My little sister is in grade 10, and she just got this assignment from a high school history teacher:
Compare and contrast the era of the crusades with the relationship between the western world and the middle east in the last decade. Explain the most important ways in which the crusades benefited the Europeans. Then consider the modern day, and how the US might benefit from a war with Iraq.
She is supposed to write a three page essay on this.
Does this seem wildly inappropriate to anyone else? I know that a few people (such as Bush) have called the war a “crusade,” but I thought that everyone was pretty much in agreement that this was a ridiculous comparison to make for a variety of reasons. To me, this seems like a biased assignment that is completely inappropriate for a high school classroom…I don’t think that the students should be encouraged to draw parallels like that. That only encourages them to look at the conflict in terms of a black-and-white, Christianity vs. Islam way.
A modern day war with Iraq shouldn’t be viewed as a conflict between Christianity v. Islam when you remember that several Islamic or largely Islamic countries, as in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Iran, will benefit from depriving Iraq of nukes and nerve gas.
I agree with Ringo. Based on her abilities, I’d get a copy of Covering Islam by Edward Said ISBN 0-394-74808-5
Perhaps you could read it and discuss it with her, maybe talk about the assignment critically, and talk about how using “markers” such as “religion” or “cultural differences” to simplify and caricaturise a group merely make it impossible to find common ground in order to come to understanding and how that is in many cases the intent of the formulators of said viewpoints. I see you are at University, this book shouldn’t be hard to find.
Maybe I’m optimistic, but I bet you can talk to her about this and communicate in a way she can grasp and write a paper that reflects some actual independent thought:)
Try and email Tamerlane for better ideas I’m sure, he may tell you my rec is crap! I’d certainly take his word over my 6-7 year old Islamic studies coursework.
I don’t think that the assignment is wildly inappropriate because the objective is to compare and contrast.
There are certainly similarities between the two periods (even if the similarities may be more superficial than real) and there are also some significant differances. The assignment is as much why are the two periods similar as why are they different.
Asking to jam something like that into three pages, however, might be wildy inappropriate. At grade 10, that sounds like a 10-pager – it ain’t finding the symbolism in a Red Wheel Barrow here.
I would encourage your sister to write about how the question is flawed.
I did that once in high school. Got in trouble too, until the head of the History Dept (who always liked me) saw it and told my teacher to not be such a dumbass.
What makes me take askance to this question is the phrase “…and how the US might benefit from a war with Iraq.”
I would have no problem whatever with the assignment if it said “…and ways in which the war with Iraq might benefit, or harm, the US” or something like that. As it is, it implies to me that the teacher is strongly pro-war and attempting to convince the students to think likewise.
Actually, my take on it is that the teacher is strongly anti-war and is trying to get the students to be more cynical about the US’s motivations – although, come to think of it, your interpretation is plausible as well, which makes me feel even more strongly that there’s nothing wrong with the assignment.
I agree with Billdo. Any assignment that instructs a student to compare and contrast is teaching the student to think for themselves, and how is that inappropriate?
I’m another person who like Fretful Porcupine assumed this assignment showed an anti-war bias. My translation: Just like Europe went into the Crusades for reasons of political/financial benefit, the US is about to attack Iraq for the same reason. Discuss.
But, as FP said, the fact that we are all sitting here disagreeing with each other suggests that this is a better assignment than I thought.
Appropriate for a tenth grader though? I doubt it.
If she is concerned with the assignment, maybe she should talk with the teacher about it.
Maybe it is an appropriate assignment, but only for exceptionally bright high school students. The topic seems more appropriate for a book – not for three pages!
Of course its not innapropriatte. It would be innapropriatte if she replied with her opinion as “there is no correlation” and had a well defended argument but still received a bad grade. Then again, this is 10th grade, they might not reward originality.
My opinion is pretty similar to Friedo’s. If this were my assignment, I’d take the opportunity to really compare the Crusades with today’s War on Terrorism, and not in a very positive light. I’d point out all the bullshit ways that the WoT is not like the Crusades, and of course how both were politically motivated. And I might figure out a way to compare the WoT to the Children’s Crusade… (wherein a whole buttload of children “decided” to march to the Holy Land and free it, so they gathered in Northern France, marched to Venice, and got on to boats that were supposed to take them to the Holy Land, but dropped the coverings off of their “slave ship” signs right after all the children were loaded aboard. One of the things that the Church doesn’t really like to mention…)
And, of course, let’s not forget that the Crusades, in the long term, were unsuccessful, as they were not able to hold Jerusalem, and lost it (and the rest of the Holy Land) back to the Muslims after decades of fighting. Correlations with the War on Terrorism, perhaps?