Posted on 12/29/2005 9:07:21 AM PST by andyk
PITTSFIELD, N.H. — An assignment intended to teach students about tolerance and the Holocaust angered some students at Pittsfield Middle High School, who claimed it violated their religious freedom.
English teacher Harry Mitchell last week asked students to make and wear yellow stars similar to those Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis. The graded assignment, part of a lesson on The Diary of Anne Frank, was intended to teach empathy, he said.
But some students protested, instead wearing paper notes bearing the words, "We're not Jewish."
"Many people won't learn anything except that their religion (if they're not Jewish) isn't good enough and that being Jewish or expressing Jewish symbols is a better religion and the only way to get the grades we deserve," wrote Samantha Gage, 13, in a letter to the Concord Monitor.
That misses the point, Mitchell said.
"My intention with the star was to get them to have some empathy and the feeling of what it was like to have to identify yourself with a symbol," Mitchell said. "If you're not wearing it, you're not getting the full awareness of Anne and her family."
School principal Karen Erlandson said she supported the assignment, as well as the right of students not to participate.
Students, including Gage, who did not wear the star were given lower grades than those who did.
One student was given permission to wear a Nazi swastika instead of a star. Mitchell said he allowed it because the request demonstrated creativity and still conveyed the idea of associating groups of people with symbols.
Mitchell said he had used the assignment successfully in the past and also tried to link it to current events.
"I brought up how America is trying to help the people in Iraq, and how America was hesitant to help the Jewish people in the Holocaust," Mitchell said. "One of the reasons we're fighting there now is to eliminate the same kind of prejudice and the same kind of treatment of minorities."
The Holocaust killed Gypsies, Christians, Jews and many others. Reading the Diary of Anne Frank is no more indoctrination into the Jewish faith than reading Lawrence of Arabia is a doctrination into the Muslim religion.
Would the kids have complained if they had to wear crescents instead of stars?........
Why can't they just read, analyze, and write essays about the books, instead of a lot of acting-out nonsense?
These moron children ought to learn how the Nazi's treated dissenting lefties.
And no one helped the millions of Cambodians and Vietnamese slaughtered by the communists, either, other than the American soldiers who fought for them.
I'm with the kids on this one. This is total PC BS.
I wouldn't want my kid forced into this any more than I would want her to have to pretend she's gay or black for a week.
If the principal OKed non participation, why did the studdents who refused to wear the Star get lower grades. And would the teacher have thought the one student "creative" if he showed up in a homemade uniform with the Siegrunen on the collar?
"There's been a school in the news recently about an assignment given where the students had to take Muslim names, wear Muslim attire, etc., for a couple of weeks.."
And that was as wrong as this case.
Me, too. But I guess that would be too much work for the teachers and the students in a modern classroom.
Because discussing, ananlyzing, and grading essays takes time, effort, and subject knowledge on the part of the teacher, whereas role playing comes in a canned program and eats up large quantities of class time which might otherwise have required even more time, effort, and subject knowledge on the part of the teacher.
perhaps the teacher should have half the class wear paper crosses on their chest and half wear crescents. The half with the crescents get to weild paper swords to symbolically cut off the heads of the cross wearers whenever a chance permits. that would show the kids how life in this world really is.........
The crazy person is talking about history and there's nothing wrong with the assignment as far as I'm concerned. What next- kids can opt out of reading the Diary of Anne Frank or anything about the Holocaust because it infringes on their religious freedom? As another poster pointed out, the Diary has less to do with being Jewish than it does with the persecution and suffering under Nazi occupation.
I don't get it. People purposefully identify themselves with symbols ALL the time. A cross, a hat or shirt with your favorite team, a particular piece of clothing, bumper stickers, alligator shirts, spiked hair, etc.
What they are really trying to teach is how you feel when you are forced to identify yourself with a group that is being persecuted.
English teacher Harry Mitchell last week asked students to make and wear yellow stars similar to those Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis. The graded assignment, part of a lesson on The Diary of Anne Frank, was intended to teach empathy, he said.
Furthermore, the Diary of Anne Frank has NO business being part of any public school's class curriculum.
Ah, excellent point!
I distinctly recall producing an essay on "The Diary of Anne Frank" without having read the book. Now *that* was creative!
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