Albany Teacher Who Assigned “Jews Are Evil” Essay Placed on Leave

[cali]

A high school English teacher has been placed on leave following widespread outrage over a persuasive writing assignment in which she asked students to pretend they needed to convince a fictitious Nazi official that “Jews are evil.” District Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard had already apologized for the assignment during a news conference Friday, reports the Associated Press. The local Times Union was the first to break the story and reported Saturday that the teacher, who has not been identified, was not in class Friday. The district is now mulling what type of disciplinary action to take, with the superintendent saying it could range from a letter of reprimand to termination.

In preparation for the reading of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, the teacher assigned three sophomore English classes the writing assignment: "You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!" One of the classes refused to finish the assignment. "I was putting it off because I didn't want to think about it and I didn't want to say anything bad about Jewish people," one 16-year-old student said. "We thought it would make more sense if we were Jews arguing against Nazis."


<snip>

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/04/14/albany_teacher_who_assigned_nazi_essay_put_on_leave.html

How about students being assigned to convince their teacher that men should be able to rape their wives. How about penning an essay arguing that blacks should be slaves or that all Muslims should be deported. Hey, believe that shit too.

On sheer stupidity and insensitivity this teacher deserves a suspension.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Good.

I was really surprised to read here that some DU folk seemed not to get what was wrong with the assignment.

[cali]

3. yeah, that was creepy.

the more I think about this, the less willing I am to believe the teacher was innocently trying to teach the kids about propaganda. The teacher actually instructed the students to use their own experience as well as Nazi propaganda in writing their essay on how Jews are evil. Their own experience? With what? Jews? And that should add to the body of "evidence"? And this was for 15 and 16 year olds in preparation for reading Weisel's Night? Yikes.

[dsc]

10. do you have a link for using their own experience

for me that makes a big difference. I am on the fence about the assignment without that but am adamantly against if it has that.

[cali]

14. yes. here.

<snip>

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."

<snip>

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

Those comments within the quotation marks are indeed from the assignment.

So without that you think it would be a valid assignment?

[dsc]

22. I think it might be

For a mature enough class and a class which is teaching rhetoric I am not sure why this would be such a horrible assignment. If I don't understand the argument that anti gay fanatics rely on how then can I refute them? I would think the same applies here. Given the age of the students and the fact this was apparently her first time assigning something that made the kids argue against something they all believe, it was likely not a good assignment. Add in the personal experience and it definately wasn't.

[Buzz Clik]

2. Hysteria -1, Rhetorical thinking - 0

[cali]

4. baloney.

There are thousands of exercises that can teach rhetoric without resorting to asking students to draw from propaganda and their own experience and write about how evil Jews are. And there are sure as shit better ways to prepare for reading Weisel's Night.

[Buzz Clik]

5. Yep. And, you can believe that in future ...

... only politically correct exercises will be chosen.

This is absolutely no different than fundies objecting to the instruction of evolution in the classroom. No different. You won't see it.

By the way -- have you ever seen the movie "Donnie Darko"? Watch it. You might get a small glimmer of what I'm trying to say.

You get the last word.

[cali]

6. this isn't about political correctness. It's about a crazy and ultimately pointless assignment

And it's about insensitivity and hate and the, er, people that defend it.

That you compare this to the fundies objecting to evolution demonstrates that you have not a scrap of critical thinking or rhetorical skills. yikers.

Let's examine: Evolution is a scientific theory. Hopefully, you grasp the basics and understand what a theory is in the context of science.

"Jews are evil and the source of all of our problems"? Nope not a scientific theory, genius.

So, teaching science vs asking kids to write about how evil jews are in preparation to read a survivor's account of Auschwitz.

If the point was to teach kids that propaganda can be dangerous and very bad indeed, this was a deeply flawed approach.

[Buzz Clik]

8. Watch Donnie Darko.

This is 100% about political correctness and anti-intellectual endeavors.

Progressive indeed.

[cali]

12. I've watched it. and sorry, I don't mean to be an intellectual snob here

but you don't even understand the difference between teaching evolution and the assignment in question.

[Buzz Clik]

18. No, in contrast, your reaction to my simile emphasizes your inability to interpolate.

My point stands. You are taking a literalist's entrenched position based on a wrongly directed feeling of sensitivity where sensitivity is not needed. The assignment was an intellectual, rhetorical exercise, not a literal one. This should be obvious, but your vision is clouded.

