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AU Grade 10 Assignment: Plan a terror attack

post #1 of 8
8/25/10 at 8:14am
Thread Starter 
School terror lesson to kill Australians

At one time in my life, I was a young teacher like this one (she's 23). You can pretty it up all you want as a "mistake" and "misguided" but seriously...what the heck was she thinking??? What was she trying to teach them? To be able to think from another's point of view?

Why not an assignment putting them in the place of the authorities, asking the students to create a plan to thwart a terrorist attack, taking into account their motivations.

Is there any redeemable quality to this assignment?

In the US the teacher would have been fired, especially after the stink that parents would have raised; and especially if there were multiple parents with ties to terrorist attacks (i.e. the 2002 Bali attack, as was mentioned in the article multiple times). Can the Aussies here explain why she isn't fired, and how the Principal gets away with defending her without being fired himself?
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post #2 of 8
8/25/10 at 8:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by valanhb View Post
School terror lesson to kill Australians

At one time in my life, I was a young teacher like this one (she's 23). You can pretty it up all you want as a "mistake" and "misguided" but seriously...what the heck was she thinking??? What was she trying to teach them? To be able to think from another's point of view?

Why not an assignment putting them in the place of the authorities, asking the students to create a plan to thwart a terrorist attack, taking into account their motivations.

Is there any redeemable quality to this assignment?

In the US the teacher would have been fired, especially after the stink that parents would have raised; and especially if there were multiple parents with ties to terrorist attacks (i.e. the 2002 Bali attack, as was mentioned in the article multiple times). Can the Aussies here explain why she isn't fired, and how the Principal gets away with defending her without being fired himself?
If my grandfather (RIP) were still alive, he'd say "I don't think that girl's elevator goes all the way to the top".
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post #3 of 8
8/25/10 at 8:52am
I'd say it's an assignment given every day at our various U.S. war colleges. Appropriate for the kids? I wouldn't think so. The idea of planning how to thwart them or avoid them in the first place might not be a bad one.
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post #4 of 8
8/25/10 at 1:38pm
If they're ever invaded by the godless Chinese those will be valuable lessons for a freedom fighter.
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post #5 of 8
8/26/10 at 5:58am
This was such poor judgment, one almost has to assume that the teacher was intentionally being provocative, and/or looking for her 15 minutes, which she's getting.

Being a "society and environment" class, if the teacher just had to scratch some "terrorism theme" itch for some reason, one could see this maybe being a class discussion, but nothing more. To have this be a "project", and have children focus on it within the claustrophobic confines of only their own mind, that just seems irresponsible and dangerous.
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post #6 of 8
8/26/10 at 7:41am
I can see it as a demostration of how easy and attack would be an pointing out weaknesses.

Since its' a Society and Environment class she may be headed to what would happen in the aftermath of each terrorist attack. Have you ever watched "The Colony"?
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post #7 of 8
8/26/10 at 3:34pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave_PH View Post
I can see it as a demostration of how easy and attack would be an pointing out weaknesses.

Since its' a Society and Environment class she may be headed to what would happen in the aftermath of each terrorist attack. Have you ever watched "The Colony"?
Like I said in my first post, I was a teacher at one point in my life and even taught high school. I taught 10th graders. While I always thought and said that high schoolers are much smarter than most people give them credit for, this is a bit much for that age. Considering how close some of them are to victims of the Bali nightclub bombing, I don't know that any age would be appropriate.

She was trying to teach empathy; to show how beliefs influence actions, according to the article.

"The teacher, who is relatively inexperienced, made a well-intentioned but misguided attempt to engage the students in an assignment on contemporary conflict and how beliefs and values influence the behaviours and motives of individuals," (the Principal) said.

I get what she was trying to do but this was the wrong topic to ask them make that leap, IMO.
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post #8 of 8
8/26/10 at 5:17pm
She was probably taught at university to make assignments reflect what's happening in today's world, and that doing something different keeps kids interested. She probably thought the kids would think it was cool or something.

Kalgoorlie is a mining town with a population of 30,000 people, and nothing else around for hundreds of miles. It's highly likely she's led a sheltered life, and just doesn't understand the impact of the inappropriateness. She would have been 15 when the Bali bombings happened, and it probably didn't have a big impact on a kid in a small, dusty mining town. I don't see why it's become an international incident though, the teacher should have received disciplinary action, had it reinforced to her little airhead why it was wrong, and that should have been it.
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