School apologizes over pro-Nazi essay assignment

[dps]

It's self-evidently play-acting.

In this case, no-one expects that the kids will come out of the exercise being real Nazi propagandists, any more than one expects a Shakespearian actor in drama class will really go on a murderous rampage and be haunted by guilt.

Agreed but if the articles around are any indication, more than a handful of students didn't feel comfortable with this play-acting.

So?  In any given class, more than a handful of students won't feel comfortable with multiple-choice quiz. 

So you don't see a difference between kids being upset that they are asked to create racist arguments vs. kids that are upset because they have a multiple-choice quiz?

It's not that I don't see a difference, it's that I don't think that they need to be shielded from things that upset them.

[garbon]

It's self-evidently play-acting.

In this case, no-one expects that the kids will come out of the exercise being real Nazi propagandists, any more than one expects a Shakespearian actor in drama class will really go on a murderous rampage and be haunted by guilt.

Agreed but if the articles around are any indication, more than a handful of students didn't feel comfortable with this play-acting.

So?  In any given class, more than a handful of students won't feel comfortable with multiple-choice quiz. 

So you don't see a difference between kids being upset that they are asked to create racist arguments vs. kids that are upset because they have a multiple-choice quiz?

It's not that I don't see a difference, it's that I don't think that they need to be shielded from things that upset them.

Well I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I think being upset over being asked to pretend to be racist is legitimate enough to be shielded from. Not so a multiple-choice quiz though really having those generally makes me think the teacher is lazy.

[Razgovory]

I think we smart people win when blinkered people censor learning that doesn't fit their narrow little stereotypes of what learning is.  less competition for us.

[Ideologue]

But since none of this involves math, science or manual skills, is it actually worthwhile?  Not really.

I don't think you are in a position to disdain critical thinking skills. Ide!   Imagine where you would be if you had them. 

If you think teaching hobbies to people, who if they did care about it could easily learn about it without your help, while pretending it's a vital service on par with math and science education, advances a tremendously valuable individual or social purpose, and I should automatically believe you when you say this when you're arguing from a totally biased position, then maybe I'm not the one with the critical thinking problem.

World War II is cool, but the salient lessons are not really arguable and are easily imparted in detail within a couple of hours, and in short in a few minutes: racism is really bad, totalitarianism is also bad if it's not done just right, so it should probably be avoided altogether, unprovoked aggression between nations is usually bad but not when America does it, and the air force is more valuable than the navy.  Now go learn something important, like calculus.  You can play Europa in your free time.

[CountDeMoney]

Compelling arguments all, Ide.  But you still went to law school.  That's on your permanent record.

[Ideologue]

Compelling arguments all, Ide.  But you still went to law school.  That's on your permanent record.

They taught me critical thinking.  When they did, I realized I shouldn't have gone to law school because critical thinking is almost entirely worthless in business or industry or even law itself without quantitative skills or interpersonal skills.  It's something of an ouroboros.

Anyway, I also fail to see how writing like a Nazi actually produces critical thinkers.  However, the argument could be advanced that writing bullshit that you neither believe in nor even respect but you write anyway because you have to is a valuable skill, so perhaps grumbler is right and this teacher should be praised after all.

[Razgovory]

I told Ide he should go into Engineering, but noooo.  He had to be like John Edwards.  You can still get a good job as an engineer with a record.  You just build doomsday weapons for super villains.

[Ideologue]

In all seriousness, I actually don't think history in particular and social science in general should be taken out of K-12 education.  There is a social value in having people basically understand that the Holocaust is bad and shouldn't be repeated and stuff, or that racism was a thing until Quentin Tarantino healed race relations in America forever.  So grumbler should still have his gig--well, not his particular gig, which iirc is at a fancy private academy that should be burned to the ground and its earth salted, but at a public high school.

As for PDH--well, with his PhD and long-time teaching experience he would not doubt be very competitive as a prospective K-12 teacher.

[PDH]

I can't stand teaching kids.

[Ideologue]

I can't stand teaching kids.

When did you ever teach a grown-up?

[PDH]

I can't stand teaching kids.

When did you ever teach a grown-up?

Really, I can't stand teaching grown-ups either.  I just stand up there and talk and force them to remember stupid shit.

[jimmy olsen]

You win and I win when the American education system fails its students.

I think we all win when our students avoid such a poorly designed critical thinking assignment.  Was this a companion follow-up to reading Uncle Tom's Cabin and assignment on using passages that were cited from the Bible to state how black people deserve to / should be slaves?

As I mentioned I basically did that assignment in College. I thought it was a great assignment.

I agree that most public schools are run by cowards who would be cowed by the mob into punishing a teacher who gave that assignment.

[The Minsky Moment]

The old saying is that, if you wish to defeat an enemy, you must understand them.

Understanding does not require actually doing the thing in question.  I can reach an understanding about what will happen if I jump off a bridge without actually jumping off a bridge.  An essential attribute of an educated adult is the ability to analyze a problem or a question without having to literally assume each position.  I don't think having adolescent Amercian kids take on the role of Nazi propagandists helps the understanding of the power of Nazi propaganda; on the contrary, it risks trivializing it.  Nazi propanganda is powerful enough-- and visual enough for the present generation -- to stand on its own.

What I still haven't really heard from either you or grumbler is exactly what pedogogical goal is served by this exercise or why it is the best way to achieve it,

[The Minsky Moment]

I don't think you understand the purpose of the exercise.  It wasn't to get the students to critique the quality of Hitler's prose or to quantify the rigor of Goebbels' conclusions, but to get students to read and comprehend what the Nazis themselves were saying they were doing, and why,

See comment to Malthus above.  I'm not yet convinced that this is really the best way to go about it.

We shouldn't ignore history we find distasteful in favor of some Greek philosophers whose work has no practical merit but which is therefor divorced from the ickiness of history. 

Aristotle???

[Malthus]

The old saying is that, if you wish to defeat an enemy, you must understand them.

Understanding does not require actually doing the thing in question.  I can reach an understanding about what will happen if I jump off a bridge without actually jumping off a bridge.  An essential attribute of an educated adult is the ability to analyze a problem or a question without having to literally assume each position.  I don't think having adolescent Amercian kids take on the role of Nazi propagandists helps the understanding of the power of Nazi propaganda; on the contrary, it risks trivializing it.  Nazi propanganda is powerful enough-- and visual enough for the present generation -- to stand on its own.

What I still haven't really heard from either you or grumbler is exactly what pedogogical goal is served by this exercise or why it is the best way to achieve it,

Then you have been reading by posts rather selectively, as I state what I thought the goal was immediately underneath the part you quoted.

However, for the sake of argument, I will restate.

The point of an exercise like this is not specific to the Nazis and Jews. Rather, they stand as simply an example (albeit an extreme one) of how shabby ideological thinking, unexamined and unchallenged, relying on emotion and prejudice rather than logic or fact, in an atmosphere of chrisis, hysteria and false patriotism,  can lead to horrific public consequences.

Nothing could better insulate children from being victimised in turn by such a process than being asked to think through how to manipulate the levers of rhetoric themselves, based on a historical example.

The fear is not that the kids are ever likely to want to recreate Nazism and its rage against the Jews - lets face it, that is about as likely in America as the kids wanting to recreate Tsarist Russia. Rather, the the notion is to understand how rhetoric and propaganda work generally to justify what is on its face unjustifiable.

You can agree or disagree just as you like, but you cannot legitimately say I never posted my position.

Mind you, I'm not making the argument that this is the *best* way to do it. I don't have to. Rather, I'm simply saying this is *a* perfectly legitimate way of doing it.