Insensitive, but probably more thought provoking than anything they did all year. Which means it had to quashed. Can’t have students thinking.
A high school teacher who assigned her class to plan a terrorist attack that would kill as many innocent Australians as possible had no intent to promote terrorism, education officials said Wednesday.
The Year 10 students at Kalgoorlie-Boulder Community High School in the state of Western Australia were given the assignment last week in a class on contemporary conflict and terrorism. Principal Terry Martino said he withdrew the assignment as soon as he heard of it.
[…]
The students were asked to pretend they were terrorists making a political statement by releasing a chemical or biological agent on “an unsuspecting Australian community,” according to a copy of the assignment received by the West Australian newspaper. The task included choosing the best time to attack and explaining their choice of victims and what effects the attack would have on a human body.“Your goal is to kill the MOST innocent civilians in order to get your message across,” the assignment read.
Grades were to be allocated based on students’ ability to analyze information they had learned on terrorism and chemical and biological warfare and apply it to a real-life scenario, the newspaper reported.
These religious schools are getting out of hand.
Put floride in the water?
You need this kind of thought experiments to better anticipate actual attacks. Plus it is always good to get a better understanding of choices other people make, especially the more extreme or out of the norm.
“Can’t have students thinking,” you sneer. Suppose the assignment had been to plan death camps and arrange the most efficient way of transporting Jews to them. That would make them think, wouldn’t it? You OK with that?
Uncle Dave never changes his stripes, does he?
He considers terrorism education as “thought provoking”.
What’s next?
Basic Rape 101 and then a graduate degree to Advanced Pedophilia?
Now who do I turn my paper in to?
Thought provoking? Sure… but what isn’t?
Useful? Perhaps with very mature and astute individuals, but most children would make it into a joke… playfulness is a primary instinct of all immature animals.
To start off, I would ask the teacher WHY she thought it was a good idea. What was her goal. I suspect that she might have coping / hatred / helplessness issues. IMO. A petter project would be to create a terrorist plot and ask the students how they would save the most people, should they find out about it.
Ummm this is a high school assignment? College OK although I think its rather silly. Shouldn’t high schools be teaching things like oh I don’t know, how to READ, WRITE, perform BASIC math calculations. Granted most other countries seem to be able to do this better than we do.
But I find this akin to underwater basket weaving when it comes to real world applications. Does this really help with critical thinking skills. Perhaps an assignment that dealt with starting and running a business would have been a better option.
#4 & 5: For some reason, I’m always amazed that there really are people who have no concept and can’t recognize things like irony and satire.
One would wonder what video games these kids played at home on their Wii or Xbox 360
The political correctness is both amazing and stifling
#9: for some reason, im always amazed when people who blog think that irony and satire just comes out in plain text….
clancys_daddy – by the time they’ve reached high school they should ALREADY KNOW how to read, write and do basic math. This whole project probably would have gone unnoticed if the teacher had just created a hypothetical country/city for the assignment. As for the idea of teaching about starting and running a business as a class project? great idea – problem is schools are designed to produce literate, obedient employees, not business owners.
I thought Australia was a hypothetical country?
Since when was it not?
Uncle Dave tries to weasel out with #4 & 5: For some reason, I’m always amazed that there really are people who have no concept and can’t recognize things like irony and satire.
Uncle Dave is trying to pull a Kerry on us now.
I actually did think it was accurate before I decided it was “satire”.
The Democrats and Uncle Dave have given nuance a bad name.
JB–Unc Dave has made that comment a number of times. I think he is being honest. Honestly not learning from comments like #11’s. In plain text, the satire has to be “extreme” not just at variance with one’s personal values.
To live and not learn.
Ok.
1. I wouldnt aim for the Major metro areas…
2. I THINK, propane and gas fuels are use across the nation..
3. HIT the bars, in out lying areas, on Fri/Sat nights..
4. Crack the gas lines and let it build up and Puddle inside…STRIKE a match and BOOOM.
You could do this 2-3 times before they got Suspicious..
