Schools are, and rightly should be, answerable to parents. Even stupid and despicable parents. Parents have a duty to monitor their children’s curriculum, and not to sign off on everything just because it comes from some school-based authority figure.
As sad and misguided as the parents in the OP are, they are defending a fundamental right that even us normal and conscientious citizens need.
You know, by the time I was 14 or so I knew a good deal about the Holocaust. But no one had ever taught me about the Japanese internment camps. When my mom gave me Farewell to Manzanar to read, I was absolutely outraged that I had never been told about something that had happened in our own country. [/random hijack]
Fair point, and they probably are deniers of the worst order – but if their claim is that Anne Frank didn’t write the book, there remains the possibility that they’re misinformed on this one issue rather than being full-scaled lunatics or liars.
Ignorance is curable, whereas holocaust denying seems to be terminal. I was simply being an optimist, grasping at straws :).
Daniel
Naive? Agenda? Dude, Hitler himself in Mein Kampf laid out very clearly his intention to make exterminating Jews the prime goal of his regime. In his speeches, in his rhetoric, in the racial legislation the Nazis passed, Jews were mentioned as the targets of their hate. The Wannsee Conference in which high-ranking Nazis set up the machineries of death was about killing Jews. Sure, homosexuals, Roma, the mentally and physically handicapped, and other “undesirables” were sent to the gas chambers, but the primary goal of the Nazis was to destroy European Jewry.
As far as A.‘s miseducation, there’s not much to be done until she leaves home and maybe learns to think for herself and discover the extent of her parents’ vile lies.
Yes, and so were other groups seen as being racially or socially defective.
** No, the primary goal of the Nazis was to conquer the world for Adolf Hitler. Using the Jews as scapegoats was a mean to multiple ends. The killing of the handicapped and mentally infirm began well before the death camps – some historians even argue that the “success” of this policy is what lead to the adoption of the “Final Solution”.
They do this with kids who don’t participate in certain units because of religious beliefs as well. In 9th grade literature we spent nearly half a semester on Greek mythology and one girl didn’t participate based on religious grounds. So the teachers simply gave her different reading assignments and graded those. No big deal and not what I’d call a “reward.”
Marc
Okay. Just to put a sharper focus on the issues here:
How far should a school go to accomodate the beliefs of the parents of pupils? Is it okay to excuse a child from a math curriculum because they object to the implication that 1 + 1 = 2 is true?
What is the proper place of Holocaust studies in a general curriculum?
As to the first, making accomodations should be the exception, not the rule. A curriculum is a common ground for all students. Parents have the right to teach their children opposing perspectives, such as that 1 + 1 actually equals pi, but do so on their own time. Or home school.
As to the second. I think the emphasis has to be on how normal those who commit atrocities are/were, on how we humans all have this capacity and must therefore always be on our guard.
I’ll take the bait here and say “no.” Look, it’s easy to defend a school that teaches stuff you agree with, and the people who disagree are obviously defective. Let’s look at a more ambiguous example:
How far should a school go to accomodate the beliefs of the parents of pupils? Is it okay to excuse a child from a reading class that eschews Phonics and embraces “Whole Reading” instead?
Sometimes, schools have an agenda that’s questionable, and parents have a responsibility to call them on it.
[pet peeve]
I have a little beef with this. Yes, 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.
But so were 5 million other varieties of human being, including Catholics, protestants, blacks, homosexuals, Gypsies, Poles, Hungarians, Spaniards, etc. etc. etc.
Pretty much every ethinicity, religion, and nationality was to some extent represented in the Holocaust, some to a greater extent than others. But altogether we are talking about ** Eleven Million People,** and I wish it would be spoken of like that. To constantly refer to it as “The Six Million” is really a slap to the other Five Million, ya know?
[/pet peeve]
No, they are and rightly should be answerable to the electorate. If a certain set of parents are such loons that their views would not be accomodated by the general public, then their views shouldn’t be accomodated in a public school. They want to ruin their children, pull them out and home school them. Under no public compunction to certify their curriculum if said home schooling fails to result in an education on par with public schooling.
**
Yes. They don’t, however, have a right to have their individual views override school curriculum. They have the same rights to lobby the school board as anyone else. AND NO MORE. They don’t have special rights to have their idiotic views protected from public criticism.
