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Tiberius Donating Member (798 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 09:49 AM
Original message
School's 'Holocaust' Experiment Upsets Parents
Several parents in Apopka, Fla., are upset over a surprise school "Holocaust" project that some say tormented children, according to a Local 6 News report.

Local 6 News reported that eighth-graders with last names beginning with L through Z at Apopka Memorial Middle School were given yellow five-pointed stars for Holocaust Remembrance Day. Other students were privileged, the report said.

Father John Tinnelly said his son was forced to stand in the back of the classroom and not allowed to sit because he was wearing the yellow star.

"He was crying," Tinnelly said. "I said, 'What are you crying about?' He said, 'Daddy, I was a Jew today.'"

http://www.local6.com/news/8345157/detail.html

I can't condone this method of teaching about the holocaust, however, you can bet it'll be something that these kids will never forget.
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Canuckistanian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 09:55 AM
Response to Original message
1. Don't know if I agree with this approach
It does bring a little bit of reality into a far too complacent and ignorant world.

But it needs to be handled delicately so there are no side effects or lingering resentments.

And , once some kid starts to feel too threatened, call it all off and TALK about it.
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KittyWampus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 09:58 AM
Response to Reply #1
5. Perhaps if it was done over two days and kids switched identities
Edited on Thu Mar-30-06 10:03 AM by cryingshame
These were teens, not little kids.

Learning to put oneself in others shoes is a valid and valuable lesson and role playing is a valid and valuable strategy.

Edit- read the whole article... there was NO preperation! Gads, the kids were just seperated out one day with no prior knowledge or discussion of what was going to happen.

And it sounds like there was no follow up discussions and chances for students to analyze and assimilate the expereience.
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saigon68 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 01:22 PM
Response to Reply #5
41. An eighth grader crying over this??? A GIRLY MAN
Edited on Thu Mar-30-06 01:23 PM by saigon68
I'd do what Mordecai Anilewitz did

On Sunday, April 18, 1943, the leaders of the central ghetto met. At the end of the meeting, Mordechai, chairman of the group, distributed weapons and baskets of handmade bombs, known as “Molotov cocktails.” Some food was distributed, and poison for fighters caught, who did not want to be tortured by the Nazis. Houses were barricaded with furniture and sandbags, pillows were placed on window sills for support and protection. Finally an all-night watch was set up in the ghetto. On the eve of the first Seder of Passover, Jews from the Aryan side of Warsaw sneaked into the ghetto to participate in a Seder with their brethren. On Monday, the Nazis attacked. Afraid to face the fire of the Jews, they sent other groups ahead; first the Jewish police and then German and Ukrainian columns. Following these came a squadron of motorcyclists, heavy trucks, infantry with heavy machine-guns, ambulances, a field kitchen, field telephones and twelve Panzer armed vehicles.

On the main streets, they set up headquarters with tables and benches. Confident of their superior strength, the German column, singing loudly, reached the corners of the main streets. Suddenly, a hail of Molotov cocktails sent them fleeing in panic, leaving behind their dead and wounded. One tank after another was hit with well-aimed handmade bombs; the men driving them burned alive inside. Panic broke out among the Germans. The Nazi report to headquarters was: “The Jewish resistance was unexpected, unusually strong, and a great surprise.”






Mordecai Anilewitz, commander of the Warsaw Ghetto revolt, issued the following last appeal for help to the outside world of April 23, 1943, shortly before the destruction of the Ghetto:

"I cannot describe to you the conditions in which the Jews of the Ghetto now live. Only a few could possibly withstand such suffering. The rest will die, sooner or later. Their fate is sealed. For, although thousands are hiding in nooks and rat-holes, there is not enough air in those places to light a candle. You - who are on the outside are blessed. Perhaps we shall yet see each other by some miracle. This is very, very doubtful. The last aspiration of my life has been fulfilled. Jewish fighting and resistance is a fact. Jewish self-defence and Jewish revenge are a reality. I am happy and contented that I have been among the first fighters of the Ghetto. Whence will salvation come?"