Same with metro area.
Rush hour or Lunch time..Find a Gas main..
Crack it..
Wait 20-30 minutes, and ANY SPARK with explode the area..the concussion could kill over 1/2 mile away.
I could get alittle Strange here, but this shouldnt get anyone knocking at my door.
I take the long term approach.
First, we encourage substandard morons to become teachers. The we promote the least competent of this crowd to be administrators.
And we make sure that the only way into this closed education establishment is via “education colleges” where anyone opposed is either converted or weeded out.
Then, we allow these cadres of idiots and their enablers to “educate” the next generations of citizens, thus destroying whole nations by denying them productive, responsible citizens.
Seems to be working.
#16 – Grand idea and count me in as a fellow patriot/terrorist. Let’s bring back the country that we love!
12 I find your attitude woefully optimistic. As I spend much of my time teaching fundamental skills like reading, writing and math to HIGH SCHOOL graduates. As opposed to real world applications of those subjects as they apply to the business of the utility industry principally water and wastewater operators, who supply cities with basic services such as tap water and wastewater collection and treatment.
What are the grades like?
Do they count “estimated body bags”?
But if your kid does good in applying his thought processes to this, he could get a job with defending the nation.
There’s a game called Kaboom!! for those into that kind of thing.
Now imagine it done right; like playing “Doom”©™® at the mall with real weapons.
Now do it from the “creature’s point of view” and defend against it…
16 actually a great way to kill people is to introduce chemicals into the drinking water system all you need is an appropriately toxic chemical, a high pressure pump and a little know how of distribution system technology. Many toxic chemical cannot be boiled out so the typical process of a boil order would not work. Also by the time anyone knew there was a problem it would be to late.
Ok, I’ve got the perfect terrorist plan.
Go work for Goldman Sachs:
Buy a bunch of stocks cheap:
Manipulate the Market to create an artificial bubble:
Sell my stocks at a HUGE profit:
Collapse the market so I can buy back my very same stocks cheap:
Repeat, over and over again:
#8 “Ummm this is a high school assignment? College OK although I think its rather silly. Shouldn’t high schools be teaching things like oh I don’t know, how to READ, WRITE, perform BASIC math calculations. Granted most other countries seem to be able to do this better than we do.”
…well, if you wait until high school to teach things that should have been knocked off in primary/elementary school, then it’s no wonder that other countries do better. O_o
#22,,
really..
try this..
Run commercials on USA/Europe TV..
BUY GOLD, at almost any price.
Corner the market..
NOW, go look at what gold is used for.
Once you have OVER 50% of the world gold trade, you can CONTROL ALL the markets that REQUIRE gold.(almost every electronic device we use)
THEN, you goto the market and hit Copper and silver..YOU HAVE the GOLD to back your purchases..and can buy 100 TIMES as much of the others.
There goes ALL of the electronics.
So what? We did the same thing just after Lockerbie Bombing in 88.
In about 4 hours 5 friends and I dreamed up about 20 different ways a terrorist could have a huge impact, and it even included flying jetliners into the WTC buildings. Nukes going off in shipping ports like in Los Angeles or the SF Bay, a cell as small as 2 or 3 people driving down a city street filled with tons of people walking shooting and running over as many as possible. I could go on but my pizza’s here.
I will say something that will probably get a knock on the door.
The persons that did this were Aiming at Gov. facilities.
It would take very little to make this country VERY upset, if all you wanted was to terrorize the nation.
I will give you a hint.
It will take 2-3 persons per state, to be REAL affective.
Harvest season.
Point missed is that normal or average people can fantasise about creating mayhem but it takes a psychopath to cross the inhibition barriers to performing said acts.
Class should be split into two parts, one to plan attacks and another to plan on how to protect from attacks. Discuss how things could be protected and at what cost (not just dollars).
#22 & #28 FTW!
It’s a tie.
Good thing this didn’t occur in the USA.
Someone would have launched a ‘class’ action suit.