This is a joke, right?

Okie Boarder · Ladies Man Joined: 03 Mar 2008 Posts: 10056 City: Edmond

No way this really happened, right?

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/12/students-asked-to-argue-that-jews-are-evil-and-prove-nazi-loyalty-in-assignment-linked-to-common-core/

nmballa · Posted: Apr 13, 2013 8:51 am Post subject:

Honestly it doesn't sound that bad to me. I have had creative writing classes that have asked me to take a controversial subject and try to address it from the villans side. I think I had to write one from the perspective of a mass murder and try to rationalize my actions. Its a pretty neat exercise.

Okie Boarder · Ladies Man Joined: 03 Mar 2008 Posts: 10056 City: Edmond

This seems to me like it may be crossing a bit of a line, asking someone to demonize a particular religion. If we replaced the Jew with Muslim, would everyone be just as quiet?

nmballa · Posted: Apr 13, 2013 3:52 pm Post subject:

My assumption is that the teacher try to evoke some creativity and spark critical thought. Its either the work of a brilliant teacher or an anti-semite.

goofyboy · Posted: Apr 15, 2013 3:45 am Post subject:

High school - this is just a bad idea. I don't see how this doesn't come off as anything but hateful and offensive in a high school setting.

If this were a upper level college creative writing type class in the History department, I could see it working. Forcing the student to look at history through another perspective is a good activity. But, this is a subject that requires a certain level of maturity to take on this activity.

tonality · Soul Rider Joined: 20 Aug 2004 Posts: 435 City: DFW

Isn't maturity reached through (sometimes guided) experience? It seems like it's a better idea to use an example with a pretty much universal consensus on which side was wrong (the Holocaust) to accomplish the desired 'training' vs something a bit fuzzier/current that might spark actual debate and get less mature kids off topic easier.

That being said, I might personally experiment with taking it even further down that route and have them write on something blatantly, scientifically wrong...argue that the sky is green or some such.

nmballa · Posted: Apr 16, 2013 1:24 pm Post subject:

goofyboy · Posted: Apr 17, 2013 3:11 am Post subject:

Yes, maturity is reached through guided experience. However, what you choose to use to teach during that guided experience also matters. There had to be other examples that this class could have used that would have been more on a high school level.