**
No, they’re not. They don’t have this “fundamental right.” If they want their kids to believe in something patently false, they’re going to have to try and mislead them despite public consensus, not in the absence of it, at least if they want their kids in a public school. The school is not required to abet their child abuse.
Krok,
And even for Whole Language (and my four kids are spread out enough that I’ve lived through it and the pendulum swing back in the other direction and will likely live through an excessive phonics focus and back before I’m through) the parents can’t have the curriculum custom molded for them. They can go to the board and lobby to have the curriculum changed. They can discuss with teachers. They can organize parents in protest. And they might be listened to, or they might be told that the professional educators “no wot their due in” 
but they cannot expect their child to be excused from the class or the curricular expectation because they do not like it. Lord knows many parents did not appreciate the heyday of Whole Language in our district. We protested but our kids stayed in class. We just did a little extra at home. Eventually the fad passed and now we have more of a balanced approach with some phonics and some Whole Language approach and none too dogmatically.
As laigle says, they can work within the system or they can opt out and go to a private school with an acceptable curriculum or they can home school. (Quite a few home school for precisely this reason - objections to public school curricular choices, approaches, or implied points of view.) But they cannot demand a curriculum to their satisfaction and expect to get it custom built for each child.
**
But they do have a right to their individual views overriding school curriculum right now. People get excused from certain segments of classes for religious reasons. They’re simply assigned other tasks while the rest of the students continue on their merry way.
Marc
Stoid, of your list only the Romanies have a similar situation - where a large percentage of their world population was eliminated in a concerted effort, a genocidal effort, a moderately successful attempt to destroy (burn) the whole of the group based exclusively on ethnic heritage …
The mass murders of many many others should not be forgotten or have their memory diminished, it was part of a horrific human tragedy, but their murders cannot accurately be labelled as “Holocaust.” And no slap is meant with that statement, just accuracy.
TVAA, I’ll call you on your claim that Nazis were using Jews as scapegoats merely as a means to other ends; the genocide of Jews and other “inferior races” was an end to itself that was considered important enough that manpower and resources were diverted from the war effort to accomplish it.
As to the emphasis in the public school curriculum, it is important historically to understand that Jews as an important presence in much of Europe was virtually erased by this event. It is no less important to realize that the Romany were nearly destroyed as well and that the overall goal of the Nazis was to create a world free of all “inferiors” and under their control. It is *most *important to define “never again” in a public school context. How never again? When do “we” become involved in preventing the slaughter of some “other” in some other place? Versus respecting sovereignty and only becoming involved for the sake of our country’s clear vested self-interest? How do we intervene when we do? Yes, for many Jews “Never again” means first that we will not be victims again, and the survival of Israel as a Jewish state is part of that response. I don’t think that we can be faulted for that POV. But the more important meaning of “never again” for us all, Jew, Christian, Moslem, Buddhist, agnostic, or worshipper of the Invivble Pink Unicorn: how does this not happen again to any people ever, has yet to be asked, let alone answered, to my satisfaction.
I’d posit that allowing deniers to go unchallanged is the first step to allowing it to happen again - somewhere to someone.
I’m sorry, that doesn’t hold up. “The elecorate” in Kansas expelled Evolution and Big Bang theories from school curriculum during the 1999-2000 school year; not just for the wacky families that reject them on religious grounds, but for all public schools in the state. Kansas has an oddball electorate. So does Utah, and so does Alabama. For education, the point of accountability is at the level of the individual parent, and only for that parent’s children.
Even I don’t advocate some nitpicky approach to placate every parent point-by-point for the entire curriculum; eccentric parents tent to fixate on one specific issue. I take issue with the attitude of “Fuck the parents, they should have no say at all” that has popped up un this thread several tims so far. Parents do, and should, have the last word on educational issues.
** But it started with the elimination of mentally handicapped children – not only was that project the source of the design of the infamous death camps, in some cases they simply reused the facilities.
My point is that the Holocaust is not a Jewish tragedy as much as a human tragedy, yet quite often the emphasis is placed on its effects on the Jews.
** I’d say that it’s actually slightly more important to recognize the Romany’s tragedy, since it’s rarely mentioned in public. How many books or movies have you even heard of that focused on the other victims of the Holocaust?
