| Author |
Message |
    
Aimstraight
Starlite Member
Username: Aimstraight
| | Posted on Sunday, April 01, 2007 - 06:52 pm: | 
|
By LAURA CLARK
It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.
There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.
The findings have prompted claims that some schools are using history 'as a vehicle for promoting political correctness'.
The study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, looked into 'emotive and controversial' history teaching in primary and secondary schools.
It found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class.
The researchers gave the example of a secondary school in an unnamed northern city, which dropped the Holocaust as a subject for GCSE coursework.
The report said teachers feared confronting 'anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils'.
It added: "In another department, the Holocaust was taught despite anti-Semitic sentiment among some pupils.
"But the same department deliberately avoided teaching the Crusades at Key Stage 3 (11- to 14-year-olds) because their balanced treatment of the topic would have challenged what was taught in some local mosques."
A third school found itself 'strongly challenged by some Christian parents for their treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict-and the history of the state of Israel that did not accord with the teachings of their denomination'.
The report concluded: "In particular settings, teachers of history are unwilling to challenge highly contentious or charged versions of history in which pupils are steeped at home, in their community or in a place of worship."
But Chris McGovern, history education adviser to the former Tory government, said: "History is not a vehicle for promoting political correctness. Children must have access to knowledge of these controversial subjects, whether palatable or unpalatable."
The researchers also warned that a lack of subject knowledge among teachers - particularly at primary level - was leading to history being taught in a 'shallow way leading to routine and superficial learning'.
Lessons in difficult topics were too often 'bland, simplistic and unproblematic' and bored pupils.
____________________________________
_________
To deny the Holocaust is to deny fact |
Caprichos
Starlite Member
Username: Caprichos
| | Posted on Sunday, April 01, 2007 - 07:27 pm: |
|
Chris McGovern, history education adviser to the former Tory government, said: "History is not a vehicle for promoting political correctness. Children must have access to knowledge of these controversial subjects, whether palatable or unpalatable."
The researchers also warned that a lack of subject knowledge among teachers - particularly at primary level - was leading to history being taught in a 'shallow way leading to routine and superficial learning'.
Hi Mikey,
I went to school in CA and did learn about the holocaust. Just last year, I made a trip to Washington D.C. and visited The Holocaust Museum.
By the time I was exiting the museum, my entire body felt as if I had been surged with electrical power. My legs were trembling and I felt so dizzy and my heart was pacing rapidly as I felt my stomach cringe with all of the actual facts
I discovered that day in which I realized my teachers back West only touched base with this subject matter and I, as an adult, learned so much the day of my visit at The Holocaust Museum and was naturally discusted and the only word that came to mind after finding a bench to sit on by the gift store downstairs was MORBID. No one should ever deny the truth. We all learn lessons from history- stories that have been passed down from one generation to the next. Hitler had to have been possessed by satan himself in order to have all of his plans carried out. The kids need to learn from our past! Who knows what tomorrow brings? We all learn lessons from our mistakes. President Bush is a man we should all keep focused on. Both he and V.P. Cheney. Truly stated well, To deny the Holocaust is to deny fact.
TO THE LITTLE POLISH BOY STANDING WITH HIS ARMS UP
I would like to be an artist
So I could make a Painting of you
Little Polish Boy
Standing with your Little hat
on your head
The Star of David
on your coat
Standing in the ghetto
with your arms up
as many Nazi machine guns
pointing at you
I would make a monument of you
and the world who said nothing
I would like to be a composer
so I could write a concerto of you
Little Polish Boy
Standing with your Little hat
on your head
The Star of David
on your coat
Standing in the ghetto
with your arms up
as many Nazi machine guns
Pointing at you
I would write a concerto of you
and the world who said nothing
I am not an artist
But my mind had painted
a painting of you
Ten Million Miles High is the Painting
so the whole universe can see you Now
Little Polish Boy
I am not a composer
but I will write a composition
for five trillion trumpets
so it will blast the ear drums
of this world
The world's
Who heard nothing
- by Holocaust survivor Peter L. Fischl
http://www.auschwitz.dk/Holocaust2.htm
Love the art, poor as it may be, which thou hast learned, and be content with it; and pass through the rest of life like one who has intrusted to the gods with his whole soul all that he has, making thyself neither the tyrant nor the slave of any man. -Marcus Arelius
|
|
