PIC: NARA (PD)
If it’s not the Bible Beaters it’s the holocaust deniers. I’m glad I’m out of school.
via CA schools back off assignment asking whether Jews made up Holocaust for money.
… Read the restA southern California school district has agreed to revise an assignment that asked eighth-graders to debate in writing whether the Holocaust actually happened.
Middle-school students in the Rialto Unified School District were asked to research arguments made about the Holocaust and write an argumentative essay explaining whether they believe the Nazis, in fact, systematically killed 6 million European Jews between 1933 and 1945.
School officials initially defended the assignment, saying it was intended to teach teens to evaluate the quality of evidence made by opponents or advocates of a topic.
“When tragic events occur in history, there is often debate about their actual existence,” the assignment says. “For example, some people claim the Holocaust is not an actual historical event, but instead is a propaganda tool that was used for political and monetary gain.”
Students are required to cite textual evidence in the assignment and address rebuttals to the claims they make themselves.
I have heard this before but looks like genetic testing is finally shedding some light on that idea. Heidi Blake writes on the 
The tattooed numbers on the forearms of people held and killed in Nazi concentration camps have become a chilling symbol of hatred. Victims were stamped with the indelible number in a dehumanizing effort to keep track of them like widgets in the supply chain.