Albany NY HS English Class Assignment: Argue that Jews are evil.

[cali]

There is no excuse for this. The school issued a mealy mouthed non-apology apology.

Think like a Nazi, the assignment required students. Argue why Jews are evil.

Students in some Albany High School English classes were asked this week as part of a persuasive writing assignment to make an abhorrent argument: "You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!"



<snip>

Students were asked to watch and read Nazi propaganda, then pretend their teacher was a Nazi government official who needed to be convinced of their loyalty. In five paragraphs, they were required to prove that Jews were the source of Germany's problems.

The exercise was intended to challenge students to formulate a persuasive argument and was given to three classes, Albany Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard said. She said the assignment should have been worded differently.

"I would apologize to our families," she said. "I don't believe there was malice or intent to cause any insensitivities to our families of Jewish faith."

One-third of the students refused to complete the assignment, she said.

<snip>

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/School-apology-Think-like-a-Nazi-task-vs-Jews-4428669.php

At the very least that is one monumentally stupid asswipe of an English teacher.

[NightWatcher]

1. Was the teacher trying to teach them to argue for a stupid reason?

I think they would've done better to get them to debate why the earth is round or why cats are better than dogs, or some other ridiculous stand on an issue instead of one with evil overtones.

[Buzz Clik]

3. This is high school, not grade school. They can handle it.

[Buzz Clik]

2. I see nothing wrong with this. It's rhetorical in nature, and part of development of argument.

Arguing a point one does not believe is a powerful way to step out of oneself.

[cali]

4. nothing wrong? how about that it encourages gleeful bigotry. It's interesting to me that

not one single duer defended this kind of thing in prior similar instances that targeted black people.

There are hundreds of other ways that this could be taught without targeting a demographic. Would you support this if students were asked to argue that Muslims are all terrorists? How about asking kids to argue that blacks are all stupid and lazy?

I'm appalled that you are defending this.

[Buzz Clik]

5. Not a chance. The very best way to hones one's skills is to step completely outside one's value sets

It's easy to argue for something you believe. It's far more difficult to argue for something you find repulsive. And there is nothing wrong with testing one's beliefs by arguing against them.

This is a fantastic opportunity for them.

On edit: I understand that some students would opt out, and the teacher should allow it. The teacher can allow them to argue something safe that won't challenge them, like why dogs are smarter than cats. It's a missed opportunity, but that's life.

[cali]

7. It's sick offensive and stupid.

there are so many ways to teach people how to argue effectively without resorting to this. And endorsing this bigoted filth is disgusting.

[cali]

11. go for it. I said nothing about you. I expressed that endorsing bigoted filth is

a horrible thing to do.

[One_Life_To_Give]

14. Probably not going to promote bigotry

I am going to assume these are the advanced placement/college bound students. I expect by that age they should be able to effectively argue the absurd. Just as an actor in Colonial Williamsburg might argue that Slaves/Slavery was the natural and indeed moral thing to do. Although I think it might be appropriate to argue something personally offensive such that if you are an X, then argue that X should be eliminated, enslaved etc.

[cali]

16. Why are you assuming that these are AP students?

and at the very least it's insensitive to a mind boggling degree. I think it could very well promote bigotry. Bigotry exists in every social and economic class and smart people can be bigots too.

[One_Life_To_Give]

21. Debate Team type exercise

Lawyers don't always have a choice in clients. Sometimes you have to present effective arguments for or against something you find morally reprehensible.

I think we would need to see more details than fit in a brief article to really decide who the students are and what the desired outcome of the lesson plans are. Seniors planning to go to Pre-Law this fall vs Freshman and all those in-between.

[cali]

25. oh bull.

why you're bringing lawyers into this escapes me. That's irrelevant.

From New York Magazine:

<snip>

Even though there are a thousand other thought exercises that would have been just as challenging ("argue against freedom of speech," "argue that Pitbull is a groundbreaking visionary," etc.), that's probably true. The weird part, though, is that the assignment calls on the students, in making their cases, to draw upon a packet of Nazi propaganda, "what you've learned in history class," and "any experiences you have." With ... Jews being evil?

