Posted on 04/24/2017 9:43:14 PM PDT by KingofZion
On February 15 two 17-year-old central NY high school students—Jordan April and Archer Shurtliff—raised objections to a homework assignment in which they were required to either oppose or defend the extermination of Jews.
Their teacher, Oswego County High School teacher Michael DeNobile, asked them to write an internal memorandum within the highest ranking offices of the Nazi party in regards to your support or opposition to the Final Solution of the Jewish Question.”
Presumably the goal was to teach the students critical thinking, thereby promoting one of the Common Core’s desired skills.***
At first Jordan and Archer got the run around from their teacher and other administrators in their educational program, who dismissed their complaints.
NY State Commissioner of Education MaryEllen Elia also initially defended the exercise, noting the importance of “teaching students critical-thinking skills and the ability to understand all sides of an issue.” (She later claimed that she was speaking in general, without knowing the specifics of the assignment when she was first questioned by reporters about it).
Jordan and Archer wouldn’t let the matter go. As noted in The Syracuse Post Standard article which broke the story on March 30, the classroom assignment took them on a mission: To make sure no other student would be asked to argue in favor of killing Jews again.”
By April 3, DeNobile had issued a formal apology and Elia released a statement retracting the assignment as inappropriate. She also promised that it would “not be used in the future.” The school district and the program in which the assignment was a part also wrote on their websites to that effect.
On Sunday April 23—on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah)—the two Oswego teenagers who spoke up against a modern-day example of Jew-hatred were recognized for their efforts...
(Excerpt) Read more at legalinsurrection.com ...
If you read the article it actually says they could have argued against.
It was presented as a debate point. Kind of like, "I should rip out your guts and stuff them down your throat ... oppose or defend."
An opposition would be epic.
I understand critical thinking, but not much went into picking the subject.
Agenda or egregious mistake?
I am guessing they pretty well expected oppose from everyone.
So? Clearly it was an anti-semitic agenda
How did this get into “Common Core”? I see it blamed with no explanation.
The writings of Joseph Goebbels have probably some of the best arguments for exterminating the Jews. Your read them at your peril, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend them for high school students and now college students often lack the necessary mental durability. They are useful though for juxtaposing against arguments of someone like Peter Singer as he discussed the implementation of Obamacare.
Princeton bioethics professor Peter Singer recently presented in the New York Times Congressional intent without equivocation. “Rationing health care means getting value for the billions spent by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse….There’s no doubt that it’s tough – politically, emotionally, and ethically - to make a decision that means that someone will die sooner than they would have if the decision had gone the other way….The task of health care bureaucrats is then to get the best value for resources they have been allocated….If a teenager can be expected to live another 70 years, saving that life gains 70 years, whereas a person of 85 can be expected to live another 5 years, then saving the 85-year-old will gain only 5 life-years. That suggests saving one teenager is equivalent to saving 14 85-year-olds”.
Notice Congress and the President are not mentioned.
My son had to do something similar, but with slavery in America.
“You’re going to defend it?”
“Well, no - not me personally - but I can argue for or against it. I figure ANYBODY could argue against it. I want to do the hard one and argue FOR slavery in America.”
It was a VERY interesting paper, and he made a lot of really good points. One of the key aspects was slavery in AMERICA. With the contention that if they hadn’t been brought to the U.S. they would have ended up dead after a few years in slavery elsewhere (Africa, the Caribbean, etc.)
He got an “A” on it too.
I think the case would be harder for the Holocaust though. Although I think one could make the case that as terrible as the Holocaust was, ultimate good came from it as the Holy Land was reclaimed by the Jews.
Well it was a sin.
How do you think picking Jim Crow law sides would have gone over?
If you read the article carefully it says they were randomly assigned to oppose or defend. No choice.
Common Core absolutely should be abolished but not necessarily for this assignment as critical thinking is an important skill that needs to be developed.
As a teen, I was visiting a friend and there was a number of other kids in the house. someone picked up a book on Adolf Hitler that was laying around and one of the girls said, “Oh, I don’t like him.”
I wanted to respond to that statement but was unable to adequately verbalize my thoughts. These many decades later, I’ve learned a great deal and gained in understanding of the human condition as well as matured in my ability to convey to others my perspective; yet, I still can’t fully explain my frustration at that young woman’s words.
Liking or not liking Hitler is irrelevant. We don’t seek to understand Nazi ideology because we agree with it or are sympathetic to its goals; we do it to prepare ourselves to recognize the next resurgence of that thinking, to be able to identify it before it becomes a threat; ignoring it puts civilization itself in peril.
While “Reductio ad Hitlerum” is sort of a running gag around here, the fact is there really are people within our society who think like Nazis. BLM and Antifas are very quick to shout “Hitler!” at anyone they disagree with but, ironically, they are the latest carriers of the amoral pernicious philosophy the Nazis harbored which assured them their cause was so sublimely just, they were immune from the constraints of decency.
Socialism leads to a government rationing society.
Are you nuts!!?? “Ultimate good came from it”????
You should read Martin Gilbert’s The Holocaust and then let’s see if you still think “ultimate good” came from the most horrific event in the history of mankind.
“Liking or not liking Hitler is irrelevant. We don’t seek to understand Nazi ideology because we agree with it or are sympathetic to its goals; we do it to prepare ourselves to recognize the next resurgence of that thinking, to be able to identify it before it becomes a threat; ignoring it puts civilization itself in peril.”
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Yes! And the reason we homeschooled - to equip our children to think. But the college environment has taught them to shut up because neither the students nor the professors can handle thought diversity. And, apparently, an argument is the equivalent of a belief.... Please, I’ll argue a counter point just to annoy a “feeler”...
If the students pretended they were part of a cult that wanted to kill all teachers that would teach “critical thinking” skills as well—and I doubt many teachers would be pleased with such an assignment.
Case closed!
We should spare no expense until everyone has above average healthcare.
We should spare no expense until everyone has above average education.
We should spare no expense until everyone has above average income.
We should spare no expense until everyone is above average.
We constantly see the above presumptions in the mass media. Currently a public service ad on TV has a school kid changing a phrase on the blackboard:
No! Price is too high.
No Price is too high.
Where is critical (or even common sense) thinking when we need it?
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