NY ed chief takes heat over assignment asking students to defend Holocaust – IOTW Report

NY ed chief takes heat over assignment asking students to defend Holocaust

EAG: ALBANY, N.Y. – New York Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia is fending off calls for her resignation over recent comments she made about a controversial assignment that tasked students with arguing for the “Final Solution,” Nazi Germany’s plan to exterminate Jews.

The assignment was given to students as part of an Oswego County CiTi/BOCES New Vision program earlier this year, and Elia responded to a reporter’s question about her views on the approach during a round-table discussion at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo late last month, Syracuse.com reports.

“I think it’s certainly a question where you want students to think on both sides and analyze … which position a person is taking,” the education commissioner said. “That idea of being able to identify the perspective an article has or a writer has is a very important skill.”

The former Buffalo social studies teacher said context for the assignment, such as the age of students, other materials provided, and how the lesson was presented, “would influence the appropriateness or not.”  read more

13 Comments on NY ed chief takes heat over assignment asking students to defend Holocaust

  1. Maybe she could share with them an article about moslems throwing a Jewish woman to her death from a building in Paris yesterday. And remind them that the nazis and moslems were allies.

  2. “That idea of being able to identify the perspective an article has or a writer has is a very important skill.”

    Being able to identify the writer and his or her ideology, biases, etc. is a very important skill. Can’t argue with that at all. However, if what is being pushed here is the idea of relativism, that all sides have an equally good argument or that opposite arguments over genocide have an equal morality, then no. Seems like the point could be made just as well without re-litigating the Holocaust and I suspect that’s what’s being done here. Shame.

  3. And the Education racket cannot understand why they are not very well respected. Willing to bet half the teachers in this country put their hearts and souls into their work. All of that good is wiped out by lefty zealots like this hare brained idiot.

  4. this despicable POS reminds me of that line from the Schindler’s List movie…”this isn’t just good old-fashioned Jew Hating. They’re serious now.”

  5. In honor of the passing of Don Rickles, when she was born she was so ugly the doctor slapped her mother.

    I know, I know, that’s a Rodney Dangerfield line. She be ugly, inside and out.

  6. Preparing the arguments supporting genocide could have been short and very enlightening:

    1. The Nazi party roughly translates as the national socialists party. In other words, the Left of the political spectrum.
    2. Weapons laws right before the Nazis took power enabled them to carry out their genocide because the citizens were disarmed.
    3. The Nazis felt no remorse in dehumanizing their political or social opponents and mercilessly killed them using the power of the government to do so.
    4. They relied on fake science like Darwinism and a rejection of God to fuel their ambitions and mass murder.

    Lesson: Like the Nazis, the Left in this country is evil and dangerous. Their political ideas are abject failures. They must be driven from power and never allowed to wield it.

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