<snip>

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/albany-jews-evil-nazis-teacher-high-school.html

[Quantess]

30. These are high schoolers, not law school students, for starters.

No we don't need to see any more details. Try to imagine a teacher's staff meeting where this idea would survive scrutiny...I cannot.

Debate topics are such things as, well... the topics we discuss here at the DU, such as gun control, abortion, drug testing, "should Main Street be renamed Cesar Chavez?" etc.

If you want to give students a challenge: argue why Richard Nixon was a great president, make the case for cutting social security, or that tobacco should be outlawed and criminalized. NOT hurtful topics like antisemitism or slavery.

[patrice]

40. Oh my dear, they are capable of ever Ever so much more than is being asked of them. The questions

are about HOW, precisely and appropriately, to do the asking.

And they very Very definitely do FALL to the level of lowered expectations, because they very definitely are in trouble and need a way out of SOMETHING/anything. Unfortunately, there is no more grace for lower expectations:performance, so lowering the bar for them, to relieve some of the pressure, doesn't build the kind of self-concept they are going to need to survive.

[Quantess]

46. Please don't call me dear. It's disrespectful.

Have you ever prepared lesson plans or even worked in K-12? I have, and I cannot imagine a group of teachers discussing this and thinking it was a good idea.

[csziggy]

17. But why pull up an old hot issue that is so offensive to so many?

There are plenty of current issues that could be used to teach the students the same concept and at the same time make them think about issues more relevant to their own lives.

I learned a little about your point when I tried to start a debate club long ago when I was in high school. For our first debate, the faculty advisor suggested debating the Vietnam War (it was 1967). No one would take the pro stance, so I did. It was an uphill slog, but it taught me a lot about how to research and how to think critically about the sources I found in my resource. I learned a lot more from doing that than I learned from studying slavery in the South or the Nazi treatment of Jews and minorities in WWII, mostly because the Vietnam War was of immediate concern to my age group.

The teacher would have done better to have the students cover the pros and cons of the Iraq War or some other more current issue, than drag up a something that to them is ancient history.

[antigone382]

47. If you were a Jewish student whose family suffered in the Holocaust you might feel differently.

Or what if you were a refugee from a country that has experienced much more recent genocidal tragedies? I went to high school with students whose earliest memories were fleeing persecution that claimed the lives of their loved ones. Did the professor take into account the possibility that some such students might be sitting in his or her classroom? It is quite possible that being required to formulate similar arguments to the ones that resulted in their traumas would bring on serious and legitimate psychological consequences. I have PTSD for very different reasons, and even so this kind of assignment would be beyond my capacity to accomplish. This is more than developing an argument that you may find personally abhorrent. It is quite possible that for many students such an assignment would do real damage. There are other ways to develop an argument outside of yourself.

[FSogol]

6. Those assignments always remind me of this

[treestar]

8. There has to be a better way

The point may have been to get them to feel what it is like to live in a dictatorship where your secret thoughts are kept to yourself because you know you'll have consequences for not mouthing the propaganda.

Better to have them watch one of the documentaries on Nazi Germany.

[cali]

10. this wasn't a history class. It was an English class

the point of the assignment was evidently to teach kids rhetoric and how to argue.

[treestar]

34. Wow there are many better ways to do that

Any issue could be used.

[csziggy]

12. So rather than teach critical thinking about how to recognize propaganda

The teacher required the students to buy into some of the most repellent propaganda ever produced and use it to support an abhorrent idea?

I once took a course on documentary films. A section of it was about Nazi propaganda movies. We watched things such as "Triumph of the Will" and dissected the themes and techniques that made it so successful as propaganda. It was a great course, and that section of it was excellent.

Today students need the ability to understand the methods propaganda use to persuade people to believe particular ideas - the better to resist ideas that would otherwise be appalling.

As for the article in the OP, I am encouraged that "One-third of the students refused to complete the assignment" - that is a very good percentage for resistance!

