According to Stanford University Professor Sam Wineburg, "The purpose of education is to create unpleasant experiences in us....[It] is not about making us feel warm and fuzzy inside." As a teacher of writing, I agree. I want to challenge students even when the topic is uncomfortable. The teacher at Albany High School who faces disciplinary action might share my view.
As part of a persuasive writing assignment, the teacher asked students to use Nazi propaganda to "argue why Jews are evil," thus proving their loyalty to the Third Reich. While the choice of the word "evil" was misguided, it seems this was an exercise designed to provoke thought. The intent was not for students to adopt this mind-set but to show how people at the time were brainwashed and coerced into accepting it. Watching and reading propaganda placed the students in that time period and enabled them to see how poisonous the information being disseminated was.
This exercise tested boundaries and perhaps crossed the line, but sometimes we need to do this to inspire critical thought. When Jonathan Swift wrote "A Modest Proposal," a satiric essay about using babies as a food source to eliminate starvation in Ireland, the reaction was intense. Writing something that appeared horribly wrong, though shocking and unconventional, was an effective way to make others understand the truth, which was not "warm and fuzzy." I suspect this was what the Albany teacher hoped to accomplish.
Anne Collins
Troy