Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Clarification on the U.K. Holocaust Education story

I reported here that some British schools were avoiding teaching about the Holocaust in order to avoid "offending" Muslim students. The Holocaust Educational Trust has issued a clarification of this story indicating that it really involves a report of only one instance of this occurring in one school. Read it here:

The Holocaust Educational Trust

"Within the ... report from the Historical Association, there is one particular line relating to
Holocaust education which has been the focus of the press and various alarmed emails. It features in the section addressing why teachers avoid teaching certain subjects and states: ‘… a history department in a northern city recently avoided selecting the Holocaust as a topic for ... coursework for fear of confronting anti-Semitic (sic) sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils’. (p15) ...

This is an anecdotal response from one teacher in one school out of four thousand five hundred secondary schools in the UK. While we cannot say what happens in every single school, our understanding is that this is highly unusual and not general practise of teachers around the country."

No comments:

CONTACT

adamhollandblog [AT] gmail [DOT] com
http://www.wikio.com