[cali]

13. excellently expressed. thank you.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

15. I think it's a great idea, and also spectacularly stupid.

A great idea because I think that it would be a very valuable exercise for the children, and probably result in them having a clearer idea than before as to why anti-semitism is a bad thing.

Spectacularly stupid because it's blindingly obvious that it was going to result in a shitstorm and massive negative propaganda.

If I were educating a class all of whose parents I thought were sensible and trustworthy, I might well try something similar. But never with a standard public-school class.

[cali]

18. So you endorse students arguing that blacks are lazy and shiftless

to learn about racism or that Muslims are terrorists?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

19. No, because I think that some of them might actually believe that.

I don't, however, think that there are likely to be any nazi sympathisers in a high-school class.

I'd be entirely happy to see students asked to argue for the preservation of slavery in the voices of 1860 (except possibly in the deep South), but not for milder forms of racism.

[cali]

22. you leave me speechless. Antisemitism in this country is widespread. Did you actually not

know that.

Your double standard is disgraceful. And it certainly looks odd.

[IfPalinisAnswerWatsQ]

49. Proof that anti-semitism is widespread here?

Last I checked, ADL had it about 12%, and more frequent among older people and the less educated. I bet the amount of anti-Muslim feeling is higher, and a significant amount of the anti Semitism is probably due to our blind support of Israel, consequences be damned. I don't buy into the Alan Dershowitz New Antisemitism tripe. That's just an excuse to advance his neocon agenda.

[cali]

54. 12% is millions and millions of people, but here:

The 2005 Survey of American Attitudes Towards Jews in America, a national poll of 1,600 American adults conducted in March 2005, found that 14% of Americans - or nearly 35 million adults - hold views about Jews that are "unquestionably antisemitic," compared to 17% in 2002, Previous ADL surveys over the last decade had indicated that antisemitism was in decline. In 1998, the number of Americans with hardcore antisemitic beliefs had dropped to 12% from 20% in 1992.

<snip>

The 2005 survey found "35 percent of foreign-born Hispanics" and 36 percent of African-Americans hold strong antisemitic beliefs, four times more than the 9 percent for whites".[6]

<snip>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_United_States#Statistics

antisemitic incidences in the U.S. are not uncommon- anymore than racist or anti-Muslim incidences are. Here are two from the past few days:

http://www.policymic.com/articles/34217/on-holocaust-remembrance-day-anti-semitic-man-burns-12-mezuzahs-in-brooklyn-hate-crime

http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/08/medford-officials-vow-vigorous-investigation-anti-semitic-graffiti
/3B7kyYPRHSiHJbETdfzECM/story.html


There are plenty of U.S. based antisemitic sites on the web. Think Stormfront.

There is less antisemitism in the U.S. than in much of the world, but with millions of people holding those views, it's hardly extinct.

My point, though, goes beyond antisemitism. There are plenty of ways to teach kids to argue persuasively without targeting any demographic. Not to mention that there were likely Jewish kids in this class. Would you support a black kid being asked to write persuasively that blacks are lazy and stupid and belong back in shackles? Would you support a Muslim kid being asked to write about how Muslims are all terrorists and backward? I would not support any kid of any ethnicity engaging in this craptastic assignment. It's just fraught with perils, particularly as it was phrased, asking students to draw not only on the propaganda from the period but their own personal experiences? Say what? Their own personal experience with Jews being evil? Egads but that's stupid and opens an ugly Pandora's box.

[IfPalinisAnswerWatsQ]

55. Where did I say I supported the assignment?

Fwiw, if I were in charge, I'd fire the teacher, and have them read Elie Wiesel's Night trilogy instead and write essays on it.

I was responding only to what I believe are spurious claims about the degree of anti semitism. And I don't necessarily trust the ADL. They see an anti Semite hiding behind every tree. after crying wolf five hundred times, people stop listening.

Jewish people are no more endangered here than any other group.

[cali]

56. Where did I claim Jewish people were endangered.... at all here?

I did not. And I did not say that you supported this assignment. I don't know that this teacher should be fired, but I do know that this was not an example of good teaching.

Regardless of the ADL, there is no doubt that antisemitism exists in this country just as other bigotries do.

