Waxahachie, TX – Some say a three-week lesson at Waxahachie Ninth Grade Academy covering the Holocaust took a role-playing exercise too far.
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The exercise in the school's Advanced Placement Geography course assigned students the roles of Germans and Jews.
Students tagged as Jews were forced to stand against the wall as those portraying Germans passed by in the hallway. The Jewish students were also the last to eat lunch and had to pick up everyone's garbage.
Some students say the exercise got out of hand when the students portraying Germans spat on or hit those portraying Jews.
"We made beating sticks to hit the kids with," said Texas Medley, a student at the school. They were spit on. It was a good lesson but it went on too long."
"They would spit on them. They would push them down the stairs. They would be really rude," said student Tiffany Zimmerman. "I think it was too rough and over the edge. They took it too far."
"I think that some of the kids were kind of harsh, but it taught us a little bit about how it was back then," said student Trevor Smith.
Principal John Aune says the point of the class was to learn about intolerance, discrimination and the suffering of the Holocaust. He says he had not received any reports of students spitting, pushing or tripping one another.
I disagree. Jews and Germans are the best as long as you reverse the roles and give everyone the chance to be Jewish….
This is an old experiment meant to fit any situation that reflects intolerance/hatred towards any particluar group. My memory is fading a bit, but if I recall correctly the experiment was originally conducted using the color of students eyes. Students (people) with blue eyes are bad and all others good. The students are informed that people with blue eyes are less intelligent, low class, dirty, etc. and the class plays along. Even using eye color as a discriminator showed the experiment going too far at times as well. I feel uncomfortable with this experiment using Jews vs. Germans as the discrimintor, or white vs. black, or any actual examples where real hatred existed and still exists. I think the experiment is actually more effective using eye color. In using eye color it also gets across the “feeling” of how someone can’t help being born that way. You can’t change your eye color, like you can’t change your skin color. When you have people who are not Jewish just “acting” as a Jew minimizes part of the overall effect of the experiment. Don’t misunderstand me – using real Jews and real Germans would of course be even worse!! I’m just backing up my opinion that using eye color as a discriminator would be a better device in getting across the effect of discrimination and intolerance. The eye color experiment provoked violence and strong emotions as well. I recall children sobbing and shaking at being discriminated against just because of the color of their eyes. I wonder how the real Jewish and real German students felt during and after this exercise? I wonder if this exercise backfired and actually ended up provoking more hatred?
Remember these students where not really Jewish they just played being Jewish (actors).
This goes to show bigotry is very contagious and fun. It’s a easy way out of all problems and debates just blame the 2nd class human…. just call them idiots…
We should expand this program so everybody should have a chance being Jewish for a few days…
unbelievable and scary especially the comments from the principal who heard nothing, saw nothing and last but not least DID NOTHING.