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."
And all this to "teach empathy"? WTF? That is the role of the parent to shape character. You cannot "teach" someone good values in a school classroom. It comes from faith and family. It gives me chills when the schools try and manipulate the emotions of our kids. Today kids will have to wear Jewish stars, and tomorrow it will be being a homosexual for a week. No way!
"...So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important--why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant." President Ronald Reagan farewell speech in 1989
"WHat in the bloody hell is this crazy person talking about???
This is the most ridiculous drivel I have heard today. Back up
your absurd assumption with facts please. "
I think the class exercise is dumb. Just show them "Memories
of The Camps" and tell 'em this is where government-sanctioned targeting
can lead. (Of course, parents would object to the graphic images).
All the being said, the USA did delay entry into the European theater,
for reasons good and bad.
We were just coming out of a terrible economic depression.
We felt cheated by the end of WWI, as European powers stopped some
decent American initiatives (and some dumb ones).
We just wanted to stay home.
That's why:
1. Roosevelt had a heck of a time just trying to get aid to the UK.
2. Frank Capra had to be hired to produce "Why We Fight" to explain
the why and wherefores of going to war against Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo.
3. And there was some covert (and overt) bigotry that kept us from
jumping forward to assist populations that had Catholics, Jews and
"people of color".
4. AND our media decieved the American populace about the seriousness
of Hitler and Co.
Guess who that guilty party was...The New York Times, as detailed
in the book "Buried By The Times":
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521812879/qid=1135881839/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-7030428-5767917?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
Of the couple of WWII vets I knew who fought in Europe, they told me
that "if we'd really known what Hitler was doing with the concentration camps,
we'd surely have pushed to go to war earlier."
> WHat in the bloody hell is this crazy person talking about???
What a bloddy idiot. Learn some history before you stick your foot into your mouth. Of course, maybe you like tap dancing on your tounge.
Anyway, it looks like the teacher was successful in flushing out some little anti-semites -- and how much do you want to bet they learned it from their parents.
I agree. Compulsory education hasn't created an informed public. It has created a disinformed public bent on rubbing-stamping anything liberal.
A liberal teacher, aiming at emotions over knowledge. Then they use emotions to guide the kids to liberism.
This would be ok if they would allow the kids to be Christians in modern day America and see the discrimination of the Feds to that set of beliefs.
As someone who grew up in the 60s, "The Diary of Anne Frank" was always on those summer reading lists - not as a part of the curriculum. Books assigned during the year were generally from the greatest of world literature - the Greeks, Homer, Shakespeare, Austen, the Brontes, Melville, etc. During our vacations we were lucky enough to read books like the "The Diary," "To Kill a Mockingbird," and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."
Or emotions WITH knowledge.
Amen. I did not realize that English class is about the ability to have feelings. Maybe the teacher could have asked the students to express what the literature caused them to feel.
What a silly assignment. And the logic that a student who asked to wear a swastika did not lose points because that student was attempting to identify with a group is nonsense. By choosing to identify with neither swastikas nor stars, the girl in question was choosing to identify with the silent witnesses to the Holocaust.
I think you've got it!
Yes, I don't like the idea of assignments oriented around "feeling empathy," especially if students get lower grades for refusing to assume the right pose.
If grades aren't based on the students' ability to read and write the English language, then the school is out of line.
This was bound to happen. The left went way overboard beating their breasts about religious intolerance for Jews among fascists in Germany, while hurting Christian kid's feelings, year after year by banning Christmas in the name of intolerant Jews.
This is sick and it makes me wonder where we are headed. The double standards the Left has installed: love the Jews but hate the Christians, love the Blacks and Browns, but hate the whites, love the women but hate the men, etc. is going to hurt us all as it strips our culture of genuine compassion, tolerance and forgiveness.
Perhaps I wasn't specific enough. My problem stems with the yellow star of david that she asked the children to wear as well as the fact that she gave lower grades to children who opted not to indulge this teacher in her bizarre - no very bizarre- class assignment. Everyone should learn all about the Holocaust - my note was not directed toward that.
So, based on a book from Amazon.com, you contend that America is at fault for not rushing into Europe and committing their full effort toward freeing the Jews? Even though they didn't have the full story as it was unfolding? Well, hindsight is pretty nice isn't it?
Sometimes you get the PC and sometimes the PC gets you. Kinda sad, but this is where we are today.
Please describe to me how they flushed out any anti-semites? Frankly sir you sound like the God damn idiot for supposing that any student that doesn't want to run around with a yellow star on their lapel is an anti-semite. I have no problem with learning about the HOlocaust - it is an important part of history - this teacher took it too far, that is all.
Refusing to play dress-up at school does not an anti-semite make.
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