The assignment, which was given to eighth graders by the Rialto Unified School District in San Bernadino County, was part of a “misguided” attempt to satisfy Common Core curriculum requirements in critical thinking. It asked the nearly 2,000 students assigned to evaluate whether the Holocaust–deemed the worst genocide of the 20th Century–really happened or if it was just a myth that was created for “political and monetary gain.”
Following emotional, personal speeches by Rabbi Hillel Cohn of Congregation Emanu El in Redlands and from Rabbi Suzanne Singer of Temple Beth El in Riverside, a reportedly choked up Rialto Unified School District board member Joseph Martinez said “It [the assignment] should have never happened… We have, in fact, had epic fails,” according to the Contra Costa Times.
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One frustrated Pasadena-based attorney Neal Fialkow, who was also present at the board meeting, said the damage may already be done, notes the Times. Addressing the school board, he said “You’ve planted a seed of doubt… Congratulations. You’ve taken a[n] historical fact and made it a matter of opinion. What’s next, 9/11 never happened?” he posited. “Every single child now has been infected.”
Assemblywoman Cheryl R. Brown (D-San Bernardino) revealed that her own father had served during WWII and had helped to liberate the Aushwitz concentration camp in Poland. He had told her about the smell of burned bodies as a child, writes the Times. “As a result of this assignment, we must now deal with reeducating young people who have been misled by this district,” Brown told the school board.
The essays, which were obtained under the California Public Records Act, and published in a detailed piece by the San Bernarndino Sun, revealed dozens of students who, in their papers, cited websites which denied the Holocaust took place and even wrote dismissively about the horrific event.
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It is still unclear whether the English Language Arts teachers behind the creation of the assignment will face disciplinary action.
Liberals conflate education and indoctrination. They think it is cute to mess with the minds of the youth to prepare them for future instruction for how to better serve the collective.
Notice how the assignment was to prove or disprove there was ever slavery or a need for a civil rights movement. Notice how they were not assigned to draw the best representation of Mohammed. An assignment to prove how being gay is curable. But, such curriculum would infringe on the far left sensibilities or prove outright dangerous, so they pick on the Jews. Well, they probably picked on the wrong people who are developing (over the period of a few thousand years) a tendency to not put up with being picked on any more.
Liberals in charge of educating our children (I am so glad my kids are adults, though I do have grand children to worry about) fear no reprisal for their sick experiments. Common Core is a blank check for such experiments, every bit as devious as the experiments Nazis felt free to conduct on captive Jews. Perhaps it is time for a little campaign of persecution on the persecutors for a change.
@Bill: So true Bill. Why not start the ‘hypothetical’: Since the Nazi’s felt that they had to destroy the Jews, why do you think they felt it was necessary? Yes, I can just imagine the uproar had the Sentence started: Do you think black people were ever really slaves or is that just a figment of someone’s imagination to get goodies given to them? Common Core is up to ‘no good’.
To be fair, the children were not allowed to ”open book” research on the web anything at all.
Since this is all they had to start with, it seems logical they might reach the erroneous conclusion that the Holocaust was a myth.
It is like a magician who forces a card on his mark.
It boils down to brainwashing because the teacher forced these students to reach a false conclusion and state it in their own words as a belief.
How difficult will it be to teach these students the truth?
When we are not allowed to see people jumping to their deaths from World Trade Center buildings because it is too graphic, how can they ever see the photos of concentration camp bodies in piles and mass graves, human skin lampshades, piles of teeth with fillings, and those skeletal survivors?
It is ALL too graphic, better to let them enjoy the lie.
Isn’t that what the teachers are all about?
Ironic, too, because, apparently bringing into the classroom graphic and odd SEX is A-OK with these same teachers.
This could possibly be turned around into a learning example of what informational bias and propaganda is, and by teaching these same students the importance of skepticism and fact checking, It can be explained that the assignment was an example of what happens when “education” is politicized into “indoctrination”, and how important it is NOT to assume that a person in a position of authority and public trust, (such as a teacher, college professor or political figure,) is providing the unvarnished truth, all the truth, and nothing but the truth. They can also explain about social programming and it’s socialist roots.
Students have been taught by the public school system to question their parents (and even their clergy,) but they have not been taught to question their educators or to question what they are being taught, as well as what they are not being taught and to question why the schools are neglecting to teach some subjects like the founding of our nation and it’s history. Parents can get involved and turn this around, but they have to be prepared to become parent activists against the school authorities.
They will get a promotion for doing a great job of planting the seed.