than Goebbels". LOL

 

For the love of god....that was not the objective, can you not see that one simple fact?

Huh?