Teacher Asks Students To Plan a Terrorist Attack

Tired of looking at an endless parade of dioramas, an Australian teacher had her class plan a terrorist attack that would "kill as many innocent Australians as possible." "The teacher, with every best intention, was attempting to have the students think through someone else's eyes about conflict. I think there are better ways to do that. ... This is not what we expect of professional educators," said Sharyn O'Neill, director-general of the state's Department of Education.

Comments

How do you anticipate weak points

[sheddd]

Without thinking like that?

Re:How do you anticipate weak points

[Kell Bengal]

And you know what? We should have students thinking about exactly those kinds of things. They would gain more insight into what make some societies dysfunctional. Such instruction would come with discussion of the ethical implications of all those acts - as is the case with any social studies course. Certainly, by thinking about potential threats, what makes a threat credible and what can be done to reduce risks, students learn to cope with a world in which the TSA thinks binary explosives are dangerous but lets any fool take a laptop full of explosive batteries onto a plane.

Re:How do you anticipate weak points

[cgenman]

"How do we secure this area from attack?" is not just a question of putting up standard safety procedures. It's about thinking how people would attack, and finding ways of stopping that. On a practical example "How would someone break into your house?" If you wander around it, find the weak points, and figure out how to do it, you can actually fix your security. "Oh, that second floor bathroom window that is always open is near a tree branch. The wood is rotting around this back door glass panel, and could be easily removed." That sort of thing. Even simple stuff, like "How would you attack someone on this street" can be quite useful. "Oh, there is a dark alley there, I'll walk in the street at that point. We need more lights at the park entrance. Let's keep people from parking at this spot, as it obscures the view of the corner."

If we don't get kids thinking realistically about how one could attack, they're never going to be able to anticipate and defend against real threats as adults. They'll just be standing around looking like fools when someone thinks to make bombs out of shoes, or drive a boat into the levees at New Orleans, etc. Or they'll live in fear of perceived dangers, which have little chance of turning into something real.

Re:How do you anticipate weak points

[niftydude]

Hell - if you are not allowed to think like that, then how do you even write the next season of 24?
The assignment would have covered such a large range of critical and creative thinking skills - it really seems to me like a good idea. I can't ever remember seeing a school project or assignment that would exercise such a large range of skills in one go.

And for the people who find thinking about it "extremely offensive" - all I can say is: harden up - terrorism in one form or another has existed throughout history, and it won't go away just because you choose to ignore it.

Re:How do you anticipate weak points

[txoof]

Not only does this kind of thinking teach preparedness, but it opens up discussions. This would be an amazing opportunity to talk about what terrorism is, why it happens and who is involved. Students that understand the whole package are less likely to lash out at minority groups and deal with future terrorism more sanely. That being said, As a teacher, I would definitely write a carefully worded curriculum plan and be ready to defend it. It wouldn't hurt to have the department head on my side either. People tend to freak out whenever teachers try something new...

This teacher should be marked Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

"The teacher, with every best intention, was attempting to have the students think through someone else's eyes about conflict. I think there are better ways to do that. ... This is not what we expect of professional educators", said Sharyn O'Neill, director-general of the state's Department of Education.

Funny thing is, if I was a teacher, that is EXACTLY the type of assignment that I would give to students, because it will help them to THINK: analyze, empathize, question, ...

When I was in school I would often take the most controversial subject that I could think of, and something that I had strong opinions about, and take the opposite point of view and write an essay about it. It was an amazing learning process.

One of the reasons why I have never EVER considered getting into teaching is because I realized that schools aren't so much about learning as about teaching people to think like everybody else.

Re:This teacher should be marked Troll

[deniable]

Split them into two teams and have one try to defend against the threats, then have them swap. It would give a balanced view and require some thought. I'm sure the 'intelligence' ops around it would also prove interesting. "The terrorist cell was meeting behind the bike racks, so we infiltrated and bribed them for information with a couple of smokes."

What's wrong with that?

