re: “The Germans were led wholesale into Jew Hatred by the NAZIs because they saw (which coincidentally matches Alinksky’s tenet) someone they could isolate and blame for the between war troubles. It is nothing more than that - no EVIL there, no collective responsibility for anything other than as an addled convenience for Herr Hitler.”
I totally agree with you that that WAS the Nazi message, but these kids have no clue what Nazism was about or how the Holocaust could happen. These kids barely know their own history, how can they fully appreciate Wiesel’s book, “Night”, without understanding that the ideas that were prevalent in Nazi Germany? The teacher asked her high school students to RESEARCH Nazi propaganda - research means examine, find out, inform oneself - it does not mean “affirm” those ideas or “accept” those ideas. The writing part of the assignment would demonstrate to the teacher that the student actually looked at the material she asked them to research.
I still think this teacher was trying to create a context for Wiesel’s book so that these students could possibly begin to understand the nightmare that brought about the experiences they are about to read in his book. Understand does not mean “agree with”. You may be absolutely correct that this teacher was way out of line, but I haven’t seen enough info to make that judgement yet.
I can appreciate your thoughts on how to develop a meaningful course on an historical era so important in shaping the world we have today nearly 80 years later.
However, unless this was a senior or junior level High School AP class and not a grade school assignment (which I believe was speciously documented after the fact), there is no educational basis for what this woman was trying to do, period.
In this day and age and the multitudes of stories and anecdotes about school curricula, I find it impossible to believe such a thoughtful, learned process in constructing this teacher’s assignment existed. I’d say morelike after-the-fact concocted bullshit.
Try your own poll. If you have kids, any age grade 6 through 12, ask them to tell you about Hitler. I’d be willing to bet you that many of them will say to you “who’s Hitler.” I’d footnote this with the caveat that you’d probably get a reasonable answer from the home-schooled ones.