Joanne Jacobs<\/a>, though it\u2019s being reported elsewhere, too: \u00a08th graders in the Rialto Unified School District were assigned to \u201ctake sides\u201d on a \u201cdebate\u201d about whether the Holocaust was a hoax, based on several materials, including handouts taken from Holocaust deniers. <\/p>\nThe school district initially defended its writing assignment by claiming that none of the students took the Holocaust-denying side; now it turns out that 50 out of 2,000 did so.<\/p>\n
When this first made news some conservative bloggers noticed the Muslim name of the staff member responsible; but whether he had an antisemitic motive is unknown.<\/p>\n
In any event, it demonstrates the poverty of the notion that students won\u2019t be taught content but will be taught \u201ccritical thinking\u201d in a fuzzy sort of way, and that\u2019s an adequate replacement. Perhaps Holocaust deniers could have been examined, as a class, in order to teach how they play their tricks, but to ask 13 and 14 year olds to figure this out for themselves imagines a skill set that few 8th graders possess.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This comes via Joanne Jacobs, though it\u2019s being reported elsewhere, too: \u00a08th graders in the Rialto Unified School District were assigned to \u201ctake sides\u201d on a \u201cdebate\u201d about whether the Holocaust was a hoax, based on several materials, including handouts taken from Holocaust deniers. The school district initially defended its writing assignment by claiming that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[286,285],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-critical-thinking","tag-holocaust"],"yoast_head":"\n
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