Posted on 07/15/2014 12:50:30 PM PDT by Kaslin
Earlier this year, eighth graders enrolled in the Rialto Unified School District in Rialto, California were assigned a rather questionable essay assignment: Did the Holocaust happen, or was it "merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain wealth[?]" The district immediately apologized for the assignment once it came to light, and initially claimed that no students wrote that the Holocaust was a hoax. That allegation was wrong, as the San Bernadino County Sun newspaper discovered that over 50 students expressed doubt that the Holocaust happened in their essays, and were given high marks for their views.
“I believe the event was fake, according to source 2 the event was exhaggerated,” one student wrote. (Students’ and teachers’ original spelling and grammar are retained throughout this story.) “I felt that was strong enogh evidence to persuade me the event was a hoax.”
In some cases, students earned high marks and praise for arguing the Holocaust never occurred, with teachers praising their well-reasoned arguments:
“you did well using the evidence to support your claim,” the above student’s teacher wrote on his assignment.
The student received a grade of 23 points out of 30, with points marked off for not addressing counterclaims, capitalization and punctuation errors.
Students were given documents from About.com and History.com in addition to pieces of information from a Holocaust denial site. In one, the Diary of Anne Frank was presented as a hoax.
Administrators claim that the prompt was an exercise to improve critical thinking skills.
This is disturbing. There are plenty of ways to improve critical thinking and writing skills without having to wade in the territory of Holocaust denial. This assignment never should have been allowed in the first place. Teaching children conspiracy theories does nothing to help them educationally—and from the looks of the essays posted by the Sun, those students need all the help they can get.
Commie Lib “Teachers”! Dumbing down America one student at a time!
I think I might know where to find some teachers in need of a one-way ticket out of our nation...
This makes my blood boil!
At the very least, these people should be barred from holding positions where children are involved.
Who can now say that public education is not successful?
Who?
rise of gay fascism is directly correlated to this kind of crap.
how can you have a diversity of children when abortion and homosexuality all but block diversity of species?
And what’s sad - ignorance can make it happen again. I wonder if they’d ever ask how many Russian deaths were caused by Stalin or Chinese deaths by Mao - that too is a hoax, right??
The school district president is named Mohammed Islam. That’s surprising.
Rialto is 2/3 Hispanic and heavily Democrat.
The assignment itself could be argued to be a public document, but not the students' answers.
The writers of the best essay should be given an all expense trip and tour of Auschwitz and Belsen-Bergen and then be asked to rewrite their essays. Sadly Eisenhower was prescient. He knew the Holocaust would be denied. He probably never imagined how ignorant the American people would become of history.
California. (spew)
In other news:
“North Korea wins The World Cup in Soccer”...
It’s also possible that the essays were never read, just marked “A” for convenience of the “teacher”.
Liberals and Democrats are todays Anti Semites
What if a student argued all teachers should be exterminated and gave valid arguments?
would the applause for critical thinking apply here?
These days, I wouldn’t bet against it.
the assignment was an essay. express whether you believe the holocaust occurred and support your answer.
i blame the teacher for setting up the false argument of the holocaust’s actuality.
the students were taking a side in a debate, sometimes one takes a side one doesn’t agree with. content is subjective, format and technique can be graded.
just like writing an essay about the legitimacy of the second amendment... they will be wrong, but they have a right to be wrong... they just don’t have a right to make everyone else believe it.
teeman
it saddens me how so many on freerepublic can be so inconsistent with freedom of speech and thought.
historically the students are wrong... in an essay assignment, content shouldn’t matter.
flame away
The teacher and administrators responsible for this assignment need to be fired and punished. The grades themselves aren’t the problem (who knows, the kids might have used good grammar). The sicko assignment is the problem. A very serious problem needing quick rotorootering.
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