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pnorman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 07:54 PM
Response to Reply #41
56. Thanks for the above quote.
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AlienGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-31-06 01:38 AM
Response to Reply #41
69. Was Mordecai Anilewitz 13 when he did it?
Were you confronted with such situations at thirteen? And does this make people who died in the Holocaust without heroically resisting "girly men" as well?

Tucker
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saigon68 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-31-06 03:59 AM
Response to Reply #69
70. How old were the idiots who planned this experiment?
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Demeter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 05:11 PM
Response to Reply #5
51. 13 is too young for such a mind game
Sorry, it ranks up there with child abuse. 18 year-olds, maybe, as long as the disabled are not forced to participate.
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unblock Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 09:55 AM
Response to Original message
2. this is terrible. haven't they heard of parental consent forms?
they come in real handy any time a school wants to do something remotely controversial.

in any event, at a minimum, i'd have a second day where they switch sides. i'm not sure that the "privileged" ones would learn the right lesson if they were never on the victimized side.

plus, i seriously doubt they would have captured the fear among the "privileged" ones. there were certainly some germans who tried to help the jews, or who at least wanted to, but were very afraid of being killed if they did.
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babylonsister Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 09:58 AM
Response to Original message
3. I seem to recall a similar 'experiment' in the 60s (?), where
kids were 'colored' for a day, and the ensuing prejudice that inspired.

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efhmc Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:12 AM
Response to Reply #3
16. Is that the experiment where the children were divided out by the color
of their eyes? (No mention of skin color is made, I believe.)http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=864733
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babylonsister Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:19 AM
Response to Reply #16
23. Yep: linked downthread. There's also
comments in google from the kids, now grown, and what they got out of it. Very interesting!
Google Jane Elliot, who was the teacher.
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BrklynLiberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 05:50 PM
Response to Reply #16
53. I remember reading about that in college.
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mzmolly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 11:02 AM
Response to Reply #3
31. "A Class Divided" watch it here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/

I watched this with my child when she was six, last year. She was very interested and asked to see it again. I homeschool and had quite a lasting/interesting dialog with her. It made an impression neither of us will forget.
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Coastie for Truth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 12:48 PM
Response to Reply #3
38. Also in the 1970's NT
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rucky Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 07:57 PM
Response to Reply #3
57. Infamous Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experiment.
same thing was done to me at Jewish summer camp. it was totally f-ed up. all it did was ruin our trust with the director.
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unblock Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 09:58 AM
Response to Original message
4. "the only thing i learned was that i don't want to be a jew".
greaaat. that's just greaaaaat.
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cleofus1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 11:07 AM
Response to Reply #4
32. seems like the 8 year olds in the pbs show showed more
emotional fortitude than these 13 years olds...
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Critters2 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 07:18 PM
Response to Reply #4
54. That's what I thought, too
And from the son (apparently) of a Christian clergyperson. Someone screwed up big time.

The road to hell...
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cleofus1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:01 AM
Response to Original message
6. 8th graders should have been able to handle this
if i were a teacher this is not something that i would do...but for goodness sake...8th graders crying becouse they had to stand up in class?


sigh...ok i'll read the article...but this sounds like a some kids acting like babies and then getting positive reinforcement for acting like babies...
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ihaveaquestion Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:07 AM
Response to Reply #6
11. Emotional development isn't on a timeline.
It's expected that some could handle it and some not. Hell, I know adults that couldn't handle this kind of thing. This should have been something anticipated by the teacher and talked about both before and after the experiment. Parents could have been notified ahead of time as well, so that they could exempt their child if need be. They'd know if their kid would have a particular problem with it.
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cleofus1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:13 AM
Response to Reply #11
18. good point
but 13 years olds should not be treated like babies...children yes...babies...no...
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cyr330 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 02:02 PM
Response to Reply #18
45. I agree
13-year-olds should be able to handle it. Perhaps parents should have been notified, but still, I feel like crying about standing up in class is a bit over the top. Of course, I have no kids, so what do I know about raising them?
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jwirr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 04:41 PM
Response to Reply #45
48. I talked with my just 14 year old grandson and asked him what
he thought. He smiled and said "that sounds like something we should do in out classroom."
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sui generis Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:03 AM
Response to Original message
7. I absolutely condone it, but not for eighth graders
If you want to teach empathy to an eighth grader you have to do it in a positive way. In later intellectual development they'll have that positive memory as a foundation for experimenting with negative role playing.

