{"id":425158,"date":"2021-04-15T05:05:44","date_gmt":"2021-04-15T09:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=425158"},"modified":"2021-04-15T05:05:45","modified_gmt":"2021-04-15T09:05:45","slug":"high-school-english-teacher-downplays-holocaust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/high-school-english-teacher-downplays-holocaust\/","title":{"rendered":"High School English Teacher Downplays Holocaust"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhigh-school-english-teacher-downplays-holocaust%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=425158&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div readability=\"31.157360406091\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">Students at NC high school told that slavery in America was &#8216;just as horrible over a longer duration&#8217;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\">\n\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"485\" height=\"340\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1984.jpeg\" class=\"w-full lazyload blur-up wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 485px) 100vw, 485px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1984.jpeg 485w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/classroom-300x210.jpg 300w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" \/><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tAP\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/alex-nester\/\" title=\"Posts by Alex Nester\" rel=\"author\" class=\"text-red-700\">Alex Nester<\/a> \u2022 April 15, 2021 4:59 am<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div readability=\"148.78776217048\">\n<p>A North Carolina teacher\u2019s lesson on slavery included a discussion question that downplayed the Holocaust and likened 19th-century Americans to Nazis.<\/p>\n<p>Ardrey Kell High School English teacher Lisa Patrizio asked her 11th-grade students to describe a fictional character\u2019s thoughts after reading about World War II. The correct answer to the multiple-choice question, a screenshot of which was obtained by the <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em>, implied that Americans give undue weight to the horrors of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While the monstrosities of the Holocaust may have been more intense over a shorter period of time, those who lived through slavery endured conditions just as horrible over a much longer duration,&#8221; the answer read. &#8220;Yet while Americans are largely comfortable acknowledging the events of the Holocaust as the worst impulses of mankind, there is often more hesitancy to take responsibility for the degradations of enslaved people that took place on American soil.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The quiz question asked what the character had learned after reading that &#8220;the Germans had been trying to do in only a few years what the Americans had worked at for nearly two hundred.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Brooke Weiss, the mother of a student at the Charlotte public school, said her daughter was shocked by the question but did not speak out about it for fear of retribution. Weiss, who is Jewish, told the <em>Free Beacon<\/em> that she didn\u2019t understand the school\u2019s need to compare the two horrific events.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Slavery and genocide are different things, but they\u2019re both atrocities,&#8221; Weiss said. &#8220;There\u2019s no value in putting those words in the same sentence, other than pitting those two groups against each other.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Weiss expressed her concerns and shared a screenshot of the question on a Jewish mothers\u2019 Facebook page in February. Her post was met with criticism from Sivonne Stone, then a Charlotte public school teacher, who wrote that Weiss was &#8220;literally cray cray.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You give Jewish people a bad name,&#8221; wrote Stone, who has since resigned from her teaching position. She also privately messaged Weiss to say, &#8220;F\u2014k off.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Weiss sees Patrizio\u2019s lesson as part of a broader trend toward teaching &#8220;reframed&#8221; Marxism in the classroom. &#8220;Instead of proletariat and bourgeoisie, it\u2019s white versus black,&#8221; Weiss told the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>. &#8220;I\u2019m not happy with it at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div readability=\"9\">\n<p>Ardrey Kell High School English department head Sarah Payseur and Patrizio did not respond to the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>\u2019s request for comment in time for publication. Principal Jamie Brooks said in a statement that the school handled the matter with Weiss&#8217;s family.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>A growing number of public and private schools across the United States have begun to push radical, antiracist curriculum in K-12 classrooms. California has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.city-journal.org\/calif-ethnic-studies-curriculum-accuses-christianity-of-theocide\">considered<\/a> adopting woke standards that demonize Christianity, and dozens of leftwing education groups have pushed for <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/latest-news\/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation-behind-anti-racist-math-push\/\">antiracist<\/a> math instruction, which considers finding the right answer and showing your work to be relics of white supremacy.<\/p>\n<p>North Carolina\u2019s State Board of Education adopted <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/campus\/north-carolina-approves-new-radical-history-curriculum-for-k-12-students\/\">radical<\/a> history curriculum standards in February, which teach high schoolers to &#8220;explain how slavery, xenophobia, disenfranchisement, and intolerance have affected individual and group perspectives of themselves as Americans.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Charlotte-Mecklenburg district has adopted &#8220;Social Emotional Learning&#8221; standards for 11th-grade students, like Weiss\u2019s daughter. The curriculum includes a lesson on creating safe spaces.<\/p>\n<p>Since October, Ardrey Kell High School has sent monthly &#8220;Social Justice Newsletters&#8221; to families. The inaugural letter reported that the school taught students about relations between minorities and the police and asked children to <a href=\"https:\/\/schools.cms.k12.nc.us\/ardreykellHS\/SiteAssets\/Pages\/Social-Justice-Newsletters\/AK%20Social%20Justice%20Newsletter.pdf\">reflect<\/a> on their experiences of privilege and oppression.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/schools.cms.k12.nc.us\/ardreykellHS\/SiteAssets\/Pages\/Social-Justice-Newsletters\/February%20AK%20Social%20Justice%20Newsletter.pdf\">February<\/a>, Ardrey Kell students learned about black nationalism and black power movements\u2014including the extremist, anti-Semitic Nation of Islam. Weiss, whose husband is a retired police officer, said the school gave a presentation on policing featuring an ex-cop who &#8220;railed&#8221; against other policemen.<\/p>\n<p>Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said that while there are certainly parallels between slavery and the Holocaust, it\u2019s critical for students to learn about the Holocaust and slavery without establishing a hierarchy of suffering.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So the whole issue is not to compare. We don\u2019t need a pecking order of victimhood and suffering,&#8221; Cooper told the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>. &#8220;We need to learn objectively what happened.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cooper said that while he doesn\u2019t question the teacher\u2019s motivation in asking the question, others\u2014like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan\u2014have used similar comparisons to &#8220;stir animosity&#8221; between Jews and black Americans.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of sorting through which human-rights abuses are worse, people from different backgrounds should seek to learn and empathize with one another\u2019s history, Cooper said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Where you start first and foremost is you start with the facts. You have to try to humanize history,&#8221; Cooper said. &#8220;Beyond that, especially for Americans, we need to be empathetic to our neighbors, and to do that you need to do research, you need to read, and you need to knock at your neighbor\u2019s door.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Students at NC high school told that slavery in America was &#8216;just as horrible over a longer duration&#8217;  AP  Alex Nester \u2022 April &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1893593,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-425158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1893593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}