Are British Schools REALLY Dropping Holocaust Studies?.

In today's column by our good friend and resident rightwing nutjob Jack Kelly, I was stuck something in the 11th paragraph:

This extent to which liberals are willing to accept inferior status to Muslims even in their own countries is mind-boggling. In Britain, schools are dropping references to the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims, the Daily Mail reported.

It stuck out somehow. Is it really possible that in land of Oxford and Cambridge, they're actually dropping Holocaust classes for teenagers? I decided to hunt it down (something Jack should have done his own damn self).

Here's the article. By the way, the Daily Mail is a conservative tabloid newspaper in the UK - think the New York Post but with an English accent. If you read the article (again, Jack you really should have done this before submitting your column for publication) you'll see this:

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Governmentbacked study has revealed.

It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.

See that? It switched from "Schools..." in the first paragraph to "Some teachers..." in the second. Already, we've moved away from a government mandated restriction, haven't we? And what of this study?

The study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, looked into 'emotive and controversial' history teaching in primary and secondary schools.

It found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class.

Again, "some teachers." Hardly nationwide.

So how many examples does the Daily Mail article site? Three. Here they are.

1 - The researchers gave the example of a secondary school in an unnamed northern city, which dropped the Holocaust as a subject for GCSE coursework.

2 - It added: "In another department, the Holocaust was taught despite anti-Semitic sentiment among some pupils.

"But the same department deliberately avoided teaching the Crusades at Key Stage 3 (11- to 14-year-olds) because their balanced treatment of the topic would have challenged what was taught in some local mosques."

3 - A third school found itself 'strongly challenged by some Christian parents for their treatment of the Arab-Israeli conflict-and the history of the state of Israel that did not accord with the teachings of their denomination'.

First take a closer look at example 2. Looks like it's the same school as in example 1, but in some other department, the Holocaust was being taught. The complaint was that the Crusades weren't being taught to 11-14 year olds (a bit of a jump from what Kelly wrote). Now look at the third example. This is the one that J-Kel missed entirely. Christian parents challenging the school's treatment of the the Arab-Israeli conflict.

I'll remind everyone that J-Kel was using the Daily Mail article to prove that British Schools were dropping Holocaust studies out of fear of offending Muslim students.

How many examples in that article that support Kelly's position? One - that unnamed school in northern England that dropped the Holocaust as a subject for GCSE course work. What is GCSE coursework anyway? According to the Wikipedia, GCSE stands for "General Certificate of Secondary Education." The courses are not compulsory, by the way.

I dug deeper and found the study itself. You can find it here. If you read the thing, the parts so carefully selected by the wingnuts are all from one section of the study - Page 15, section 6. The study itself is 48 pages long and includes such Holocaust study details as:

Addressing emotive and controversial history effectively requires an understanding of student misconceptions. Without this awareness of misconceptions about events such as the Holocaust, appropriate learning strategies are rendered impossible. Students often bring misconceptions and stereotypes with them. For example (in relation to the Holocaust), the beliefs that all Germans were Nazis, that the Nazis invented anti-Semitism, that all Jews were helpless victims and that all the victims died in gas chambers. (pg 17)

Doesn't sound like they're dropping the subject are they? Then there's this from page 32:

Good practice at Key Stage 4 results when the planning of emotive and controversial history is explicit within the context of the theme or unit. This means exploring multiple perspectives and challenging commonly held misconceptions. For example, in relation to the teaching of the Holocaust, students are taught that Nazi persecution of the Jews was part of a wider policy, which included other groups. They are therefore provided with a context, which sets the Holocaust alongside other genocides and the history of anti-Semitism. In attributing responsibility for the Jewish Holocaust, care is taken that all Germans are not labelled as anti-Semitic. Rescue, resistance and the cultural diversity of Europe in the period are studied, particularly to counter the stereotyping of Jews as helpless victims, awaiting extermination.

If read carefully, it's obvious that the parts chosen by the wingnuts to show British reluctance to offend Muslim students are actually quiet criticisms of those teachers who aren't teaching history well. The rest of the study is a recommendation on how to approach sensitive topics and teach them.

I realise that this story is only a slight part of J-Kel's rant this week, but this is how a right wing myth becomes "real." It's distorted and repeated over and over until enough people believe it's true.

It's bad writing and (oddly enough) it makes for bad history.

Good going Jack. We always knew you had it in you.