Anyway, I think the lesson should be bigger than just the holocaust - they are shortchanging the "lesson" in the present when they confuse it with a narrow historical perspective.
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rucky Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 08:01 PM
Response to Reply #7
58. all it does it ruin their trust in the teacher.
there's no evidence it does anything else. In fact, if you look at Zimbardo's work, you'll find that the "blue eyed" group becomes quite cruel towards the brown-eyes, and I can testify, having had the expirment done on me.

i agree that roleplay builds empathy, but the students aren't really playing a role, here - they're just following orders & it's the teacher that's playing a role and that is one of manipulator.
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wildeyed Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:03 AM
Response to Original message
8. I dunno, I'm a parent
and I don't think I would mind if a school did this with my kids. In fact, I might be grateful. My kids live very privileged, insulated lives so something like this might bring home the realities of bigotry. Plus, 8th grade is old enough to understand this type of thing and young enough to really learn about it.

Maybe it would have been more productive if the teachers had given some info to the parents about the exercise and how to address their children's questions beforehand. If my kids came home crying after and exercise like this, I would use the opportunity to talk with them about bigotry, the Holocaust, slavery, Jim Crow. But it sounds like some of these parents were not prepared, maybe didn't understand history well enough to discuss it with their kids, so it just seemed scary and inappropriate to them.
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KittyWampus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:07 AM
Response to Reply #8
12. Not only the parents, but the TEENS weren't prepared in any way
they had no idea what was going to happen. The teaches kept it a secret. Kids just came to school and were seperated out with no discussion beforehand.

And it sounds like there was no program to deal with the role playing afterwards. No group analysis or chance to assimiliate the experience.

Really, really poorly done.
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wildeyed Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:40 AM
Response to Reply #12
27. I hear what you are saying,
but I think that if they told them ahead what the plan was, it would have lost its immediacy and made little impression. The point was, I think, for the exercise to be a little traumatic and upsetting. How else do you give privileged kids a taste of what discrimination feels like? I *want* my kids to feel that sting, so they will be certain not to inflict it on others, and to have a deeper, emotional understanding of the issue. And they get to go back to being privileged at the end of the day anyway.

But I agree that there should have been some intense follow up and a lot of direction given to the parents on how to discuss the exercise with their kids.
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KittyWampus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 01:21 PM
Response to Reply #27
40. Understood, but wanting a kids to experience trauma falls into the realm
of Psychodrama and far beyond mere role-playing.

Psychodrama is something that should only be done by trained professionals.
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jwirr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 04:45 PM
Response to Reply #27
49. You are a very good parent.
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wildeyed Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 05:03 PM
Response to Reply #49
50. That is a nice thing to say.
Thank you.
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NashVegas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 01:24 PM
Response to Reply #12
43. No One Ever Expects the Spanish Inquisition
Nor did most Jews know what they were in for when they got shipped off. Maybe that was the point.
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cleofus1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:04 AM
Response to Original message
9. ok...i read the article
what a bunch of whining little babies...we are talking about 13 year olds right?

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cleofus1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:07 AM
Response to Reply #9
10. by the time i was in the 8th grade
i had already read the diary of anne frank and was well aware of the holocoust...
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LostinVA Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:13 AM
Response to Reply #10
19. And, my best friend;'s granny had a tattoo on her arm, courtesy
of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
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Sequoia Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 01:23 PM
Response to Reply #9
42. Have these kids forgotten that Jesus was a Jew
who died on the cross for their sins? Florida is one of those RW fundie states. Crying...! Think of the real children who were shoved in the ovens. Shock and awe...that's the ticket. At least they didn't get a hood over their heads with wires attached to their hands and tell them this is what our troops are doing to spread freedom and love in Iraq.
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AlienGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-31-06 01:16 AM
Response to Reply #9
65. At 13, I couldn't have handled it
I was one of the kids the school's bullies targeted. Can you imagine what happens when the kid who's already targeted by bullies, already beaten up, hit with objects thrown in the hall, and insulted a thousand times a day has it done to them--with the teacher's approval?!Perhaps, all other things being equal, an emotionally healthy 13-year-old with some knowledge of what is being done should be able to handle it, but not all kids are that child.