So, tell me, dear: which characters in Donnie Darko are relevant to this conversation?

[cali]

20. lol seriously? sorry, I can't get beyond your lack of basic knowledge.

comparing this assignment to teaching evolution is just mind bogglingly, er, lame.

[Buzz Clik]

21. Again, your inability to see the comparison is EXACTLY why you reacted to the assignment as you did.

This conversation has nowhere to go ... except maybe you being honest about the movie. I won't hold my breath.

[cali]

23. gad. you really don't get that this is nothing like evolution or science, do you?

Let me try a different tact with you:

Imagine you're a Jewish kid who's grandparents were murdered in a concentration camp and you're being asked to do this assignment. On that level alone, it's unconscionable. Or imagine you're a black kid being asked to write an editorial about blacks and why they are suited for slavery, in the Charleston SC newspaper in 1855. Or a Muslim kid being told to write an essay about how Islam is rooted in terrorism.

[Buzz Clik]

24. Do you really think I'm going to say, "Oh, wow. I didn't think of that."?

From my perspective, all of those are excellent choices.

This is not about brain washing or convincing an audience, it's about exploring concepts and ideas and stepping past the edge of your comfort zone.

I might as well be talking to the potted plants, but that's the reality of rhetorical exploration. It's been that way for a long, long time.

[cali]

25. sick shit.

[cali]

26. there are so many ways to explore concepts and specifically the dangers

of propaganda without resorting to asking kids to play Nazi or slave owner or hateful anything else.

Signed,

A potted plant with a far higher IQ than than you.

[Moonwalk]

27. Watch Donnie Darko? I'm sorry, what does a fictional movie have to do with this?

You do understand that in a fiction the writer can create characters who act the way the writer wants them to act--and say what the writer wants them to say, and conclude anything the writer wants them to conclude. Recently, Mamet (who is severely right wing and chauvinistic) wrote up the "Phil Spector" story where he ignored all factual evidence to the man's guilt, insisted Spector was innocent and that conspiracies on the part of liberals and women put him in jail. This was a fiction. Not a documentary presenting fact. And the writer wrote it up the way he wanted the story to go, with characters saying and acting as he wanted them to say and act to get his bias view across.

So what does Donnie Darko, however wonderful a movie, prove given that it is a fiction and not a documentary? That it is the writer's bias view point and all the characters are imaginary and there to support that bias view point? It proves nothing except that this fiction agrees with your point of view and so you're pushing is a "proving" your point of view. But it doesn't prove anything. Any more than reading the Bible proves that fundies are right about creationism.

Give us a a documentary--facts--that support your argument. Fiction is inspiring and wonderful--but it's fiction. You wouldn't present "The Merchant of Venice" to prove that Jews are evil, would you? However great a play it is.

[Buzz Clik]

29. Question

Have YOU seen the movie? cali clearly has not.

Just a yes or no will be good enough.

[Moonwalk]

30. Yes. And I ask you again, how does this prove your point? However great a movie it is...

--fictional doesn't count. The characters act/do and say what the writers wanted them to act/do/say. That's hardly good enough to prove that THIS situation is hysteria and heading down a slippery slope to political correctness. You might as well be pointing to Earthquakes and telling us to read Revelations to figure out why they're happening and what's going to happen next.

And by the way, I know Jake Gyllenhaal was hot and sympathetic in that eccentric/rebellious/gothy sort of way all the best outcasts have--I can see how you fell for him (how not?); and I understand why you'd feel passionate about a movie all cool and weird and full of intelligent themes about time, fate, patterns, people's perceptions of reality, etc. But I'm a sci-fi writer and I've been reading parallel universe stories for a very long time...It didn't blow me away. So please stop trying to convert me to your Donnie Darko religion. I'm not interested.

Let me now ask YOU this question--and remember, I answered yours, so quid-pro-quo. Can you or can't you offer any FACT--and not another single word about this work of fiction that you're so obsessed with--in order to prove that the concerns of these REAL LIFE parents and students are all hysteria rather than valid? I mean, you can't expect everyone reading this to see this movie just to understand why you think you're right. Can't you offer anything of a factual nature to prove your point to people who haven't seen the movie?

People shouldn't have to see your favorite movie just to understand why you're so sure these people are hysterical rather than justified in their concerns.

