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Teacher asks students to compare Hitler to Bush in homework assignment

Brochacholomigo

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McKinley Middle School teacher asks students to compare Hitler, Bush - The Washington Post

A teacher in Mckinley Middle School assigned a paper to compare and contrast Adolf Hitler with former President George W. Bush, which has led to a massive outburst from enraged parents.

“The teacher deeply regrets this mistake, and any suggestion to malign the presidency or make any comparison in this egregious way,” Melissa Salmanowitz, spokeswoman for D.C. schools, said in a statement.

Salmanowitz also said in the teacher admits “to extremely poor judgment and short-sightedness and will apologize to students.”
D.C. school officials were alerted about the homework assignment Wednesday, Salmanowitz said.

According to the statement, the District of Columbia Public Schools provides teachers with “an English-Language Arts curriculum that outlines the topics, texts and standards to be taught within instructional units, while allowing teachers the flexibility to decide the best approach and day-to-day lessons for their students.”

“No DCPS curriculum materials suggest in any way that teachers should compare the texts in this manner or compare Hitler to any other individual,” she said in the statement.

Do you have a problem with this assignment being given to students? Would you want your kids in this teacher's class? Who do you think is the guilty party here, the teacher, the School Board, or even the parents for making a bid deal out of this?

Discuss.
 
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As long as the teacher accepts answers that don't fall in line with his incredibly stupid world view, I have no problem with it. In fact, I quite enjoy hearing these kinds of stories from my 15 year old who relishes the opportunity to school his teachers, which he does with surprising regularity.
 
McKinley Middle School teacher asks students to compare Hitler, Bush - The Washington Post

A teacher in Mckinley Middle School assigned a paper to compare and contrast Adolf Hitler with former President George W. Bush, which has led to a massive outburst from enraged parents.



Do you have a problem with this assignment being given to students? Would you want your kids in this teacher's class? Who do you think is the guilty party here, the teacher, the School Board, or even the parents for making a bid deal out of this?

Discuss.

What is wrong in telling how better Bush is from Hitler? It is a huge chasm between them!
 
Poor judgment by the teacher. Reprimand her and move on. DC public schools have enough problems without worrying about a mistake a teacher made with a Venn diagram. It was in poor taste I'll admit though
 
McKinley Middle School teacher asks students to compare Hitler, Bush - The Washington Post

A teacher in Mckinley Middle School assigned a paper to compare and contrast Adolf Hitler with former President George W. Bush, which has led to a massive outburst from enraged parents.

Do you have a problem with this assignment being given to students? Would you want your kids in this teacher's class? Who do you think is the guilty party here, the teacher, the School Board, or even the parents for making a bid deal out of this?

Discuss.

I do have a problem with politicizing a middle-school classroom in this way. And I'd say the same if the teacher had asked the students to compare the current President with Hitler or Pol Pot. The teacher has very unsophisticated reasoning skills.
 
The teacher should be forced to write his or her's paper on the difference between Hitler and Bush.

Just another one who so casually thinks someone is a Hitler or Nazi which shows their ignorance of how evil Hitler was. I don't think you can even compare Hitler with Charles Manson.
 
Dont see the problem at all. Hell it would be a brilliant paper to write because of the many contrasts and differences and the few similarities. Has nothing to do with politics in fact, but is a great way of promoting objectivity in students and of course the most important thing... asking questions and finding answers. This sounds more like a typical right wing PC bull**** complaint that you are not allowed to question the motives, or actions of Republicans... which is actually very much like what Hitler did.
 
Dont see the problem at all. Hell it would be a brilliant paper to write because of the many contrasts and differences and the few similarities. Has nothing to do with politics in fact, but is a great way of promoting objectivity in students and of course the most important thing... asking questions and finding answers. This sounds more like a typical right wing PC bull**** complaint that you are not allowed to question the motives, or actions of Republicans... which is actually very much like what Hitler did.

Such an obvious bait post is obvious....
 
Why didn't he pick the current President with which to compare to Hitler instead of going into the past for some "random" President?
 
Do you have a problem with this assignment being given to students? Would you want your kids in this teacher's class? Who do you think is the guilty party here, the teacher, the School Board, or even the parents for making a bid deal out of this?
Discuss.
It doesn't seem like that big of a deal.
I suspect that recreational outrage reared it ugly head.