Tucker
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cannabis_flower Donating Member (386 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:07 AM
Response to Original message
13. I think..
if it hadn't been the whole day.. maybe just one or two class periods, it would have been ok. And then the next day switch roles and the privileged ones get to be the persecuted it would have been better. And not through lunch, I don't think it was right that the administrator told one kid to go to the back of the line 4 times (if that wasn't an exaggeration).
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superconnected Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:10 AM
Response to Original message
14. I would worry about that guys' kids mental health
Edited on Thu Mar-30-06 10:34 AM by superconnected
8th graders coming home crying sounds kind of unstable for the 8th grader.

It would be one thing if he got beat up, but this is a different. 8th graders should have the mental ability to understand the jewish experiment they were being put through, and not emotionally fall apart over it.

I'm for the experiment, only, providing the kids get a chance to choose whether or not they want to take part.

I don't see it serious enough to require parental consent. And I think this kid needs a shrink/or to be put back a few grades since he isn't mature enough to grasp it.

The teachers shouldn't have thrown it on the kids without their consent, and "father", likely "reverened" Tinnelly, has a kid a bit old to keep calling him "daddy".
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cleofus1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:12 AM
Response to Original message
15. let me reiterate
Edited on Thu Mar-30-06 10:14 AM by cleofus1
if i were a teacher this is not something i would have done...

i would have just have made the diary of anne frank required reading and a book report...and or maybe have some of the kids put on a stageplay of said book to be performed for the student body followed by study groups to discuss the topic...
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babylonsister Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:13 AM
Response to Original message
17. Here's the story on the 1968 experiment, done w/3rd graders:
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msongs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:15 AM
Response to Original message
20. adolescents do this stuff to each other EVERY day alread...
segregating and ostracizing by race, religion, fashion, criminal behavior, drug use (smoking especially).

so the concept of labeling a child as an "out" cast is normal behavior at a middle school.

however there should have been preparation since this was a role play event.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/impeachbush.htm
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ihaveaquestion Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:15 AM
Response to Original message
21. This kind of role playing can be traumatic.
I still remember going to the Holocaust museum in DC and being given "papers" that told me who I was to be for the tour. The booklet described a teenaged girl who was rounded up in Warsaw and sent to a camp (Auschwitz or Buchenwald, I forget which) and died there. No one oppressed me for the few hours I was there, but just the act of imagining for a brief time that I was this person who was treated so brutally and killed for her religion was disturbing. I can see how kids would have problems with this kind of thing, if it were handled badly.
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sugapablo Donating Member (483 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:19 AM
Response to Original message
22. That's like when Carlos Mencia...
...was performing his comedy skit and doing a less than flattering impression of kids with cerebel palsy (dee-dee-dee) when a young man in the audience with CP, who had obviously taken offense, stood up and screamed:

<stereotypical "retard" voice>
"SHUT....T..TH..THE...F...F..FF.FF..FUCK UP!!!! I..do NOT sound MEXICAN!"
</stereotypical "retard" voice>
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coffeenap Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:20 AM
Response to Original message
24. It is an effective teaching method, with one important change:
Instead of calling people Jews and giving them stars, the teacher could have used an apparently "random" characteristic to separate the two groups. For example, blue eyes, or anyone with socks on that day that aren't white, or anyone wearing red. That way, the craziness of prejudice would be explored without some of the unintended results. Plus, this was not about the Holocaust--that would have meant cattle cars and gas chambers. This was about the attitudes and behaviors that were the precursors and vital for our kids to understand.

I met a Holocaust survivor this week on an Amtrak trip. We bonded and talked for hours. I asked him if he felt that the US government of today resembled the pre-Nazi days. He said YES!!! With his hands in the air he said he could not understand why the Democrats won't stand up to these people. His deepest concern is Cheney. He witnessed the time when Hitler was beginning to consolidate power (he was living in Berlin at the time), and said that the previous government could have prevented Hitler's takeover but no one would stand up! He said the generals still had control of the military even when Hitler had one of them killed, but they didn't act. (This man's father went to a concentration camp and he, himself went to the Shanghai ghetto.)

