Topic: Teachers drop the Holocaust... (Read 10063 times)

minorDemocritus · « **on:** May 24, 2007, 06:48:13 PM »

...to avoid offending Muslims
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=445979&in_page_id=1770

this is FUCKED. as if religion wasn't ingrained in our culture enough.

the whole PC movement has gone WAY too far. i don't think i could comment on the issue any better than Chris McGovern:
"History is not a vehicle for promoting political correctness. Children must have access to knowledge of these controversial subjects, whether palatable or unpalatable."

Evonus · « **Reply #1 on:** May 24, 2007, 07:04:37 PM »

Not covering the crusades is one thing, because it happened a long time ago, and chances are the western view of it is biased, but the holocaust was pretty recent, and if we don't teach things of that caliber we might as well not teach history at all. If the Muslims kids can't keep it to themselves they should be suspended, just like a redneck would be if he clapped about MLK Jr. getting assassinated.

minorDemocritus · « **Reply #2 on:** May 24, 2007, 07:09:35 PM »

Quote from: Evonus on May 24, 2007, 07:04:37 PM

Not covering the crusades is one thing, because it happened a long time ago, and chances are the western view of it is biased...

"because it happened a long time ago" is no excuse. the western bias is the only thing that makes some sense, but rather than striking it from the record, why not present the differing views?

concur with the rest.

Min · « **Reply #3 on:** May 24, 2007, 07:12:25 PM »

I got an email the other day forwarded from the Principal of my school inviting me to the VA Holocaust Museum to see a screening of Paperclips. It was a movie about a middle school class in Tennessee that was so moved by the story of the Holocaust that they decided to collect 6 million paperclips, one for every Jew that was murdered during WWII. They wound up with well over 6 million so they took 11 million to include other targeted groups in addition to the Jews and made a memorial with it using a train car that was actually used at the time to transport Jews to the death camps.

So I see no evidence of us dropping the subject in either Tennessee or Virginia.

By the way, our local Holocaust Museum is collecting 6 million pennies. I save all the pennies I get to bring there. I'd ask you guys to send me pennies if it wouldn't cost more than the pennies are worth to send them to me. So how about you just visit your local Holocaust Museum instead.

Min · « **Reply #4 on:** May 24, 2007, 07:17:37 PM »

In fact...the state of Virginia sets the curriculum here. We can't sway from it.

9.10 The student will analyze major historical events of the 20th
century, in terms of
* causes and effects of World War I and World War II;
* the Russian Revolution;
* the rise, aggression, and human costs of totalitarian
regimes in the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, and Japan;
* the political, social, and economic impact of worldwide
depression in the 1930's;
* the Nazi Holocaust and other examples of genocide;
* new technologies, including atomic power, and their
influence on the patterns of conflict;
* economic and military power shifts since 1945, including the
rise of Germany and Japan as economic powers;
* revolutionary movements in Asia and their leaders, including
Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh;
* how African and Asian countries achieved independence from
European colonial rule, including India under Gandhi and
Kenya under Kenyatta and how they have fared under self-
rule;
* regional and political conflicts including Korea and
Vietnam; and
* the beginning and end of the Cold War and the collapse of
the Soviet Union.

aaaaaaand...

9.2 The student will analyze the patterns of social, economic, and
political change and cultural achievement in the late Medieval
period, including
* the emergence of nation-states (Spain, France, England,
Russia) and distinctive political developments in each;
* conflicts among Eurasian powers including the Crusades, the
Mongol conquests, and the expansion of the Ottoman Turks;
* patterns of crisis and recovery including the Black Death;
and
* the preservation of Greek and Roman philosophy, medicine,
and science.

pbsaurus · « **Reply #5 on:** May 24, 2007, 07:24:50 PM »

Virginia has always had really good schools. I went to Fairfax County public schools from 1st through 5th grade and was way ahead of my peers when I moved to the Bay Area for 6th grade.

Min · « **Reply #6 on:** May 24, 2007, 07:35:38 PM »

Yes. And Virginians sure as hell aint worried about offending people.

xolik · « **Reply #7 on:** May 24, 2007, 07:43:48 PM »

How dare you not cater to the delicate feelings of Muslims? What, do you hate brown people or something? Racists.

The sad thing is, the above line actually works more often than not.

pbsaurus · « **Reply #8 on:** May 24, 2007, 07:45:44 PM »

Also at the school I went to I was one of the few kids in class during Jewish holidays, so you betcha they were going to cover the Holocaust.

xolik · « **Reply #9 on:** May 24, 2007, 07:48:07 PM »

Not reporting history because it might hurt somebody's feelings is fucking dumb.

