What the hell UK?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=445979&in_page_id=1770
Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims
By LAURA CLARK - Last updated at 11:58am on 2nd April 2007

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.

There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.

The findings have prompted claims that some schools are using history 'as a vehicle for promoting political correctness'.
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.
The researchers gave the example of a secondary school in an unnamed northern city, which dropped the Holocaust as a subject for GCSE coursework.

The report said teachers feared confronting 'anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils'.
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."

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'.

The report concluded: "In particular settings, teachers of history are unwilling to challenge highly contentious or charged versions of history in which pupils are steeped at home, in their community or in a place of worship."

But Chris McGovern, history education adviser to the former Tory government, said: "History is not a vehicle for promoting political correctness.
Children must have access to knowledge of these controversial subjects, whether palatable or unpalatable."

The researchers also warned that a lack of subject knowledge among teachers - particularly at primary level - was leading to history being taught in a 'shallow way leading to routine and superficial learning'.

Lessons in difficult topics were too often 'bland, simplistic and unproblematic' and bored pupils.


WTF...

Political Correctness in action.   

You have to understand that Muslims make up a majority in many communities.  Schools will adjust the curriculum based on the demographics of the area.    I lived in/near a large Jewish population but the nearby towns were heavily Muslim.  Jewish schools will have a completely different curriculum than the schools in the Muslim area a few miles away.
 

[krazybuc]

we now have a new definition of pathetic

[OpTiOnMaStA]

Britain is having a terrible problem with muslims in the north. I heard a statistic today that something like 97% of the population is christian but only 3% of the churchgoers are christian. Muslims are buying old christian churches and turning them into mosques. It is scaring the crap out of people there.

[karen anderson]

How does the holocaust offend muslims?

Britain is having a terrible problem with muslims in the north. I heard a statistic today that something like 97% of the population is christian but only 3% of the churchgoers are christian. Muslims are buying old christian churches and turning them into mosques. It is scaring the crap out of people there.

The UK is about 70% Christian but a very small minority of those are practicing Christians.  Muslins are a small minority of the entire population but in some towns they have strongholds.  I know of areas that it would not be safe to walk the streets at night if you were not a Muslim.  Then again I know of areas that it isn’t safe to walk if you are white.

How does the holocaust offend muslims?

Muslims hate Jews, and Jews hate Muslims, so they are just staying away from confrontational topics.  I dated a Jewish girl for a couple of years and her dad would verbally abuse Indians and Pakistanis from the car as he drove down the road.

[leeroybuc93]

How does the holocaust offend muslims?

Muslims hate Jews, and Jews hate Muslims, so they are just staying away from confrontational topics. I dated a Jewish girl for a couple of years and her dad would verbally abuse Indians and Pakistanis from the car as he drove down the road.

I don't understand how teaching the holocaust is confrontational.  And if it is, too damned bad because it's history and that's the way it was!  Should we stop teaching about slavery because it might offend southern people or WWII because it might offend the Japanese?  Of course the answer is no and I don't see how this is any different.

I don't understand how teaching the holocaust is confrontational.

Maybe not to most of us but if you get a classroom full of Muslims it can turn into a hot topic. 

[karen anderson]

Iran denies it!

Iran denies it!

A lot of people dispute the holocaust numbers.

[karen anderson]

Not just the numbers, that it happened at all.

[ufojoe]

Not just the numbers, that it happened at all.

I think they dispute the numbers only. Dispute them in a big way. But from what I
have read, it's not clear. Either way, people shouldn't be put in jail for it. See
Ernst Zundel, who is in jail now in Germany.

* * * * *

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16149717/

Ahmadinejad announced the conference would set up a “fact-finding commission� to determine whether the Holocaust happened or not. The commission will “help end a 60-year-old dispute,� he said.

The Tehran conference was touted by participants and organizers as an exercise in academic freedom and a chance to openly consider whether 6 million Jews really died in the Holocaust, away from Western taboos and the restrictions imposed on scholars in Europe, where some countries have made it a crime to deny the Nazi genocide during World War II.

It gathered 67 writers and researchers from 30 countries, most of whom argue that either the Holocaust did not happen or that it was vastly exaggerated. Many have been jailed or fined in France, Germany or Austria, where it is illegal to deny the Holocaust.

Participants milled around a model of the Auschwitz concentration camp brought by one speaker, Australian Frederick Toben, who uses the mock-up in lectures contending that the camp was too small to kill mass numbers of Jews. More than 1 million people are estimated to have been killed there.

Jewish group attends conference
Rabbi Moshe David Weiss, one of six members attending from the group Jews United Against Zionism, told delegates, “We don’t want to deny the killing of Jews in World War II, but Zionists have given much higher figures for how many people were killed.�

“They have used the Holocaust as a device to justify their oppression,� he said. His group rejects the creation of Israel on the grounds that it violates Jewish religious law.

* * * * * * * * * *

The title of that article is: Iranian Leader: Israel Will Be Wiped Out

Then, in the article, it says...

But Ahmadinejad appeared to revel in his meeting Tuesday with conference delegates, shaking hands with American participants and sitting near six anti-Israel Jewish participants, dressed in black ultra-Orthodox coats and hats.

“The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom,� Ahmadinejad said during Tuesday’s meeting in his offices, according to the official IRNA news agency.

He called for elections among “Jews, Christians and Muslims so the population of Palestine can select their government and destiny for themselves in a democratic manner.�

* * * * *

Doesn't match the headline.

[karen anderson]

What are those funky looking letters in your post, Joe?

[ufojoe]

I don't see them. Congrats on last night!

BTW, has anybody seen a legitimate translation where Ahmadinejad says he wants
to nuke, or take out the entire country of Israel. What I usually see from him is
that he wants to take out the current regime. Calling for elections among Jews,
Christians and Muslims seems opposite to the way he is portrayed in the press
at times.