Bunnyhat: Do you honestly believe that every Nazi was a coldhearted psychopath with no feelings? Of course not. There were, of course, a few spread through out, but the majority are a testament to human nature to adapt.

This is really important to understand. I believe the majority of them were simply following orders at risk of being killed. They were led to believe that the enemy (in this case, jews, but also a whole host of other people with various ailments, handicaps, and deformities) were somehow a "threat." I think many of the Nazi soldiers abandoned their own personal morality in place of nationalism and superiority (in race and other factors).

I thought we spent too much on the Holocaust when I was in high school. So much so that kids became insensitive to the topic and started joking about it.

klymen: I thought we spent too much on the Holocaust when I was in high school. So much so that kids became insensitive to the topic and started joking about it.

so many years later, often times we don't have a real sense of what happened since most have now passed. The better majority have, and never will meet a holocaust survivor. It's easy to make jokes when you're only speaking from a historical/literary aspect. My mom has been teaching the holocaust AND our firebombing/nuclear bombings of japan for years, and some get it, others just "hurrdurr" it. More and more, the latter.

klymen: I thought we spent too much on the Holocaust when I was in high school. So much so that kids became insensitive to the topic and started joking about it.

Sounds like things got a bit off track and disjointed. Maybe they needed to be sent to some type of place where they can focus.

I suppose the main question not answered in the article is, DOES this woman seriously spend way more time on the Holocaust than other teachers? Is she spending so much time on it that other parts of the curriculum are left out for lack of time?

log_jammin: Some issues are black and white/good vs evil.

You have to be careful though not to paint the black so black that kids are left thinking "that could never happen to US, because we're regular thinking human beings, while those guys were just fundamentally evil caricatures" and get too complacent, though.

The whole "frog in boiling water" nature of things.

Some Stanford Prison Experiment lesson along with it can help that, though.

log_jammin: BlackCat23: My mom has been teaching the holocaust AND our firebombing/nuclear bombings of japan for years

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just isn't the same.

it was a statement, not a comparison. One of these things is not like the other, indeed.

/they are taught in the same time period curriculum in her school

DamnYankees: log_jammin: BlackCat23: My mom has been teaching the holocaust AND our firebombing/nuclear bombings of japan for years

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just isn't the same.

Not the same, but definitely worthy of being taught together.

Again, i wasn't compairing them on equivalence, if any comparison is made, it's due to the blase attitude of the students. Anything from "our side can do no wrong" to "hurrdurr get in da oven j00z". I wasn't trying to bring one to par with the other or anything.

/I must be tired, i can't seem to get my point across clearly tonight
//spent all day on the roof battening down the hatches for the storm, just in case, maybe i should just goto bed :(

log_jammin: BlackCat23: i wasn't compairing them on equivalence

sorry. my bad.

it's all good, i blame myself, and the sun, and asphalt roofing.

House of Tards: klymen: I thought we spent too much on the Holocaust when I was in high school. So much so that kids became insensitive to the topic and started joking about it.

Sounds like things got a bit off track and disjointed. Maybe they needed to be sent to some type of place where they can focus.

Dear Mom, Camp sucks.

If one thing I'm always amazed by is how little time is spent on the atrocities Japan committed in China.

For god's sake they committed vivisections on men, women, children and infants.

It seems to me the problem isn't that the teacher taught too much on the Holocaust, but that the new administration wanted to change an old system. I think brainwashing might be a wee bit too far... How do you brainwash someone into believing the Holocaust was a bad thing? That's rather common sense. I think the article needs more information before judgment can be rendered. It's France... she probably won't actually be fired.

log_jammin: DamnYankees: I wasn't aware it was a competition.

I didn't claim it was. I was just saying what would be more "worthy" of being taught alongside the holocaust.

It's all taught. They do their US/World history by major era time period after the 18th century. WWII and all it's horrors are very much covered. I threw that in there because it was something simple to grab on to, and that people would understand in the conversation.


