Vegas teacher accused of denying Holocaust

That is almost a verbatim quote of what S.A.M. said. Read the thread.

 

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The question to me is one of degree. How many people are "accused" of misrepresenting history, science or geography [maps in the US are politically motivated] and taken to account for it? The idea that someone making a controversial point of view in a classroom, right or wrong should be banned is unsavoury. The whole idea of shutting down ANY discourse in a classroom [unless its violent or pornographic or abusive] for reasons of political bent or religious inclination, especially when its part of a life course, rather than part of a subject course is extremely strange. We don't study the holocaust as perhaps Americans do, in our school and I can easily see people from Asia coming to the US and asking questions like that. To put people out of work for a political opinion, even an uneducated one, is extremely strange. Just for example, if the same woman had been from Texas had questioned the official version of the history of Texas and opted for a version which was anti-US [and maybe even errorneous] should she as a gym teacher teaching a class on how to prepare for life, be banned from teaching gym in school? What if the art teacher is a creationist? Should she banned from teaching art if she expresses her creationist views in an art class? To what extent should we control what people say or express?

 

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Weeeeelll - - - - -

So is that a reasonable position for them to take?

Surely the answer to this:

is not "zero", at least not in a high school classroom, eh?

 

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It is where I come from. But then we are trained that there is more than one way to think about things [or at least, it was like that when I was younger] and the teacher is giving you tools to think not telling you what to think. There are many places where rote learning is emphasised and perhaps in that case what people are taught to think becomes relevant. Opinion is not fact.

Could you respond to this?

 

That particular example is not at all hypothetical - see the official curriculum of the Texas schools - and no one to my knowledge has ever been admonished, even, on its account.

For one thing, AFAIK there is no "official version" of the history of anything, in the US schools. No such dogma as you imagine is enforced. The US is still struggling with the idea of a standard curriculum of subjects covered, even.

Again, common event. Creationist views are expressed by the teachers in biology class, even, in some classrooms in the US. Sometimes it gets them into trouble, mostly it doesn't. It depends on what they actually say and do.

Because degree matters, see? Students are expected to encounter a wide range of varied opinions about things, in school. Conflict with official dogma is not a significant matter, at least not anywhere I've ever had much dealing with.

Someone telling children that the Germans could not have killed so many Jews because they lacked the technology to do so is not coming into conflict with dogma, but with fact and reason - and doing so in a famously dangerous manner, one with a history of instigating horrors.

To pick a milder example, how accepting would you be of a gym teacher who repeatedly told his students that women only got pregnant if they had sex during menstruation? He's not a biology teacher, it's his opinion, so no problem in your view?

 

It's illegal to not believe in something? How do you force a belief on someone?

 

you're right, i've edited the post. i had been reading the thread, i'd misread the post i quoted.

 

And history is not opinion. Hence your argument has no bearing; the teacher in question got in hot water for propounding counter-factual information.

 

My high-school physics professor started off the year by stating that the Earth is flat. He then challenged us to prove him wrong and defeated every argument we could come up with. Of course, by the end of the semester we were able to prove the Earth was spherical by several methods.

The point being that knowledge is not a matter of authority. Counter-factual arguments are defeated by factual arguments, not by proclamation. I have to agree with SAM here that such a position is "unsavoury". I'll go even further and declare it dangerous. We've become so intolerant in this country to any opinion in conflict to the general consensus that we're moving well on our way towards fascism.

Now perhaps the teacher is unqualified to teach anything but gym. Certainly it seems that such a case could be made in this case. But to regularly fire and pillory people for unpopular, even erroneous, beliefs and statements is a frightfully dangerous ethic.

~Raithere

 

"History is written by the victors". I agree with Raithere, better to hear people spouting some stupid shit than take away freedom of speech.

 

I think there should be more oversight into this question. My father once got into trouble with his teacher after asserting that Columbus did not actually discover America (this was in the 1950's). These falsehoods are commonly taught as truth, especially in the lower grades.

 

Colombus didn't really discover America.

1) Vikings and another people (non-natives) who I can't remember right now, landed on the continent before he did. And, of course, there were natives living here who naturally "discovered" it first.

 

That's what I meant, he was right.

 

That has never actually been demonstrated as a tactic employed by Americans, though it is a commonly told tale. It still may be folkloric based on similar stories widespread among Native Americans following teh French and Indian War.

In that case, there are direct reports of one event of this in 1763 at Fort Pitt when a Captain Eucyer of the British army knowingly gave smallpox infected blankets (and handkerchiefs) to Native Americans. There is further direct evidence that Lord Jeffry Amherst considered it during Pontiac's Rebellion (and circumstantial evidence that he carried it out since the natives were suffering from the disease a year after he suggested the tactic) in a letter to Colonel Henry Bouquet.

That said, it was a dangerous tactic at best, as the vaccine for smallpox was not discovered until 1796, and not widely used in the Americas until a few years afterward. Any soldier taking part in the scheme was reasonably likely to contract smallpox himself, remembering that they had no "germ theory" of disease at the time and no notion that the soldiers involved should wash up afterward to limit the risk of spreading the infection.

http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_jeff.html

I am not sure that there is evidence of the use of the tactic by Americans proper, or at least I have never come across any. Not that Americans were above it, but smallpox outbreaks became rare after the vaccine went into wider use and you don't see letters referring to it, even amongst those unashamed of their hatred for natives.

 

But we aren't talking about "regularly" or generally "unpopular", etc. We are talking about a specific type of falsehood, delivered without opportunity for debate or contradiction or anything else, in a specific kind of circumstance, by the teacher in charge.

So what do you think of my example - of the gym teacher delivering his opinion that girls only got pregnant from sex during menstruation? Do you tolerate that, or do you accept the drawing of lines in a school setting?

General arguments about "free speech" etc aren't to the point, btw. We commonly curb the expression of personal opinion in various professional and official settings, where power can too easily trump reality.

 

Opinions on biology resemble opinions on engineering or historical (physical) event, or at least that seems reasonable to me.

No opinions on "politics" have been introduced in this discussion.

And like you, I'm "just asking" - how far are the people advocating the tolerance of this kind of "opinion" willing to go, in situations where their apparent bigotries are not being coddled?

 

In many European countries, for example, it's actually against the law to deny that the Holocaust occurred. I'd say that's a good way of forcing a belief on people.