Posted on 07/25/2013 1:04:00 PM PDT by massmike
A New York state high school English teacher who asked students to imagine they were Nazis and give reasons why Jews were evil could be reprimanded or dismissed, a school district superintendent said on Friday.
City School District of Albany Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard apologized at a news conference and pledged officials would personally express regret to Albany High School students who were given the assignment and their families.
Vanden Wyngaard declined to name the teacher but said the teacher was removed from class and faced disciplinary action.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.nbcnews.com ...
If political correctness had no won the day, the class might have gained some insight into the anti-semitism of the inter-war period that was fashionable more in France and England than in Germany. Jewish stereotypes were deeply ingrained in the thinking of the upper-classes of Europe—and the lower classes, as immigrant and black thinking of the time attests. Still is, I think. Just think of the neo-con stereotype, which makes the Ivy league type —both Jews and gentile willing to accept the barbarism of the Saudis as a necessary counterweight to Jewish influence. How was it that German Jews, who were so well integrated in the German Reich, could be demonized by their fellow countrymen?
How about this as an assignment: Imagine you’re a decent human being, and give reasons why leftist teachers are evil pieces of human garbage.
I had a professor who taught a class on varieties of fascism. He had half of the students produce newsletters from fascist groups—Italy’s National Fascist Party, Germany’s Nazi Party, etc.—while the other half published anti-fascist newsletters. In the middle of the quarter, he switched them around, so the fascists were now anti-fascists, and vice versa.
These Liberal’s do not think before they speak or act - then say “ooopsie, sorry” and that should end the matter?
And what’s the point of such exercises? What’s the point of assigning a student, or anybody, even an educated person, to write from the point of view of, say, a slave, at a plantation in the South in 1800? An exercise in ignorance. Heavy duty literary writers struggle with such (self imposed) assignments, and come up short half of the time.
Read history books, you dummies!
Perhaps this course is part of the selection process for new OFA members?
This could be applied to almost any historical controversy: Protestant/Catholic, Monarchist/Republican, Federalist/Antifederalist, Slavery/Abolition, Communist/Market ... if you can write convincing propaganda for both sides, it's a good indication that you understand both sides. Doesn't necessarily mean you agree with either side.
“The teacher has been removed from the class and faces ‘disciplinary action...’”
Removed at full pay, no doubt!
It's a heuristic technique that can be both educational and fun. And I've experienced this sort of thing myself. I once took part in a simulation of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which eventually led to the 1975 Helsinki Accords--I was the Soviet delegate. As part of a history seminar, I also took part in a conference to unite the world's socialist movements, in which I represented Stalinism.
I agree. The scariest thing about the Nazis wasn’t Hitler, there are madmen all over the place, the scary thing was about how the ordinary German could ultimately wind up embracing such a madman.
Think it can’t happen again? Don’t bet on it.
So you’re saying you had a chance to become an expert on Stalinism without having to slog through the boring volumes of Solzhenitsyn? I know of the technique and it is as I said an exercise in practical ignorance, if it is “fun”. Education for the likes of Rachel Jeantel, by the likes of Rachel Jeantel.
Back in the day, that’s what I did in the Yahoo chat rooms. I had two monikers, one where I was a conservative, and another where I pretended to be a liberal....I could argue both sides of any issue, like no one’s business.
Even used to have my two alter egos arguing with each other, just for fun.
Vanden Wyngaard declined to name the teacher
Taking bets that the teacher wasn’t white and most likely the teacher is a ROPer
Made the news in April around when it happened. Covered pretty well on FR with school teacher-types thinking it was pretty swell, even given the outrageousness of the actual text.
At the time, Solzhenitsyn was best known as a writer of fiction--his Gulag Archipelago was about a year away from publication--and, by the way, it's anything but boring.
Instead, to prepare for the big socialist conference, I slogged though tomes such as Boris Souvarine's Stalin: A Critical Study of Bolshevism (New York: Alliance, 1939), William Henry Chamberlin's The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921 (New York: Macmillan, 1935) and Worker's Paradise Lost: Fifty Years of Soviet Communism: A Balance Sheet by Eugene Lyons (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1967).
And I had to not only make a case for Stalinism but also to argue the case against Trotskyism, social democracy, anarchism and Fabian socialism, so I had to do my share of reading.
That’s a hard one to evaluate. The kids would have to read about the holocaust days and identify attitudes. Any kid with half a brain will recognize that the Nazis were evil, not the Jews. High school juniors or seniors should be able to handle that assignment without becoming raving anti-Semites.
I wasn’t trying to flame you, only to flame the idea of heuristic technique, or role playing, which I have seen in action (and an example of how it doesn’t work is in the article above), during my studies and even more during corporate training sessions, where attendees were asked to assume some roles, whether those of customers, or discriminated against employees, and other such nonsense, while the hired instructor, being paid a grand or two a day, stepped outside for his hourly tobacco addiction break. It never worked.
Yes, I've experienced that sort of banana oil, too.
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