[Cosgrach]

Personally, I think that there is nothing wrong with this sort of assignment. In order to anticipate just such attacks, you must think like a terrorist. It may actually increase the safety of the people by getting them to raise their situational awareness. Nothing wrong with that. However, our wonderful government really dislikes the idea of people actually thinking for themselves, especially in this area. Just what do you think would happen if everyone suddenly realized that all the 'security' at the airport does not mean a damn and if everyone also realized that their civil rights have been stripped away and agencies like TSA and DHS really don't seem to have much in the way of limits... The best security on an airliner are the passengers - the likelyhood of another 9-11 type attack is less likely than finding a snowball in hell. Unless they figure out a way to gass all the passengers before making their move. Oh shit! I must be a terrorist!!! I'm fucked now.

There's a Sun Tzu quote for that

[RichPowers]

"So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself."

-Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I propose we ban the discussion and analysis of hypothetical terrorist attacks, military invasions, and network breaches because they're insensitive to victims of terrorism, veterans, and poor blokes like me who've had their medical records compromised.

Re:so...

[Fluffeh]

What do they expect? I expect from teachers to be teaching the ability to learn. No matter how touchy this subject is for some people, this isn't something that should be punished. Hell, read the wikileaks of the CIA message today... They are doing the exact same thing!

Yes, but the CIA pretend they don't do that sort of stuff. Given how stupid and paranoid most people are, I can see how they want to crucify the teacher. I wouldn't have an issue with that sort of lesson, but at the same time, it might not be overly appropriate. The teacher was a year 10 teacher (that means the students are around 15) and thinking about it, that allows kids to watch just about any movie or play any game released in Australia. I don't see how it is a gross stepping over a "maturity level" line in the sand.

Especially given some of the recent curriculum around how early Australians treated indigenous Aboriginals and the content taught there, this isn't out of line with expected maturity levels of our children. If they are old enough to be expected to understand that, I fail to see how an assignment like this is stepping over a line to ensure that they have actually understood their classes.

FTFA: "There is a difference between being a terrorist and learning about terrorism." - quote from Student in the class who got this assignment.
To me, that simply means that all her class work went in one ear and out the other. Total head buried in the sand mentality if you ask me.

FTFA: "Brian Deegan, whose son, Josh, was killed in the 2002 Bali bombings, said the reality of terror plots at home in Australia is exactly why students should learn about terrorism in school. He said the teacher could have been on to a good idea if the end result of her lesson was to extract feelings of regret and sympathy for the victims of their fictional massacre."
Couldn't agree more with this guy. It's good to see that at least some of us Aussies still have common sense and are able to get past all the media frenzy that anything to do with words like "terrorism" or "war on [insert topic]" seem to stir up.

Promote this teacher!

[Lord Kano]

This is the kind of thing that teachers should be teaching. The world can be an ugly place. It's important to teach high school students what kind of things they'll experience in the real world.

Unfortunately, terrorism is the kind of thing that these young people might experience. Maybe if New York's public schools had done an exercise like this, fewer people would have died on 9-11.

"Class. If you're on 61st floor of a skyscraper and it and the building next to it are struck by passenger jets, do you 1) Stay at your desk and keep working. 2) Get out of the building and go home for the day."

I'm giving a lighthearted take on this, but I'm being completely serious. Thank God for teachers like this one.

LK

Re:Promote this teacher!

[shermo]

Really? Get some perspective. About 3000 americans were killed by terrorists in the past ten years. In that same period about 300,000 died from suicide, while about 350,000 died on the roads.

If you dedicate 2 hours to 'terrorism danger' in a school year, you should dedicate 3 months to suicide and traffic safety.

I'm not in anyway trying to belittle the emotional impact of 9-11, but in terms of "thing[s] that these young people might experience" you'd be better off putting your efforts elsewhere.

Government Idiots

[waltmarkers]

I couldn't disagree more vigorously with Ms. O'Neill, it's exactly what I expect of a professional educator. Mature thought is supposed to make us challenge our current assumptions, not change them, but at least think about them.

This teacher is making people think. And on a completely different note, this is standard practice in a security audit. Think like the bad guy.

Move along, the only story here is an administrator acting stupidly and hindering someone trying to practice their profession well.