[Quantess]

20. This is the worst idea since....

that math teacher who wrote story math problems about whipping slaves and making slaves pick cotton.

[cali]

23. Not according to several of the posters in this thread

One of whom just said that he thought it a fine idea but that using blacks or Muslims as an example would be wrong.

The posts about the other story were universally condemned, but some folks here think that arguing that Jews are evil is just an excellent way of teaching rhetoric.

Sick and telling.

[Quantess]

24. I know, I read those already.

A few of them might be devils advocates, or are just not thinking it through. I don't have enough time to waste it arguing with every misguided person on DU.

[JustAnotherGen]

26. That is disgusting!

But I'm glad that chunk of the class said Hell To The No! Good for them!

[premium]

27. Exceedingly stupid idea.

As if there isn't enough anti semitism in the country already.

[dballance]

28. That is one stupid teacher.

How anyone, just after Holocaust Remembrance day could make such an assignment astounds me. Not that it is an appropriate assignment ever.

There are tons of controversial topics that could be appropriate and educational. Off the top of my head I can think of several. Whaling, climate change, birth control, etc.

[patrice]

29. I think it is good to try to understand those whom one disagrees with, but I also think the assignme

nt is incomplete without a reciprocal: Argue that Jews are good.

I would also include the word "inherently" in both propositions, because that is specifically what the Nazis were saying.

There are students for whom this could be an inappropriate assignment, so I would hope to have access to the kinds of assessment information that might reveal the cognitive development of each student towards authentic abilities to independently engage in semantic conceptualization derived from facts. Based on the last research I saw about how severely skewed toward the less developed "concrete" types of Piaget -ian cognitive skills most Americans are (that is, the types of reasoning that are the opposite of independent conceptualization), my guess is that I'd see some pretty broad deficits in that regard and, because inappropriate developmental stress can be damaging, this assignment would probably have very limited uses.

[cali]

32. why on earth pick an ethnic group for an assignment like this?

how about choosing climate change, or ask them to argue that free speech is bad. It's insane to do this. Can you imagine being a Jewish kid in this class and having to do this assignment?

Infuckingsane.

[patrice]

33. That is another of my critiques. I was wondering how well it would work to make it a mythical people

but the answer to that question has to do with the context for the assignment.

If it's a specific historical context, I'd consider retaining the specific historical facts.

A different curricular context could justify the Mythical People, evil? and good?, and then the data would consist of all such atrocities throughout man's inhumanity to man.

I do have to admit, though, that I would have a particular leaning BECAUSE the descriptor is a certain specific and historical use of the word "EVIL", which is different from, say, for example, "Inferior", re African Americans, or "Dangerous", re Islam, or "Inconvenient", re American Indians, that I would be inclined to get some students to investigate their thoughts about that particular word and compare them to the facts.

[patrice]

35. Another aspect of this that I don't see here is the specific rubric that is used for evaluation. nt

[riqster]

31. When I was in college, we had to deconstruct propaganda in a Symbolic Logic class

We used Tabloid articles, political speeches of all types, but the prof told everyone that if a particular topic was abhorrent to them, they should just find another one.

We got the critical thinking and analytical skills (along with the math), and nobody had to deal with this type of crap.

The instructor referenced in the OP is either a lazy teacher, or one with a perverse agenda.

[Behind the Aegis]

36. This was a no-brainer (the assignment and the teacher).

Everyone knows, "the Greeks hate the Turks; the Japanese hate the Chinese; the Russians hate the Poles, and everyone hates the Jews!" So, not much of a challenge in the assignment. Ok, twisted Jewish humor aside, this was a poorly thought out assignment. Had the teacher wanted to teach rhetoric, then a better assignment, which might have had a side lesson of compassion, would have been to instruct his students to write to President Roosevelt and explain why his immigration policies needed to be reversed in order to save (Jewish) lives, as well as his wishes to not intervene in WWII. It is good to put oneself in the "other" position, but an assignment like this is offensive and the lesson gets lost in the nature of what is being asked.

