Holocaust Dropped From Some UK Schools

dteichman2 writes "It appears that some UK schools are ignoring the Holocaust. A government-backed study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, found that some teachers are reluctant to teach history lessons on the Holocaust for fear of offending Muslim students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial. Additionally, similar problems are being encountered with lessons on the Crusades because these lessons contradict teachings from local mosques."

Comments

LOOK AT THE DATE OF THE ARTICLE

[ronanbear]

It was an April Fool's joke. And it was done in bad taste (what do you expect from the Mail).

It's a pretty notorious one. Cmon editors.

Re:LOOK AT THE DATE OF THE ARTICLE

[Anonymous Coward]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/65634 29.stm

Re:urgh

[ronadams]

Prefer their equivalent of CNN then? http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2 048161,00.html Or, if you like: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-2339118 8-details/Teachers+drop+the+Holocaust+to+avoid+off ending+Muslims/article.do But really, let's cut straight to the point: http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/holocaust. asp

Not true, according to the government

[BabyDave]

Not true. The example given is that allegedly one school didn't choose it as GCSE (Key Stage 4 - 14-16 year olds) coursework, for that reason. However it's still compulsory to teach the Holocaust in Key Stage 3 (11-14 year olds).

Re:urgh

[iainl]

Thanks for the link, which rather proves the point. Unlike the Daily Hate, the Guardian story shows that the real news here is that the Government's Department for Education and Skills have found that teachers have been avoiding this particular optional component of the History Curriculum, on account of it being challenging when you've got children arguing with it.

So it's being made compulsory:

A DfES spokesman said: "It's up to schools to make a judgment on non-compulsory parts of the national curriculum. It is a broad framework and there is scope for schools to make their own decisions."

Teaching of the Holocaust is expected to become compulsory under the new national curriculum from next year.

It's the Daily Mail

[Peregr1n]

I'm British. I'm guessing most of the readers here are not. PLEASE don't assume that the Daily Mail is representative of, or in touch with, any part of British culture. They are a populist tabloid who don't shy from publishing any old headline-grabbing bollocks without the slightest grain of truth. It was the Daily Mail, as I recall, who published a list of paedophiles, most of whom turned out to be paedotricians. Without even checking the source, I can reliably recommend that the Slashdot editors pull this story; there won't be an ounce of truth in it. Believe me, if there was, it would be all over the mainstream press, not just one particular tabloid.

Mail's founder admitted formula is "Daily Hate"

[Dogtanian]

Flamebait? Don't know if that mod was done in (misguided) good faith or not, but I certainly don't agree with the downmod either way.

To quote one article

The Mail's founder, Lord Northcliffe said his winning formula was to give his readers "a daily hate" - and it does. It says a *lot* that the first thing that I thought of after reading the summary was to find out whether the story came from the Daily Mail... and that I wasn't remotely surprised when it did. The fact that the Mail's style and biases were obvious even via a secondhand interpretation of the story says a lot about it.

More here. Can't say whether they're as bad as Fox News or not, because I haven't seen a significant amount of its output (due to living in the UK). However, I personally wouldn't trust the Daily Mail as far as I could throw it.

Anyway, there is probably some truth in the story, but I expect it's been exaggerated, distorted and "enhanced" by selective reporting. For example, I remember reading a story about ecstasy in New Scientist a few years back. It was all about a study which claimed that there were serious effects of the drug on the brain. However, the story also included plausible-sounding criticism and rebuttal of the study by other equally reputable scientists.

I saw the same story in the Daily Mail later that day. It also included the details about the study and the possibly dangerous effects of the drug, and was written in a moderately "reputable" manner. However, unlike NS's report, they didn't hint that there was *any* scepticism about the findings, let alone print those views. Result was that the effect of the story was very different, more one-sided and scaremongering. Fact-by-fact, the Daily Mail story was correct, but it lied by omission.

Mind you, the Daily Mail is full of scaremongering health stories; that's a staple of the front page for them. Along with reports on how something the government has done is going to affect the value of your house, and right-wing political half-truths.

Re:Interesting

[Mattintosh]

Actually, Hitler was quoted as saying that he was going to exterminate Jehovah's Witnesses, too.

Oddly enough, JW's were the only group given the opportunity to sign a paper denouncing their faith and walk away. Very few of them did it.