Books on Holocaust should be balanced with 'opposing' views, school leader tells teachers

[AZLD4Candidate]

Source: NBC News

A top administrator with the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake advised teachers last week that if they have a book about the Holocaust in their classroom, they should also offer students access to a book from an “opposing” perspective, according to an audio recording obtained by NBC News.

Gina Peddy, the Carroll school district’s executive director of curriculum and instruction, made the comment Friday afternoon during a training session on which books teachers can have in classroom libraries. The training came four days after the Carroll school board, responding to a parent’s complaint, voted to reprimand a fourth grade teacher who had kept an anti-racism book in her classroom.

For more on this story, watch NBC’s “Nightly News with Lester Holt” tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT.

A Carroll staff member secretly recorded the Friday training and shared the audio with NBC News.

“Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979,” Peddy said in the recording, referring to a new Texas law that requires teachers to present multiple perspectives when discussing “widely debated and currently controversial” issues. “And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust,” Peddy continued, “that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives.”

“How do you oppose the Holocaust?” one teacher said in response.

“Believe me,” Peddy said. “That’s come up.”

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/books-on-holocaust-should-be-balanced-with-opposing-views-school-leader-tells-teachers/ar-AAPwUib

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I have no words over this. Now we're supposed to have Holocaust deniers and the Neo-Nazi viewpoint in classroom? What has happened to my country?

And of course, it's Texas.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. And presumably they'll have books that seriously propose a flat earth,

and a 6,000 year old cosmos.

Dear lord, the ignorance is not only appalling, it's dangerous.

[peppertree]

2. Houston - we've got Nazis.

[SouthernDem4ever]

3. WTF? Who dug these people up?

This is like a twilight zone episode.

[UnderThisLaw]

4. What about 9/11?

Do students need access to books that have a different perspective on terrorism?

[turbinetree]

5. Hey Gina, what can say to the parents if they are still alive of the young men and woman

that died during WWII, how many Texans in your state died storming the beaches of Anzio, Dieppe, Normandy or while flying in aircraft over the occupied land, or the ships sunk by fascists' - Nazis.....can you answer that question.....or did you fail history...
I could go one better and ask if you know who Quannah Parker is.... but I think that might test your abilities to some degree.....because after all its Native American month do you know that history.....

[Grokenstein]

6. From the folks who brought you "teach the controversy" a decade ago...

https://proto-knowledge.blogspot.com/2012/03/arguments-against-teaching-controversy.html

[catsudon]

7. this is the reason

why parents should also have a say in what they teach in school

[Joinfortmill]

8. There is no opposing view. There are facts, terrible facts.

[dlk]

9. Facts or the "opposing view"?

Republicans are working overtime to break democracy.

[TomSlick]

11. I suggest an alternative history of the American revolution

from the perspective of British loyalist. Of course, such a history would make it clear that the leaders of the revolution were traitors acting contrary to the will of the majority of colonists.

[ratchiweenie]

12. It really is Idiocracy come true. Where do they dig these morons up?

[BlueIdaho]

13. I'm betting this fascist

Has a human skin lampshade in her house.

[CRK7376]

14. Not in my History classroom!

I have a large collection of Holocaust books in my classroom that will not be removed until I retire in the summer of 2023 or am fired. This nonsense has yet to hit my school in NC, but I could easily see it happening.

[Sapient Donkey]

15. Maybe I am being naive or giving too my much benefit of the doubt

but when I heard the audio I thought she was trying to make a point about why the "teach both sides" argument is a problem when blindly followed. Of course, I don't know this lady, so maybe the less charitable interpretation is what she was going for.

[keithbvadu2]

16. Eisenhower wanted the Holocaust and death camps thoroughly documented because he knew there would

Eisenhower wanted the Holocaust and death camps thoroughly documented because he knew there would be these evil scum who would try to deny it.

Yet Trump has his 6MWE and Camp Auschwitz followers. That's anti-denial in his own camp. (6 Million Wasn't Enough)

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=6mwe

[myohmy2]

17. Hitler...

...would have been proud...

...Sieg Heil...

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

18. The Bible should be balanced with opposing views.

Buddism comes to mind. Or radical veganism.

[Progressive Jones]

21. I demand that all religious texts be marked "FICTION" in large, bright letters. nt

[twodogsbarking]

19. Same approach as January 6.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

20. The administrator clearly cares more about power...

... and influence than truth, as many Republicans have demonstrated for decades.

Knowledge is rewarding in itself to many people, but not for someone whose overwhelming motives are power.

Then a common transition, for those types of power-hungry people (who often assume that everyone else shares their motives), is to replace evidence-based knowledge with lies.

[3Hotdogs]

22. The Fairness Doctrine makes sense. And if you are going to talk about Columbus and Earth being round

I am president of the Essex County Flat Earth Society. I am available to speak at your school's assembly program to explain how we know Earth is flat.

My speaking fee is $600 + airfare (if its out of N.J.) and lodging. School needs to provide a ping-pong table. I will provide a large beach ball and a Hasbro toy car. I will need an air pump since it is difficult to get an air pump past airport security.

When I finish, your students will learn how George Soros polluted the minds of citizens to convince them the world is round, when we all know it isn't.


Yours in Truth.
3H

[jmowreader]

25. Make sure they schedule it as a debate

In the flat earth corner is you…and the opposing corner will be Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who is (1) an ISS veteran preparing to fly another mission next year, (2) extremely smart and (3) cute as hell. If you can’t get her, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield will work as well.

