(Jewish group)--High School Teacher Gave His Students An Assignment To Defend The Holocaust

[Mosby]

New York high school teacher gave an assignment to students asking them to take on the role of a Nazi official arguing either for or against the genocide of the Jews. The alarming assignment was quickly met with pushback from students and the community.

The Oswego County high school teacher, identified as Michael DeNobile, gave his students an assignment in his Principles of Literary Interpretation class stamped "Top Secret" in red, asking his students to imagine that they were among the Nazi officials at the 1942 Wannsee Conference and argue for or against the "Final Solution" to exterminate the Jews, even though there is no record of Nazis who attended the conference objecting to the Final Solution.

"This is an exercise on expanding your point of view by going outside your comfort zone and training your brain to logistically find the evidence necessary to prove a point, even if it is existentially and philosophically against what you believe," the assignment stated.

Two students were appalled at the assignment and were perturbed that a student expressed enthusiasm at arguing in favor of the Nazis slaughtering the Jews. The students, who weren't Jewish, asked for an apology from DeNobile and for the school to ban the assignment.

Initially, New York Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia defended the assignment on the grounds that it was necessary to understand both points of view, but later backtracked and banned the assignment after doing "my homework to determine the facts in this situation."

http://www.dailywire.com/news/15113/high-school-teacher-gave-his-students-assignment-aaron-bandler#

[Javaman]

1. students need this thought exercise. It helps develop critical thinking skills...

also, more over, if we refuse to discuss the holocaust, it will be forgotten.

[Mosby]

3. How does sympathizing with Nazis develop critical thinking skills?

It doesn't, in fact it does the opposite.

What if the teacher had an assignment that asked the students to defend Jeffrey Dahmer's behavior? Would they develop a better understanding of psychopathy? No. Would humanizing him help to understand why torturing, killing and dismembering kids is somehow understandable? No. You get the point I hope, at the most basic level the Nazis were sick criminals, study them fine, but pretending that there were ANY justifications for their criminal behavior just normalizes their behavior and, more importantly, makes an implicit assumption that the behavior was RATIONAL in some ways when it clearly wasn't. Criminals are not logical, just the opposite.

[Javaman]

7. my family is half jewish.

more over, I have had relatives that died and survived the holocaust.

[Mosby]

9. I'm not accusing you of anything

I just disagree with your assertions.

[Javaman]

10. yeah, you did, "How does sympathizing with Nazis develop critical thinking skills?"

please don't respond to me again.

I'm asking nicely.

[grossproffit]

5. Uh huh. Like defending pedophiles. You know, they just love children too much.

[Javaman]

8. please see my comment above. nt

[nycbos]

2. Jesus how horrific.

[grossproffit]

4. Outrageous. I could swear that a similar assignment happened last year as well.

Remember this one?

CALIFORNIA SCHOOL ASKS 8TH GRADERS TO DEBATE WHETHER THE HOLOCAUST HAPPENED

https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/221649923?access_key=key-l86u43u2u7oswxu5l7t&allow_share=true&escape=false&view_mode=scroll

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/171856/california-school-holocaust-denial

[Mosby]

6. Yeah, I looked for that, couldn't find it

8th graders being told that "some people" think the Holocaust was not an actual event and that there are "credible" sources that say so. Again, the opposite of developing critical thinking skills.

[MosheFeingold]

11. I understand the concept

But this was taking things too far.

Go get the last twenty years of Lincoln/Douglass debate topics and use those as inspiration.

I saw a really good debate recently among high school students on the pros and cons of fossil fuels, for example.

[Behind the Aegis]

12. The only "critical thinking" this would produce would be for sociopaths.

Climate change? Fine. Abortion rights? Sure. Ending Daylight savings? Yeah, OK. Justifying genocide? FUCK NO! Not all points of view are worthy of understanding. Those who think this is a legitimate form of critical thinking demonstrate a genuine lack of critical thinking. It is one thing to explain why the Nazis did what they did, or even speculate what they were thinking, but to attempt to "justify" it is grotesque and explains why we have so many Holocaust deniers and those who tacitly support said denial and revisionism.

[Mosby]

13. Exactly. nt