So, teach the children--let them f'ing cry! My kids included. Peace.
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cleofus1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:30 AM
Response to Reply #24
25. yup
sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind...ask eddie money
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fudge stripe cookays Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 09:05 PM
Response to Reply #25
61. I think you mean Nick Lowe, Cleo sweetie.
Unless you're speaking of the cruelty of Eddie Money's music, which I will agree with, being subjected to entirely too much of it. :P

fsc
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cleofus1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:48 PM
Response to Reply #61
64. doh!
now i have to turn in my secret disk jockey identity card...
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kenny blankenship Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:38 AM
Response to Reply #24
26. Some centrist parties went along with Hitler's grab at dictatorial power
Edited on Thu Mar-30-06 10:44 AM by kenny blankenship
others (on the left) voted against it; and the opponents who dared to say no were first to go into the camps. That's not a figure of speech: SPD parliamentarians were in the Nazi's first concentration camp within 60 days of their vote. KPD members were either already dead, or in hiding trying to flee the country, or in ad hoc Nazi secret jails were they would be tortured and soon die.

Some did stand up. Unfortunately the political center thought it could share power with the Nazis, that Hitler would need them, that things would go back to normal eventually, and then they stood to benefit by not opposing Nazi domination meantime. And that is similar to the collapse of all party politics before Bushler's juggernaut. What's different is that, this time, there was no left party to stand up and be counted against him and appeal to others, in Congress and the nation at large, to also oppose the takeover.
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LostinVA Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 12:05 PM
Response to Reply #24
35. OPrah did that exact thing once,a nd people got so offended
they left! She was only doing it in the preshow and for the first part of the show, but all these middle class white ladies got all pissy. I actually watched that show. Crazy. It was about ten years ago, I think.

(ie... people with blue eyes were treated differently, etc.)
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abluelady Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:42 AM
Response to Original message
28. I applaud the teacher
Obviously the children upset have not neen taught about discrimination and bigotry in their own homes. I don't believe bigotry is a "personal value" that only parents should teach. This lesson is one all children should be taught in an age appropriate way. And as far as 8th graders are concerned, this age group is one of the meanest when it comes to how they treat others. Again, bravo to this teacher.
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Karenina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 02:04 PM
Response to Reply #28
46. Having been the only black
in a sea of white faces at that age, there were days I wished the "status quo" would flip JUST.FOR.ONE.DAY. For the most part my classmates came from very liberal families but I always wanted them to REALLY.GET.IT. The only one who finally did was our class president.
He was a sailor whose skin really took a tan. His girlfriend was a porcelain doll. One midsummer weekend on the streets with her, he was pegged by some numbnuts as "non-white" and seriously, bodily threatened. He came from a prominent, privileged family and was NOT accustomed to having his "creds" challenged.

I KNEW as he approached me on Monday morning that something was amiss. We talked before "Homeroom," at lunch and after school. It was as though a light bulb in his brain had been switched on and I was the only one he could trust with what he'd seen...

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MrPrax Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:51 AM
Response to Original message
29. Wonder if 'acceptance' of this
rather odious experiment would be so forthcoming if the children were separated into Legal and Illegal...or Mas'sa and Slave.

Or something a little more -um- appropriate to the UNEXAMINED racism in the US. I say this because inspite of decades of Holocaust 'study' the US has learned absolutely nothing.



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mzmolly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 11:00 AM
Response to Original message
30. I have mixed feelings. I think if the kids were told about it before hand
and the parents consented to - it would be a good lesson?
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donsu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 11:24 AM
Response to Original message
33. I think it was a fine teaching method and the parent should have

backed up the teacher and talked to his child to explain what "walking in another's shoes" and "empathy" is.

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Copperred Donating Member (554 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 12:02 PM
Response to Original message
34. Holocaust classes should be replaced with HISTORY OF GENOCIDE

A specific focus on the Holocaust makes little sense in context of teaching human history.

