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narcasseDavid Cameron under fire over Auschwitz gaffe Telegraph Online
It’s a cold day in hell when The Telegraph is taking potshots at a Tory leader but when he’s publicly called something gimmicky and it relates to Second World War atrocities it’s pretty hard to pass by. Though notably other "gimmicks" included in the Conservative list included protecting public spaces against terrorists attacks, deep-cleaning of hospitals and screening tests for cervical cancer. Yet strangely, in some bizarre inversion of right and wrong, east and west, soy milk and normal dairy I can actually see what he was getting at. Because a £4.6m scheme announced by ministers this month to tie in with Holocaust Memorial Day [which proposes to] send sixth-form pupils from every school in England to visit the concentration camp at Auschwitz does seem a little… odd. Not of course for the reasons that people are getting offended for but because it is a tad gimmicky to propose a nation-wide scheme like that. I suspect that the idea behind the proposal was to really bring the impact of such horrors home to students who might well feel distanced from them simply by reading about the matter but if that’s the case then I’d question the teaching material. Because there really is something undeniably creepy and uncomfortable about some of the propaganda material of the era and I’d argue that if you’re desensitised to that then there’s probably no hope left in trying to convey the gravity of the situation.
It seems like shock tactics plain and simple but since this is aimed at sixth form students who I’d presume have already chosen to study A-Level History based on the criteria of the course they really shouldn’t need that sort of technique to make them understand the serious lessons of history. During my GCSE History course we covered the Arab-Israeli conflict covering the background, political decisions and policy standpoints involved. If we’d been made to sit down and watch footage of injured civilians, which is readily available anyway, I really wouldn’t have found that helpful to matters in any particular way. It would have made terrible viewing certainly but by tying the entire framework to its human impact exclusively it would make it difficult to focus on rational debate which would be and still is the only way to unravel the situation. Which is to say that while the human cost of some unfortunate, appalling or outright malicious decisions is something that must be understood; ramming it down people’s throats won’t make matters better either and may even stall rational debate by crippling everyone’s ability to engage in discussion.
Perhaps the problem is that they’re trying to focus on the strange myth of schools and in this case sixth forms were the students are all some odd fabricated stereotype of insolent, inattentive and completely disconnected from reality. Because really when something like the significance of Auschwitz is explained and considered you shouldn’t need to be dragged there by your ear to realise that thousands of people died in an appallingly inhumane manner and if you do, then I’d suggest that the problem is less about the means of teaching and rather more to do with the fact that you fail at basic human comprehension.
Besides, quite honestly if the opportunity had been offered to me while at sixth form while it would be a rare chance to visit a place like that I’d have to seriously consider if I’d want to, since I’m not at all sure that I’d want to visit a concentration camp any more than I’d want to visit Guantanamo Bay.
Theories on the Speaker Nick Robinson’s Newslog
To booze or not to booze… A don’s life
Future Archaeology (comic strip) Wulffmorgenthaler
It’s a cold day in hell when The Telegraph is taking potshots at a Tory leader but when he’s publicly called something gimmicky and it relates to Second World War atrocities it’s pretty hard to pass by. Though notably other "gimmicks" included in the Conservative list included protecting public spaces against terrorists attacks, deep-cleaning of hospitals and screening tests for cervical cancer. Yet strangely, in some bizarre inversion of right and wrong, east and west, soy milk and normal dairy I can actually see what he was getting at. Because a £4.6m scheme announced by ministers this month to tie in with Holocaust Memorial Day [which proposes to] send sixth-form pupils from every school in England to visit the concentration camp at Auschwitz does seem a little… odd. Not of course for the reasons that people are getting offended for but because it is a tad gimmicky to propose a nation-wide scheme like that. I suspect that the idea behind the proposal was to really bring the impact of such horrors home to students who might well feel distanced from them simply by reading about the matter but if that’s the case then I’d question the teaching material. Because there really is something undeniably creepy and uncomfortable about some of the propaganda material of the era and I’d argue that if you’re desensitised to that then there’s probably no hope left in trying to convey the gravity of the situation.
It seems like shock tactics plain and simple but since this is aimed at sixth form students who I’d presume have already chosen to study A-Level History based on the criteria of the course they really shouldn’t need that sort of technique to make them understand the serious lessons of history. During my GCSE History course we covered the Arab-Israeli conflict covering the background, political decisions and policy standpoints involved. If we’d been made to sit down and watch footage of injured civilians, which is readily available anyway, I really wouldn’t have found that helpful to matters in any particular way. It would have made terrible viewing certainly but by tying the entire framework to its human impact exclusively it would make it difficult to focus on rational debate which would be and still is the only way to unravel the situation. Which is to say that while the human cost of some unfortunate, appalling or outright malicious decisions is something that must be understood; ramming it down people’s throats won’t make matters better either and may even stall rational debate by crippling everyone’s ability to engage in discussion.
Perhaps the problem is that they’re trying to focus on the strange myth of schools and in this case sixth forms were the students are all some odd fabricated stereotype of insolent, inattentive and completely disconnected from reality. Because really when something like the significance of Auschwitz is explained and considered you shouldn’t need to be dragged there by your ear to realise that thousands of people died in an appallingly inhumane manner and if you do, then I’d suggest that the problem is less about the means of teaching and rather more to do with the fact that you fail at basic human comprehension.
Besides, quite honestly if the opportunity had been offered to me while at sixth form while it would be a rare chance to visit a place like that I’d have to seriously consider if I’d want to, since I’m not at all sure that I’d want to visit a concentration camp any more than I’d want to visit Guantanamo Bay.
Theories on the Speaker Nick Robinson’s Newslog
To booze or not to booze… A don’s life
Future Archaeology (comic strip) Wulffmorgenthaler