[Buzz Clik]

32. For you, it's irrelevant. Not for me.

I'm beginning to doubt your commitment to sparkle motion.

[onenote]

7. The teacher's assignment doesn't bother me as much as it bothers some

and maybe not as much as it should bother me.

My explanation: 40+ years ago when I was in high school I was in an advanced placement government class taught by a very conservative former military guy. He gave us a writing assignment in which some of us were required to write a speech as if we were a Communist revolutionary while others had to write from the perspective of the other side. (I can't remember if we were specifically writing in the context of Vietnam or the Chinese Cultural Revolution.) I was assigned the "Communist" perspective and my teacher, despite his political leanings, was so impressed with my work that he gave me an "A" (although he half-jokingly suggested he considered marking me down to an A-minus because my speech was "too persuasive&quot . He was a very conservative, anti-communist guy, but when he retired at the end of that school year, he gave me his personal copy of the Constitution, which 40 years later sits on my desk at work.

As a Jew, I fully realize and appreciate the fact that the Holocaust is a uniquely sensitive subject. At the same time, however, I think considering how the advocates of particular ideas or policies, both good and bad, can try to justify them and persuade others to agree, is a vitally important thing to do. And this particular assignment did not seem like an out of bounds way of doing that.

[cali]

9. that's an interesting assignment. I note that the assignment divided the class up

as well as that it was an AP history class.

This was an English class for 10th grade students preparing to read Elie Weisel's Night. How does assigning the classes to convince the teacher (as Nazi official) even connect to that?

My problem here is simple: Students should not ever be asked, in the name of anything, to malign a gender or religious or ethnic group. And the reasons are so obvious. There are no two sides to this. It's not like you can find a rational non-racist, not rooted in hate argument to use. And there are so many ways and examples that are better. Like the one you were assigned.

[Yo_Mama]

13. I would have refused to do it

I might instead have written a play or a dialogue in which a fictitious person was faced with the same dilemma.

What is specifically wrong with this assignment (as reported, and perhaps the reporting is inaccurate) is that the teacher mandated that the students must write from their own perspective, thus seeming to endorse views which I certainly hope that they did not hold. The assignment would have been okay if the teacher had asked the students to write from a theoretical person's perspective.

It is a basic feature of the First Amendment as explicated by the Supreme Court that the government may not force anyone into advocacy speech. This is a public school and thus constrained by the First Amendment. It does not make me happy that a history teacher doesn't know this, and it does not make me happy that the newspaper reporting doesn't seem to pick up this issue.

I think what the teacher wanted to accomplish with this assignment was to convey the reality that once the Nazis had taken over, many people were forced into repeating theories that they themselves did not believe. This was not, however, an appropriate or legal way to accomplish that goal.

No student can study history without running into a lot of offensive ideas. But in our society, a student may have to learn about those offensive ideas, but a student should never be forced in any way to be a mouthpiece for those offensive ideas.

There is a huge difference between asking a student to write about the claims that a theoretical slaveowner might make to justify slaveholding and asking a student to write an essay in which the student defended their own possession of slaves, for example.

[TreasonousBastard]

15. That the Holocaust was unique is why...

it's not the best subject for an exercise in rhetoric or debate.

Even assuming the teacher had the good intention of opening the kids' minds to the power of propaganda, some subjects are simply too toxic to open to debate even as an exercise.

And in high school? One can argue that is the time to open their minds, and that no damage is done if everyone goes along with the game and doesn't take those arguments seriously, but would it really end so well? How many kids would take away that there really is credence for those arguments?

Why not have an entire course examining why the Irish were useless and should have been starved by England, the Turks should have finished the job with the Armenians and other Christian minorities, the natives the Spanish found were brutal and largely useless and should have been wiped out, Africans were backwards and had better lives as slaves...

These are false arguments that have been made seriously and one could argue that exposing them as false is a good thing, but it seems all it does is inflame emotions when anyone, even as a rhetorical exercise, brings them up.

[cali]

16. Although I don't agree that the Holocaust was unique I agree that these are false argments

[Iggo]

11. Any teacher so stupid as to not know this was a colossally bad idea...

...needs to reconsider his/her career choice.

[duffyduff]

17. The teacher is a total idiot for coming up with a stunt like that.

There are other ways to teach the same concept of trying to put oneself in another person's shoes and try to argue or present that other person's viewpoint.