As a species we have been massacering each other since the begining of time, best to teach it objectively in that regard.

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DrGonzoLives Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 12:07 PM
Response to Original message
36. Sounds to me like the lesson was not taught well
Sounds like they showed up, got the star, but there was no context. That makes it kind of hard to learn anything about it.
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Trillo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 12:11 PM
Response to Original message
37. That seems a metaphor of what life will be like for a large percentage
Edited on Thu Mar-30-06 12:12 PM by SimpleTrend
of those kids when they are working adults. Most will be in poverty and some will struggle to keep their heads a little higher out of the water, while a very few lucky ones will receive nearly every reward a capitalist country where money rules supreme can grant. In this way, the poor masses are at the back of the classroom everyday of their lives.

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onehandle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 01:15 PM
Response to Original message
39. "a dozen parents" complained.
Probably just the ones who deny the existence of the Holocaust.

I could have handled this when I was in eighth grade.

Today's kids are made of softer stuff. This was probably a touch too severe a lesson for them.

Where will future Bushes find oil workers, I mean soldiers.

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bleedingheart Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 01:31 PM
Response to Original message
44. I think that this was a very creative teaching method...
in fact as a parent I think that the element of suprise was what made it sink in all that much more...

perhaps the first day kids don't fully appreciate the experiment but over time it will sink it.

persecution of any time is wrong but children as well as adults must deal with the reality that it does occur and they should learn how to recognize it and combat it.

The Jews in Europe one day found themselves without rights, a few weeks later they found themselves cast out of their homes, and a few weeks later they found themselves lined up for selection to either work or die....and some of them were a whole lot younger than 13 years of age. There were infants burned in those ovens.

So for the cry babies that want to insulate their children against facts...they are just doing their children an injustice.
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jwirr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 04:31 PM
Response to Original message
47. This same practice was used several years ago only the
dividing line was blue/dark eyes. No parents bitched about it. What the boys said may actually mean that he learned a great deal and was crying for the sadness of it all. "I was a Jew today." can easily be empathy.
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Cassius23 Donating Member (186 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 05:18 PM
Response to Original message
52. I was part of a similar exercise..
Edited on Thu Mar-30-06 05:20 PM by Cassius23
When I was in around 8th grade I went to a private school in mid/southern Alabama in which they had as their tradition a yearly slave auction. Now before this had happened I had been at the school for less than a month and still had some illusions about the basic goodness of people. The money was to support the student council and I was told that nothing too terribly bad happens to people who were volunteered and so I was strongly encouraged to volunteer to be sold on the block(and, being the type of person who likes to help out, I went ahead and went up).

Long story short, I was sold to two student atheletes, was forced to dress in a dress and blackface during the schoolday, and during the "performance" part of the day was forced to sing "Swing Lo Sweet Chariot" in front of the whole school.



Because of this I have definite opinions on stuff like this. They should have told the parents, who should be the best judge of the children's character and ability to handle the exercise and give the parents the chance to opt out on behalf of the child(that is assuming that you consider secrecy absolutely vital, otherwise, tell the kid, tell him or her of the potential circumstances and let them decide).

Lates
Cassius23


*EDIT* P.S.- Because of this and being raised with mostly WWII vets(I'm 29 now), I had a rabid and unreasoning hate of racists, and a whole host of other such side effects.
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lumberjack_jeff Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 07:54 PM
Response to Original message
55. The problem isn't the experiment, it's the predictable results.
Anyone familiar with the Milgram experiment or the Stanford prison experiment should know what will happen.

People suck. Eighth graders suck worse.
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hotforteacher Donating Member (296 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 08:08 PM
Response to Original message
59. Uh oh, you mean they LEARNED something?
Perish the thought that learning something might be uncomfortable.

People are so damned preoccupied with litigiousness and making everything painless and hunky-dorey for students that they completely miss the point. This is the perfect excercise, if done correctly, for junior high school students. They thrive on anything resembling injustice, in particular when they feel wronged. I am assuming that the teachers knew exactly what they were doing when they planned this lesson, as a vast majority of teachers actually know what they are doing.