Evonus · « **Reply #10 on:** May 24, 2007, 08:02:26 PM »

Quote from: Detta on May 24, 2007, 07:17:37 PM

In fact...the state of Virginia sets the curriculum here. We can't sway from it.

9.10 The student will analyze major historical events of the 20th
century, in terms of
* causes and effects of World War I and World War II;
* the Russian Revolution;
* the rise, aggression, and human costs of totalitarian
regimes in the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, and Japan;
* the political, social, and economic impact of worldwide
depression in the 1930's;
* the Nazi Holocaust and other examples of genocide;
* new technologies, including atomic power, and their
influence on the patterns of conflict;
* economic and military power shifts since 1945, including the
rise of Germany and Japan as economic powers;
* revolutionary movements in Asia and their leaders, including
Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh;
* how African and Asian countries achieved independence from
European colonial rule, including India under Gandhi and
Kenya under Kenyatta and how they have fared under self-
rule;
* regional and political conflicts including Korea and
Vietnam; and
* the beginning and end of the Cold War and the collapse of
the Soviet Union.

aaaaaaand...

9.2 The student will analyze the patterns of social, economic, and
political change and cultural achievement in the late Medieval
period, including
* the emergence of nation-states (Spain, France, England,
Russia) and distinctive political developments in each;
* conflicts among Eurasian powers including the Crusades, the
Mongol conquests, and the expansion of the Ottoman Turks;
* patterns of crisis and recovery including the Black Death;
and
* the preservation of Greek and Roman philosophy, medicine,
and science.

Wow, that's the baseline curriculum. That's pretty intense. I mean I got all that in more because I took the highest level classes available in HighSchool, but our(Florida's) basic curriculum was something like a broad world history class that didn't convey much info, one class on U.S. government, and then either and economics class or a U.S. history class. No wonder we are in the top 5 worst states in the country for education.

Nosferatu · « **Reply #11 on:** May 24, 2007, 08:03:19 PM »

God, that's retarded. History is history, it happened, and we damn well know it happened. Are Westerners supposed to have built dummy concentration camps? Are the mass graved filled with fake bodies?

Some students can deny it if they want to be ignorant in the face of unsurmountable (and moving) evidence, but it's a story that deserves to be told, so we can at least learn from humanity's past mistakes, if not keep the memory of those who were murdered for no good reason alive.

When we had sex ed in school, kids had to get a signed consent form to participate, why don't they just do something like that? If teaching the hollocaust is gonna piss off so many people, at least let the kids with the intelligence not to cover thier ears and shout "La, la, la! It never happened!" make up thier own minds.

Min · « **Reply #12 on:** May 24, 2007, 08:44:38 PM »

Quote from: Evonus on May 24, 2007, 08:02:26 PM

Wow, that's the baseline curriculum. That's pretty intense. I mean I got all that in more because I took the highest level classes available in HighSchool, but our(Florida's) basic curriculum was something like a broad world history class that didn't convey much info, one class on U.S. government, and then either and economics class or a U.S. history class. No wonder we are in the top 5 worst states in the country for education.

That was only two of the eleven standards of learning for 9th grade history, which covers World History 1100 AD to present.

Agent_Tachyon · « **Reply #13 on:** May 24, 2007, 09:22:06 PM »

This is only slightly more extreme than teaching creationism in a biology class (anongside evolution or not), and is equally fucked up.

I think that holding off on the holocaust (the fucking HOLOCAUST, I think/hope most mainstream Muslims aren't denying that anyway) is almost as bad as holding off on evolution just because some people get offended at the idea of being basically monkeys, though I can think of far worse things to be related to *cough*falwellphelpsswaggardpopofffchick*cough* (though I do make the distinction that the holocaust killed three million innocent people, while evolution is a bit less shocking on those terms).

I'm gearing up for the Melville award for run-on sentences, dinchaknow.

Quote

It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.

So what if their beliefs included race theory, should we cut out civil rights and teach that it's okay if you think that black people are mentally inferior? What if they believed we should stone infidels, should we point out that this may in fact be a dick move on their parts?

I do not think that stamping something 'religion' should insulate it from question.

TeraHammer · « **Reply #14 on:** May 24, 2007, 09:45:59 PM »

I never understood why some Muslims would deny that the holocaust exist.

Is it because of the Israel - Palestina issue?