Others above have already explained there are a plethora of topics from which to chose "pro/con" sides without delving into bigotry. If he wanted to challenge them, then ask who was for/against marriage equality, then have them right from their opposite stance, but even that might be a little "iffy" too.

[BlueCheese]

37. I can see a non-terrible reason for the assignment...

... but there were other, less provocative ways of doing the same thing.

Studying propaganda and how it can be used maliciously can be a valuable thing. But they probably should have used a much less hot button issue-- maybe yellow journalism and the Spanish American war, or something farther in the past.

I remember our government teacher split us into teams to argue different sides of historic Supreme Court cases, with others playing the role of justices. Some students had to defend the government's internment of Japanese Americans in World War II. Unsurprisingly, they lost.

[patrice]

38. You can raise your kids in a hothouse, or you can try to teach them how to think for themselves.

Learning has much more to do with error than it does with being correct.

If we can trust the truth to be true, you need instructors who are up to the task of helping our children discover those truths for themselves so that they, the truths, thus become their, the children's, own, not just something that we grafted onto them by various means of reward and/or punishment.

[cali]

39. huh? sorry that seems like so much word salad

are you arguing that this assignment was valid?

Your last sentence/paragraph makes no logical sense at all as well as being a grammatical nightmare.

[wickerwoman]

44. Except this assignment asks students to put themselves in the role of non-thinkers.

That doesn't really teach them to think for themselves (except for the 30% who refused to do it).

There are any number of ways that the same task could have been accomplished depending on what was being taught.

Put yourself in someone else's shoes - write about how you would feel if you were Jewish and saw this propoganda
Argue for something you don't believe in - write about how green eyed or short kids or Wombles are superior to other kids
Critical thinking - write about how xyz propoganda film manipulates it's audience into supporting it's point of view

Those assignments teach empathy, argumentation and critique. "Pretend you're a Nazi" just pisses people off for no good reason.

[Rex]

41. Not smart.

Stupid idea. End of story. What you do is make up something FICTIONAL and have at it. Using real events, from a time in our history that was one of the lowest points in humanity is a non-starter.

I am surprised an English teacher used non-fiction for such a charged subject. Replace the subject with slavery or Indian reservations and I think most get my point.

[Progressive dog]

42. There is no excuse for this

There is no reason to require a persuasive argument for a position that does not belong in a free democratic society. This is immoral.

[cali]

43. It's also grotesquely insensitive. Can you imagine being a Jewish kid

in this class? Yech.

As others have noted, good for the 1/3 of the class that boycotted the assignment.

[sakabatou]

45. ...

[smirkymonkey]

48. WTF? When I was in High School I wrote a paper on the injustice of German anti-Semitism

(a subject I chose by myself, and no, I am not Jewish) and the righteousness of Albert Speer's attempt to murder Hitler in the bunker. I wasn't an expert on the subject by any means, but I knew what happened was horribly wrong even as a high-school student. I got an "A" on the paper.

[cali]

52. I agree with you but I just want to point out that Speer

was not involved in a plot to kill Hitler.. He claimed later that he was but no historian buys it. There is nothing but his claim that he was. His name was on a list drawn up by the conspirators with a question mark and the annotation "to be won over", and given what we do know about Speer, it's very unlikely that he was involved at all and that his claim was self-serving.

[smirkymonkey]

53. Hmm. Disappointing. I wanted to believe that he was a hero, but

I guess the books were wrong. This was not the best high school library in the world.

[JI7]

50. no excuse, "argue blacks should still be slaves" "argue why women shouldn't be property of men"

etc.

there is no excuse for it. i can't believe some thing there is anything educational about this.

[sarisataka]

51. One third of the students

deserve an A

Even discounting the insane bigotry and lack of sensitivity (would an assignment arguing blacks should again be slaves or Muslims should all be incarcerated or deported have ever been considered) it is not a persuasive argument assignment.

All this assignment does is have students regurgitate hateful propaganda in their own words. A persuasive argument attempts to change the mind of the reader. The format is to verify the writer's beliefs are in sync with the target audience. The writer's mind is being changed.

Just once I want to see an administrator say "Sorry, our teacher was a dumbass"