And pardon me for being suspect of the whiny little scheisster, but the rampant victimization seen in American public schools today makes me ill and this case illustrates it wonderfully. Maybe he actually figured out what it means to be a real victim on that day, instead of just playing one at school and at home. If this type of exercise made him go running home to Daddy crying, he has bigger problems than the public schools can ameliorate.

Additionally, they cited no one else other than the whiner and his Daddy (aw, George Michaels...where are you now? Maybe you could be his "Daddy"?) as being people who believed "apparently little was learned during the experiment." Perhaps Junior isn't the brightest bulb on the tree. Maybe Daddy has some 'splainin' to do. One would think that an exercise vividly detailing the amount of privilege the average American DOES have would win the hearts of these patriots.

And the fact that he could bitch about it should tell him something about that priviledge...but it won't because Daddy is going to keep Junior in his lap, pet his itty-bitty head, and tell him everything is gonna be all right, and he'll get all them bad guys.
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AlienGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-31-06 01:33 AM
Response to Reply #59
67. They learned how subject to trauma they are.
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godhatesrepublicans Donating Member (343 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 08:41 PM
Response to Original message
60. Sounds like a wimpy version of The Third Wave experiment.
The Third Wave
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

For the book by Alvin Toffler, see The Third Wave (book)

For the Swedish action film "The Third Wave" (Den tredje vågen), see The Third Wave (film).

The Third Wave was the name given by history teacher Ron Jones to his unanticipated and unprecedented recreation of Nazi Germany.

The experiment took place at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California during 1967. Jones, unable to explain to his students why the German youth allowed the Nazi Party to exterminate millions of Jews, decided to show them instead. Starting with simple things like classroom discipline, Jones managed to meld his history class into a group with a supreme sense of purpose and no small amount of cliquishness. Jones named the movement "The Third Wave," after the common wisdom that the third in a series of ocean waves is always the strongest, and claimed its members would revolutionize the world. The experiment took on a life of its own, with students from all over the school joining in; Jones agonized over the outcome of the exercise before bringing it to a halt by claiming that the movement had a world-wide leader, and then displaying a film clip of him: Adolf Hitler.

Despite the clear implications of this study on the malleability of young minds (of particular interest to both psychologists seeking to understand and prevent it, and would-be world dictators attempting to recreate it), little has surfaced on the subject; Todd Strasser, under the pen name Morton Rhue, wrote a young-adult novel on the subject (entitled The Wave), which was later made into a movie and a play; later, Jones himself came forward with his own material. The experiment's "fans" (to use the word loosely) have had some trouble in eliciting reports from any of the students involved.

There exists some doubt that the experiment took the full form described by Jones. The Catamount, the school newspaper at Cubberley, reported details that conflicted with Jones' published account.
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Zodiak Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 09:29 PM
Response to Original message
62. I understand the idea that the school should have told the students...
or the parents before the exercise.

However, I also think that the failure to recognize he exercise for what it is after being given a yellow star is a sad commentary on pre-8th grade history education.
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American Tragedy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-30-06 10:36 PM
Response to Original message
63. Forgive me if I'm not dripping with sympathy for them
but judging from how it sounds, I would be willing to bet that my normal daily experience of eighth grade constituted greater social trauma than this single incident. I imagine I'm not alone in that.

Hell, I literally cannot enter a school building without getting chills.
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AlienGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-31-06 01:30 AM
Response to Reply #63
66. Are you sure his normal daily experience *Isn't* traumatic?
Imagine being yourself at thirteen, already in social distress, and then having the teacher *condone*, even *encourage*, the other kids to pick on you.

Tucker
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AlienGirl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-31-06 01:35 AM
Response to Original message
68. What of the grand-child of survivors? How traumatic would this be to them?
Among other reasons this psychodrama was not a good idea, there may be kids in the class with very personal connections to the Holocaust who might be deeply troubled by this. Or should they just quit being "whiny babies" and suck it up too?

(Why are DUers rushing to defend cruelty, anyway?)

Tucker
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JohnnyJ Donating Member (23 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-31-06 04:03 AM
Response to Original message
71. It seems out of place....
they need to realize it happened 60 years ago and that a good old fashioned textbook will more than likely do the trick.
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