Re:so...

[Kell Bengal]

FTFA: "There is a difference between being a terrorist and learning about terrorism." - quote from Student in the class who got this assignment. To me, that simply means that all her class work went in one ear and out the other. Total head buried in the sand mentality if you ask me.

Can you please explain why you feel this statement suggest the student hasn't grasped the substance of the lesson? It sounds to me like the student is quite correct: knowing about terrorism doesn't mean you're going to commit acts of terror anymore than knowing about WWII means you're going to invade Poland.

I would like my son to do this assignment

[thewb005]

This sounded like an amazing assignment. When you choose a side in a debate for class, you are asked to think of every tactic the opposite side will try to use against you. I don't see how an assignment like this would be considered overly insensitive unless it was assigned out of the blue. If it was suggested in the class syllabus and had good justification as a learning experience, then I don't see why it should fly. Wouldn't it be one hell of a learning experience to have your student experience 24 hours in jail to learn about risk and consequence? Wouldn't it be just as valuable to write a report thinking like a terrorist? I think radical assignments like this impacts a student's learning more then any other ho-hum history report would. Wake up parents and look at the world. People spend their lives (and giving them freely) planning to commit terrorist acts. By sheltering our children from reality, they may end up believing everything they see on TV and not KNOW the real world.

Re:Sounds like a good exercise

[silentcoder]

Scorched earth worked to end the Guerilla phase of the anglo boer war.

The price was the slow death by disease and starvation of 27 000 women and children...

But that wasn't terrorism, it was guerilla tactics in a formally declared war used by the invaded nation as a defense against the invaders.

When you're dealing with actual terrorists - no it doesn't work. It worked because the Boers had lost a LOT but not everything - it worked because surrender meant saving the ones still alive.

If you try to leave guerillas with nothing "to fight for" what you actually do is leave them with "nothing to lose" - every civilian you kill in a country means 5 formerly moderate family members signing up at the nearest training camp.
In fact I think you'll find scorched earth policies is the best possible way to make a LOT more terrorists. When you make people feel that they are fighting a genuinely just war against a cruel and murderous nation - you remove all the moral blocks that stop people like you and me from using bombs to get our way. You remove the family ties that make us reconsider.
Most of us won't risk our families suffer for our believes. But when we've already lost them - avenging them can become all we still care about.

Scorched earth policies only work when you're fighting a properly declared war against a force using guerilla tactics against soldiers. It doesn't work against terrorist who target civilians as a matter of course.

Not to mention there is the whole Geneva convention and such you know...

It's easy to say scorched earth when you belong to a powerful nation. What if you were born in one of the smaller, oppressed nations - and some insane people in your country planted a bomb on the soil of a powerful one they have a grudge against ? Hell Timothy Mcveigh is your own piece of proof that terrorists targeting their own people is not unusual - rationality doesn't enter into it by definition.

So after Mad Mickey plants his bomb, the powerful nation comes and levels your city with misiles, shoots at your children in school busses, their misiles "accidently" hit your schools and hospitals and their soldiers push you around on the streets, rape your mother who was innocently imprisoned because she has alzheimers and walks with a cane and couldn't make it home before curfew because she got disoriented and lost.
You lose your job because their actions have destroyed your economy and the few family members you have left are struggling and starving and you remember that things were better before they show up.

Do you say "It's all Mad Micky's fault- let's find him and his cohorts and hand them over so it will end" ?
Or do you say "Mad Mickey was right all along - these bastards deserve to die for what they do, deserve to suffer as they made us suffer. As we suffer for the crimes of one, so they all should suffer for the crimes of a few of the soldiers. We don't have an army that can beat them in open combat, but we can plant bombs like Mad Mickey did, we can use suicide attacks to get in among them. They killed our women and children - we can kill theirs... we may not be able to win back our homeland, or win a war - but we can make them feel a little bit of the suffering they have made us feel."

Honestly ? Do you think you wouldn't choose the second option ? Even if you say so - you do realize that almost every person alive WOULD take it.

You're using scorched earth tactics NOW. All it does is make MORE enemies who have LESS to loose.