Agent_Tachyon · « **Reply #15 on:** May 24, 2007, 09:54:00 PM »

I don't know why Muslims in general would, but the Palestine/Israel thing is a tense issue for many. Iran's president being such a fan of holocaust denial probably doesn't help matters. Still, I don't think (bear in mind here that I know very little about Islam) that the holocaust is specifically mentioned in the Koran because it's a few thousand years early by my reckoning. I think that's more a contemporary thing that some anti-Jew (I dislike the term anti-semitic, so I'll be anal and keep it out shit too late) church leaders are spreading to the oh-so-impressionable youth.

RelandR · « **Reply #16 on:** May 25, 2007, 12:55:40 AM »

Robbing them of their martyr thunder is just poular in some of those circles, much like with Neo-Nazi types ... they seem to just not want [the Jews] to have any 'points', if you will, of any kind.... sympathy, accomplishment or merit, etc.

xolik · « **Reply #17 on:** May 25, 2007, 09:30:47 AM »

Quote from: RelandR on May 25, 2007, 12:55:40 AM

Robbing them of their martyr thunder is just poular in some of those circles,

Exactly. The ongoing theory here, is that if the Holocaust never happened, people would be much, much less sympathetic towards Israel.

ivan · « **Reply #18 on:** May 25, 2007, 11:51:44 AM »

First, I was really impressed when I read that curriculum, Detta.

Second, yes: holocaust denial has one, and only one essential motivation -- antisemitism. The underlying premise, no matter what overlays are applied, is that Jews are liars and bamboozlers of epic proportions, and that anyone who believes the Jewish version of history are ignorant stooges deliberately deceived by Jews.

Third, I went to middle and high school in the former SU. I didn't learn that there was such a thing as the Jewish holocaust, or that Jews were rounded up and put in camps during WWII, until I left the SU and came to the US. It took a while for it all to sink in. In most other respects, the education I received in the SU was as good and better than my peers' here in the US, but my version of world history was enormously different. I had to learn and relearn many things. I remember going to one of thousands of WWII museums back there, and seeing photographs of mass graves and enormous mountains of shoes, and gruesome displays like lampshades made of human skin and soap made of human fat and buckets of gold teeth. I was intensely moved and impressed by the enormity of the Nazis' crimes, but I had no clue that these crimes were committed mostly against Jews. We were told that the people in those photos, and whose skin was used for lampshades, were Slavs and Gypsies and soldiers. No mention of Jews at all. So you see, it is possible to have an entire country believe something. If someone had approached us at that museum and said, "You know, most of those gold teeth were pulled from Jewish mouths, and most of those shoes were torn from Jewish feet," that person would seem to us kids to be, at best, crazy. I don't know how it is there now, but I am certain the legacy of denial has not died quickly.

Nosferatu · « **Reply #19 on:** May 25, 2007, 12:27:40 PM »

That's an incredible story man, unbelievable that a handfull of people would lie to an entire nation.

Realy makes you wonder if our governments aren't selective about the truth, en mass.

Of course, versions of smaller events will vary from country to country, I'm sure that German schools teach a very different version of WWII (Probably comming to the same conclusion - that Hitler was a dick - but with a different spin on events to ours).

Paladin · « **Reply #20 on:** May 25, 2007, 12:39:43 PM »

The state of Israel was founded after the holocaust, the whole point of it's founding was that the jews wanted to keep this from happening again, and that they should be able to defend themselves. So denying that the holocaust ever existed takes away the reason of Israel state (or at least that's what Muslim fundamentalist think, i think).

And speaking of history and holocaust, there's hardly any mention in general of the stalinist holocaust. While the natzi killed around 6 million jews plus a few hundreds of tousants gipsies and such, in soviet rusia there were killed around 30 millions (estimated), in gulag-type prisons, plus a few millions in the eastern europe 'liberated' by the Red Army. That's hardly ever mentioned, because we wouldn't want to offend the russians, or the communists.

I'd say it's the same thing.

BizB · « **Reply #21 on:** May 25, 2007, 12:42:17 PM »

Of course the Muslims are denying the Holocaust! Can't you see what a threat the Jews are to the world's REAL religions?

http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/history-of-religion.html

And, clearly, they have ruled the ME for a very long time...
http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html

xolik · « **Reply #22 on:** May 25, 2007, 12:58:45 PM »

J-E-W-S

pbsaurus · « **Reply #23 on:** May 25, 2007, 01:01:20 PM »

Read A People's History of the United States of America 1492-present by Howard Zinn. All history is biased by those reporting it. There are many perspectives with which to view an event. The United States and before that the British Colonies perpetrated plenty of atrocities themselves, but these are generally glossed over in the public school history classes.

BizB · « **Reply #24 on:** May 25, 2007, 01:07:09 PM »

L-I-A-R!

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Author Topic: Teachers drop the Holocaust... (Read 10063 times)