[P-Nutt]

23. I Can See The Need

For some historical events to be taught from opposing perspectives, such as the entire "Columbus discovered America" narrative along with a thorough examination of "Slavery" in the early years of our nation. But to teach a Nazi perspective of the Holocaust seems like a bridge too far. I do agree that most major historical events had devout believers on both sides, however teaching the evil side of them does not seem to be a proper method of education. Just my 2 cents.

[bullwinkle428]

24. They call themselves "Holocaust skeptics" these days, because even they have

the self-awareness to realize that "Holocaust denier" doesn't get them a seat at the GQP table (for the moment).

[Harker]

26. What's the "opposing view"?

That slaughtering millions of people was a really good thing, or that it didn't happen?

I met a guy in the 80s who told me there was no way that the Nazis killed six million Jews. He shut up and left after I asked him that if the numbers had been vastly inflated, and that "only" one million were brutally murdered, would that be okay?

Holocaust deniers have as much credibility as flat-Earthers.

[AZLD4Candidate]

29. The Japanese do the same thing with the Rape of Nanking.

[Harker]

32. I still recall watching the BBC series "The World at War", in which

a former Japanese soldier recounts his glowing memories of "comfort girls" as though forced servitude and mass rape were the most natural things in the world.

Nauseating.

[CTyankee]

30. Have you seen the film "Judgment at Nuremberg"?

After presiding over the Nuremberg War Crimes as a judge, he says that "it seems that no one knew what was happening&quot when he talks with individual Germans ("we didn't know!&quot .

Watch that movie! It says a LOT.

[Harker]

31. I first saw it as a young lad, and a couple times as an adult.

You're right... it does say a lot, and does it very well.

[CTyankee]

33. Everyone in that film was excellent. The commentary after the film was shown was intelligent and

fascinating. I think it was Spencer Tracy's next to last film. And Montgomery Clift who was dying from alcoholism. Marlene Dietrich was superb as well.

[Harker]

34. Yes... Maximilian Schell... Judy Garland...

and gun control advocate Richard Widmark. All good.

Burt Lancaster is in a bunch of my favorite films, but his borderline wooden style was perfect in his characterization here, too.

[Betty W.]

41. Spencer Tracy's Three Films after "Judgment at Nuremberg"

Close, but Spencer Tracy made two films in between "Judgment at Nuremberg" and his last film, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.," (1967). Those were "How the West Was Won," (1962) and "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World," (1963). The last scene in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" when Matt Drayton (Spencer Tracy) gives a soliloquy about his daughter and future son-in-law's future, Katherine Hepburn as Christina Drayton, Matt's wife, is in tears. Matt Drayton's speech was certainly emotional but Katherine Hepburn's tears were real as she knew Spencer Tracy was very sick at this point and would probably die soon. In fact, Spencer Tracy died on June 10, 1967, about three weeks after filming was completed of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." His performance as well as the other cast members performances in "Judgment at Nuremberg" was stellar with very sensitive material in 1961. But Maximilian Schell's performance as Defense Council, Hans Rolfe for the accused Nazis accused of war crimes was mesmerizing and haunted me for years. He certainly earned his Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar at the 1962 Academy Awards. He had pretty stiff competition that year. Paul Newman for "The Hustler," Stuart Whitman for "The Mark," Charles Boyer for"Fanny" and Spencer Tracy for "Judgment at Nuremberg." But Maximilian Schell won out and rightly so!! One of the earliest and best films about the Holocaust, imho. It should be shown in every high school in America. And to ignorant adults as well.

[Mosby]

27. Apology

Link to tweet

[AZLD4Candidate]

28. Non-apology apology. So many buzzwords and platitudes. So little space.

Last edited Tue Oct 19, 2021, 03:18 PM - Edit history (1)

Let's see Gen. Dyer's side of the Amritsar Massacre. Col. Chivington's side of the Sand Creek Massacre. The Turk's side of the Armenian Genocide. Pol Pot's side of the Cambodian Genocide.

Hell, King Leopold was justified for what he ordered done to the Congolese. And let's also teach Stalin's side of Holomodor and the Japanese side of the Rape of Nanking.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

35. I think David Irving summed up Peddy's attitude:

"Ridicule alone isn't enough, you've got to be tasteless about it. You've got to say things like 'More women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.' Now you think that's tasteless, what about this? I'm forming an association especially dedicated to all these liars, the ones who try and kid people that they were in these concentration camps, it's called the Auschwitz Survivors, Survivors of the Holocaust and Other Liars, 'ASSHOLs'. Can't get more tasteless than that, but you've got to be tasteless because these people deserve our contempt."

It's been 30 years. You'd think that would have been long enough for everyone thinking Irving had a hint of truth in him to have learned better.

[Betty W.]

36. Totally Part of the Holocaust Denial Efforts

Texas...of course. No critical race theory here, never ever. But by all means, if you teach anything about the Holocaust make sure to teach opposing views in support of the Holocaust to not portray only one side of murderous psycho Nazis who committed one of the worst mass genocides in history.

[marble falls]

38. Welcome! you arrived at the right place!!!

[Initech]

37. This is the only acceptable thing to be done with Nazis!

[Joinfortmill]

42. What opposing view, Nazism?? Makes me want to weep. "Never Again".

[artemisia1]

43. Provided that a discussion of arithmetic, thermodynamics, etc. allows for alternate views... /nt

[electric_blue68]

44. Oh, ffs! I think NOT! No dancing the street for u Nazi Scum!

[TexasBushwhacker]

45. And books about smart people

should be balanced with books about STUPID PEOPLE!

[Skittles]

46. and we are told we need to "understand" these people

NO WE FUCKING DON'T, we ALREADY understand them