EDUCATED IDIOT OF A TEACHER HANDS OUT IDIOTIC ASSIGNMENT

While I do not believe this teacher is anti-Semitic or had any malicious intent, what she did just goes to show that our colleges and university have a propensity to turn out educated idiots.

The school district superintendent has placed the unidentified teacher on leave.

N.Y. SCHOOL DISTRICT MULLS ACTION FOR ‘JEWS ARE EVIL’ ASSIGNMENT

Associated Press
April 12, 2013

ALBANY, N.Y. -- School district officials in Albany say they're mulling disciplinary action for a high school English teacher whose writing assignment asked students to make a persuasive argument blaming Jews for the problems of Nazi Germany.

School district spokesman Ron Lesko says Friday that administrators are discussing what official action the 10th-grade teacher at Albany High School could face for the assignment given to students on Monday.

The assignment, first reported Friday by the Albany Times Union, asked students to research Nazi propaganda, then assume their teacher was a Nazi government official who had to be convinced of their loyalty. The assignment told students they "must argue that Jews are evil."

A third of the students refused to complete the assignment.

Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard says she doesn't believe the teacher who handed out the assignment had malicious intent. The school district has not named the teacher.
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N.Y. TEACHER WHO ASSIGNED NAZI LETTER PUT ON LEAVE

Associated Press
April 13, 2013

ALBANY, N.Y. -- A high school English teacher who had students pretend to be Jew-hating Nazis in a writing assignment has been placed on leave.

The teacher at Albany High School caused a storm of criticism after having students practice the art of persuasive writing by penning a letter to a fictitious Nazi government official arguing that "Jews are evil."

District Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard held a news conference Friday to apologize for the assignment.

The Times Union newspaper reported on Saturday that the teacher was not in class on Friday and had been placed on leave by the school district.

The district has not named the teacher, who was described as a veteran.

The writing assignment was done before a planned class reading of the memoir "Night," by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.

For the assignment, the teacher asked students to research Nazi propaganda, then write a letter trying to convince an official of the Third Reich "that Jews are evil and the source of our problems."

"Review in your notebooks the definitions for logos, ethos, and pathos," the teacher's assignment said. "Choose which argument style will be most effective in making your point. Please remember, your life (here in Nazi Germany in the 30's) may depend on it!"

Wyngaard said she didn't think the assignment was malicious but "it displayed a level of insensitivity that we absolutely will not tolerate."

Many of the students were dismayed by the assignment. Some refused to write the essay.