/I chose... my topic... poorly :(
//she does an entire week on the raping of china
///she has a great lecture on Bataan, not that any kids really listen to it anymore

I have a solution to this problem...

BlackCat23: she does an entire week on the raping of china

She must really like rape.

It gets brought up a lot because it is the most important lesson in all of modern history (maybe all of history, period). Not the greatest cause of mass death, but the greatest to be perpetrated by what had been shortly before one of the 2 or 3 the most civilized countries on earth. If the point of studying history is to learn from mistakes, this is the big one.

Ordinary Men is an good book to check out.

jingks: BlackCat23: she does an entire week on the raping of china

She must really like rape.

Well, she DOES devote a whole week to it...


/is it one of those funny jewish holidays?
//I'm here all week, try the veal.

It also sounds like the teacher was using class time or summer time to prep students for an historical trip. Honestly I cannot see how any of that is a problem worth firing. Again, I don't know how it goes in France, but here you need to go along a process before firing. Maybe the administration should have told the teacher too much time was being spent on the topic?

She also was suspected of fomenting a protest against administerial changes to the sites visited on the trip. Now that might clash with the process given teachers and it is never wise to go directly against your employer. Even if she disagreed, the school administration does have the right to oversee curriculum.

It sounds like everyone involved needs to relax a bit and make some compromises. But it's the French, so someone's bound to surrender at some point.

where'd TATS go?, he stired the pot, but hasn't been back?..

/lazy ass pot stirrer..

log_jammin: It just seems like most people think of pearl harbor and the atomic bomb when they think of the pacific theater of wwii, and that's it. The Japanese were ever bit as ruthless as the Nazis were. more so in some cases. but it seems to get glossed over, or just forgotten.

I'm guessing it's because history is euro-centric in Europe (and North America).

log_jammin: BlackCat23: It's all taught.

It just seems like most people think of pearl harbor and the atomic bomb when they think of the pacific theater of wwii, and that's it. The Japanese were ever bit as ruthless as the Nazis were. more so in some cases. but it seems to get glossed over, or just forgotten.

Obviously, not in my section of the world, because it was far from the first thing I thought of. The rape of china, the brutal war in the south pacific, and the ruthless tactics used by BOTH of us in that campaign came first. Pearl Harbor was a catalyst, not the entire war. And while we didn't commit the heinous things the japanese did, maybe i was taught better, payed better attention, and didn't base my entire view of the war on just that.

/I sincerely thought it would be an easy concept to grasp, likely due to my own education
//since these teachings are subjective to extent of judgment, i guess i just see it a bit differently
///believe me, we both agree on the outcomes and overall view, i'm not arguing any of the facts at all

"The Japanese were ever bit as ruthless as the Nazis were. more so in some cases. but it seems to get glossed over, or just forgotten."

I'm going to have to say you're wrong here by a few standard deviations of correctness, Log_Jammin.

Perhaps the only country to match Germany in levels of asshattery and farkingevilness is Russia under Lenin and Stalin. While they did not actively seek to purge a racial demographic from their boarders, they did see astounding losses in the government backed purges. Germany never saw anything similar to such elitist cannibalism, and Russia certainly suffered because of it... still, even that's a few levels below what Hitler and Nazi Germany were working on.

BlackCat23: The rape of china, the brutal war in the south pacific, and the ruthless tactics used by BOTH of us in that campaign came first. Pearl Harbor was a catalyst, not the entire war. And while we didn't commit the heinous things the japanese did, maybe i was taught better, payed better attention, and didn't base my entire view of the war on just that.

God DAMMIT, i just can't get anything across tonight without sounding snide or dickish, this was not my intention. My point was the extent and emotion of the teachings will vary, and while some see the japanese as monsters(with all right), we were not innocent bystanders, either. I think i should really just goto bed before i have to go warm up the backhoe...