California School District Under Fire for Holocaust-Denial Assignment

[Scootaloo]

65. How do you teach them how to identify that, if you hide it away?

Presenting the caricature of some skinhead doofus in an SS uniform yelling "NOTHING HAPPENED!" actually defeats the effort - there's very little of that, and such people are easily shut down and ignored.

Instead you get places that make "counter-arguments" - it was typhus. it was only because the allies bombed railroads. look what the soviets did. it was a delousing agent. There was a swimming pool. The Germans were ethnically cleaned too after the war. The numbers are inflated. It's used as propaganda. Etc., etc. There's very little denial that "something" happened - the denial comes in with what happened in particular, and what it means.

You have to teach a student how to identify this stuff. And you can't do that by walling it away from them.

Further it's non-educational to say "these are bad, MMMMkay?" since it relies on an assertion of authority rather than demonstration of facts. The "arguments" then, must be taken, examined, and countered. This does mean comparing arguments, sources, and using critical thinking.

Locking such examination and evaluation away, simply yelling "WHAT I SAY IS RIGHT" is actually exactly what the denialists love to see. They make the point that such a position implies there's something to hide, that their arguments "threaten the establishment," and actually preserves them from having to defend their arguments. on the otherh and you can present their arguments, and you can present the relevant facts... and just watch the facts smash those arguments like the Hult charging through balsa wood.

As on the other thread, I'll grant you your concern over the adjective "credible." However I think that's a pretty small thing that makes the assumption on your part that these kids are thoughtless imbeciles.