What if the assignment had been to compare and contrast God and the Devil?
Would people still assume that the teacher was making the case that God = Devil?
 
What is wrong in telling how better Bush is from Hitler? It is a huge chasm between them!

It's an interesting exercise if you use a current leader. It seems politically motivated if you're using a guy out of office for the past six years.
 
Such an obvious bait post is obvious....

Hell no, I am serious. It is exactly the kind of paper that makes minds think. I dont care if it is Hitler vs Bush, or Mao vs Chiang Kai-shek or Churchill vs Napoleon or what ever. The point of the paper and the whole thing, is to stimulate young peoples minds to think critically, look at facts and fiction and make conclusions from this. It is called critical thinking and it is vital in any educational setting. There are many aspects you can tackle in the Hitler vs Bush or Clinton, or Reagan.. does not matter. Hell you can do Hitler vs Roosevelt... or USA vs Nazi Germany of the 1930-40s. All of them would be very interesting comparisons to make from an objective and critical aspect.
 
McKinley Middle School teacher asks students to compare Hitler, Bush - The Washington Post

A teacher in Mckinley Middle School assigned a paper to compare and contrast Adolf Hitler with former President George W. Bush, which has led to a massive outburst from enraged parents.



Do you have a problem with this assignment being given to students? Would you want your kids in this teacher's class? Who do you think is the guilty party here, the teacher, the School Board, or even the parents for making a bid deal out of this?

Discuss.



I would suggest that giving middle school students a topic as heavily charged as "Hitler" is a serious problem to begin with.

To introduce it in the context of a former US president, is, I would suggest, simply wrong.

If you are going down that path, a more general assignment would be compare today's America with that of the Third Reich. It biases the discussion otherwise.

The parents were absolutely correct in jumping on this
 
Incredibly stupid assignment. Shows very poor judgment and teaching skills on the part of this teacher. There was absolutely no reason to choose President Bush for this assignment other than a partisan hate living within the teacher. The assignment would have been educational if someone the class was unfamiliar with and had to research were chosen to contrast.
 
This person is too stupid to be a teacher and should be encouraged to find a new career.
 
McKinley Middle School teacher asks students to compare Hitler, Bush - The Washington Post

A teacher in Mckinley Middle School assigned a paper to compare and contrast Adolf Hitler with former President George W. Bush, which has led to a massive outburst from enraged parents.



Do you have a problem with this assignment being given to students? Would you want your kids in this teacher's class? Who do you think is the guilty party here, the teacher, the School Board, or even the parents for making a bid deal out of this?

Discuss.

I don't think that there's a problem with it in general, but what's curiously missing here is in what context this was presented? There was some point that was being made and some sort of suggested reason for the worksheet, but none of that's reported. What we get is a kneejerk reaction as a story.
 
Poor judgment by the teacher. Reprimand her and move on. DC public schools have enough problems without worrying about a mistake a teacher made with a Venn diagram. It was in poor taste I'll admit though

Obviously the teacher is fishing for something on the level of 'both being the same', which is a farce from beginning to end.

And yet some are still saying that liberal ideological indoctrination in the public school systems simply doesn't exist.

I counter with continued examples, such as this one, that it does in fact exist, and frankly, needs to be addressed and eliminated. School should be neutral political ground, at least from the administration and teaching staffs.

I don't see the appropriateness of bringing such ideological fervor into lessons, much less a middle school classroom, or any classroom.
 
With this type of remarkably bad judgement, I would not let her teach my child. I would ask the school to remove her from the class.
 
This story is one of those things that seems too weird to be true. Middle school? They couldn't compare Hitler to Hitler.
 
Who the **** is "President Bush"? None of those children is old enough to remember him. Stupid teacher is stupid and stupid assignment is stupid.
 
A clear case of scumbaggery.
 
The assignment was to "compare and contrast Bush and Hitler".
If contrasts could not be found...then Bush has big image problem with middle school students.
The teacher in question is merely the bringer of that bad news for pro Bush enthusiasts.
 
The assignment was to "compare and contrast Bush and Hitler".
If contrasts could not be found...then Bush has big image problem with middle school students.
The teacher in question is merely the bringer of that bad news for pro Bush enthusiasts.

They were ~8 when Bush left office.
 
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