[Posteritatis]

19. I get what the teacher was trying to do but wow did they ever botch the implementation. (nt)

[leveymg]

28. Had a similar assignment in college in which I had to convince the class that a dictator was needed

to solve the country's problems.

By the end, I had more than half of them agreeing with my argument and ready to "vote" in favor of suspending the Constitution. That bothered me, even though it was just a debating club-type exercise. I even kinda spooked myself.

I don't think the teacher should be disciplined, provided she clearly explained to her students that this was merely a Maslow-style teaching exercise in how people can be convinced to do just about anything to serve state authority and protect their own self-interests under a dictatorship. Her biggest mistake was not informing her Dept, Chair and parents beforehand about what she was doing.

[Raine]

31. Any teacher who didn't know this was trouble is too ignorant to teach. Why didn't she use an

update of Jane Elliot's "Blue eyes/ brown eyes" experiment from the late 1960's. This would've demonstrated how hate against any group can be manufactured for any stupid assine reason.

[Behind the Aegis]

34. I used that experiment frequently when teaching diversity.

I always picked something really strange...no shoelaces/shoelaces; visible tattoos/none visible; sometimes something as 'stupid' as the letter in his/her first name being an odd or even number. The point was to pick something that was so over the top, because it helped some see how almost anything could be used against/for someone. The teacher in this article is a dipshit. How about writing a letter to Roosevelt to change his immigration policy?

[Nye Bevan]

33. Good. Either she is an anti-Semite or she is extremely stupid.

In either case she should be fired.

[Buzz Clik]

35. She's neither. She's an educator.

The people complaining of that on this thread are either poorly educated, completely brainwashed, or totally devoid of the concept of rhetoric.

It's not hard to understand, but you have to get past the initial emotional reaction. That's where the thinking comes in, and that's what good teachers do: they teach kids to think. What a concept.

[cali]

36. lol so regurgitation of Nazi propaganda is thinking? you're so cute with your

that was the assignment. No one was required to dispute the propaganda which actually would require a modicum of thinking.

Oh yeah, and that brilliant educator asked students to use their personal experience as well as Nazi propaganda in formulation their "Jews are evil" essay.

[Buzz Clik]

38. Hm. Your misguided comment was critical you had to make it in two threads.

Wow.

[cali]

40. How is it misguided?

Look, in all seriousness, this could have been an excellent assignment.

Here's an essay question that really would have required thinking:

Write an essay describing how Nazi propaganda was used against Jews in the 1930s in Germany. How did this serve the Nazi regime?
Use examples of Nazi propaganda in your essay.

[LanternWaste]

37. A rather simplistic perception of those who may disagree

"The people complaining of that on this thread are either poorly educated, completely brainwashed, or totally devoid of the concept of rhetoric...


A rather simplistic perception of those who may disagree; yet I do realize it is simultaneously both convenient and allows for self-validation.

[Buzz Clik]

39. I was trying to keep in the spirit of your original post -- simplistic seemed appropriate.

[cali]

42. The OP is simply an article describing what, when, where and who

it's called journalism.

[Buzz Clik]

46. Damn, cali. Not every post is directed to you.

I was talking to Lantern Waste about HIS original post.

You and I are done here.

[geek tragedy]

45. Tell us, what "solid rationale" exists

for the proposition that "Jews are evil?"

If there are none, the students would have to turn in a blank sheet of paper, no?

The assignment explicitly assumes that "Jews are evil" is a valid viewpoint supported by "solid rationale."

[treestar]

41. Another flaw - why would a Nazi officer need convincing?

The student thought of a better way - have them write trying to persuade Germans in the Reich that they should not think Jews are any less human than they are.

[cali]

43. because "your life depends on it" The students were supposed to be

in the position of ordinary Germans trying to convince a Nazi official that they were loyal to the Reich- though of course, that in itself isn't historically accurate.

[geek tragedy]

44. The fallacy of this assignment (and those who defend it)

is that there is a logical case to support bigotry and genocide. The teacher required "solid rationale."

There is none. Ergo, the teacher is explicitly asking students to assume that anti-semitism has logical and factual underpinnings.

In order to complete the assignment, students need to not only purge their consciousness of any human decency, but of logic and reason.

Only by appealing to the ignorant and evil sides of human nature could such an assignment be completed, and there is nothing to be gained by teaching students to do so.