** You’re quite wrong. Not only is that buying into the Nazis’ own belief system (that “Jews” are some kind of distinct ethnicity and cultural group), it damages possibly the most important contribution of Judaism to world culture – the concept that it’s possible to transcend borders and nationalities. Aside from the political problems associated with the establishment of Israel, withdrawing into a “homeland” is ethical cowardice. It also reinforces the ludicrous religious claims about the “divine land grant”. (I used to be a Zionist in my youth, but as time passes I think it was a bad idea at best.)
The Bomb in Japan is a good example. Because what happens if this kind of historical denial becomes official policy, left unchallenged. Frex, a lot of Japanese schoolchildren – right through the 1990s – grew up not knowing about the horrible things that the Japanese Army did in China prior to WWII. Specifically, they were raised without any knowledge of the Rape of Nanking.
It would be as if the U.S. refused to acknowledge My Lai in Vietnam.
You CAN’T let the fuckers get away with stuff like this, not on any level, or they’ll lie like rugs for eternity.
To any group that suffered in this manner, it is their unique tragedy and their sufferings will receive the most emphasis. By your standards, the Armenians are to blame for writing and talking about genocide at the hands of the Turks while not simultaneously paying heed to the myriad other atrocities of the WWI era.
I suggest you research the historic efforts by Jewish groups on behalf of other minorities before haranguing further on your claim of selfishness.**
How does this become the fault of Jews? You and anyone else are free to publish books and articles and write movies about the Romany people.**
With regard to this denial of ethnicity and other blather, let me only say that the desire for a homeland is common to many ethnic/cultural groups, especially those that have been the target of predjudice and mass murder. Go tell the Kurds and residents of the former Yugoslavia that they are “ethical cowards” for wanting a small piece of territory for their own.
Oh, and the current world Jewish population is about 13.2 million, about 5 million of whom reside in Israel. So much for “withdrawing into a homeland”.
I have a problem with official curricula at my kid’s school: thier sex-ed class, like all sex-ad classes in public schools in the state, teaches abstinence-only. I’ve told him that it’s a big pile of political hogwash, that abstinence is a fine thing but that there are perfectly useful means of birth control and disease prevention out there, and that he should know about them and use them if abstinence isn’t an option at some point – and for most people it isn’t, at some point, which is why we have a next generation every so often.
Counter ignorance with knowledge. I’ve also opposed abstinence education but in my state the ignorance is really, really deep and ground in. Bible Belt ground in, if you know what I mean. And I think you do.
** Bingo, Einstein. Anyone who puts their own sociocultural or ethnic status above their humanity “is to blame”.
** And where exactly did I claim Jewish people were selfish? (Specifically that the Jews were selfish as a group, not just that there are Jewish people who are selfish.)
When did I claim it was the fault of Jews?
** Already done so. “Common” does not equal “worthy of respect”.
How many of them lived in the area that would become Israel before it was established as a distinct country?
Before you respond to my posts, please learn to tell the difference between the things I say and the things you expect me to say.
You know, by the time I was 14 or so I knew a good deal about the Holocaust. But no one had ever taught me about the Japanese internment camps. When my mom gave me Farewell to Manzanar to read, I was absolutely outraged that I had never been told about something that had happened in our own country.
[/quote]
Well, you’ll be happy to know its a standard part of the cirricula now.
While this is true, killing the Jews was perhaps the most important, in their eyes, action they could take. The Nazi’s hated them more than Roma, Sinti, Homosexuals, even Communists.
I believe they are if they want to be. And Jews certainly are a distinct ethnicity as much as any other, albeit one partially interbred with whomever they came across. They most certainly are a distinct culture group, however, which you may have noticed by the fact that they tend to live, pray, and so forth differently from other groups around them for the last 2 millenia.
So their contribution to “world culture” is less important than their own opinion, decisions, and chosen lifestyle?
So they are to be denied a safe haven (which they most certainly feel need, given history - and the rising antisemetic violence in France and Germany). They are a not a symbol which you can merrily sacrifice for you own view of the piblic good. These are people and they need and want someplace to call their own - their choice.Your opinion sounds rather shallow.
[OT rant]That’s not ignorance or knowledge, its opinion. In many peoples eyes (including my own, and I am most definitely right) telling people all aboiut the wonderful world of Birth Control in school is tantamount of a public encouragement of it. And not everyone agrees with that.
Oh, and abstinence is hardly impossible. Its simply that many people, probably most of them, would rather keep sex inside certaion boundaries. But of course, you are a poor ignorant fool. The only difference between your view of me and my view of you is that I’m honest about it. So take it to the pit next time.[/OT rant]