(Document and photo credit: San Bernardino Sun)
And so, we begin to see what education indoctrination will look like with Common Core in charge. In the first place, I don’t see any especially good sources given for the students here. About.com and History.com are not really all that great either, useful but, not the best either. The other thing is that as per usual in Common Core, it gets the cart before the horse. One must know history to debate history or even do a contrafactual. here’s a chunk of the KTLA story.
The Rialto school district planned to revise an eighth-grade assignment that raised red flags by asking students to consider arguments about whether the Holocaust — the systematic killing by the Nazis of some 6 million Jews and millions of others — was not an “actual event” but instead a “propaganda tool that was used for political and monetary gain.”
In a statement released Monday, a spokeswoman for the Rialto Unified School District said an academic team was meeting to revise the assignment.
Interim Superintendent Mohammad Z. Islam was set to talk with administrators to “assure that any references to the holocaust ‘not occurring’ will be stricken on any current or future Argumentative Research assignments,” a statement from district spokeswoman Syeda Jafri read.
“The holocaust should be taught in classrooms with sensitivity and profound consideration to the victims who endured the atrocities committed,” Jafri said.
The English/Language Arts assignment, first reported Sunday by the San Bernardino Sun and provided to KTLA by the newspaper, asked students to write an argumentative essay about the Holocaust describing “whether or not you believe this was an actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain wealth.”
An eighth-grade assignment, shown, raised questions from a Jewish civil rights group. (Document and photo credit: San Bernardino Sun)
The 18-page assignment instructions included three sources that students were told to use, including one that stated gassings in concentration camps were a “hoax” and that no evidence has shown Jews died in gas chambers.
“With all this money at stake for Israel, it is easy to comprehend why this Holocaust hoax is so secretly guarded,” states the source, which is a attributed to a webpage on biblebelievers.org.au. “In whatever way you can, please help shatter this profitable myth. It is time we stop sacrificing America’s welfare for the sake of Israel and spend our hard-earned dollars on Americans.”
The other sources were from the websites history.com and about.com.
via Rialto Assignment Asking Students to Question Holocaust to Be Revised | KTLA 5.
Another thing that bothers me here is that there are apparently 18 pages of directions for the project. Micro-manage much? Or is that the only way to get the desired results?
If I were to grant the legitimacy of the project, which I don’t, proper directions shouldn’t take more than a page. Yes, I know our society has dumbed down that we have to give instructions in minute detail. But, that is something we need to fix. They claim they are trying to teach critical thinking, well part of critical thinking is to have enough sense to tie your shoes before running.
Ace ran this story last night, with a very cogent comment towards the end of the article
I’ve hinted at this before, but let be explicit:
I do not support the lofty and ambitious goal of having teachers teach children “how to think” because I do not believe that low-ranking civil servants, as a group, are particularly good at it themselves.
Let this be my Exhibits A through Z.
They are failing at teaching the most basic stuff, so our response is to let them Explore the Studio Space?
You know, I am reminded that when Patton and the 3d Army overran the Ohrdruf Concentration Camp, Eisenhower ordered extensive filming of the site and (the few) victims left. It was reported that he told Patton that without the films, nobody would believe the reports of the hell they had uncovered. But now, in the enlightened teens, we disbelieve our lying eyes for comforting propaganda, from those who are tasked to train our future.
God help us all.
