Snopes to the rescue

I sent out, in my hasty fashion, a scattergun email to a bunch of friends with a via-email story without first checking it on Snopes.
A dangerous thing.
But I've done that now, and it's both yes and no, in the way of these things.
At least it wasn't totally bogus, however...

Holocaust Teaching Ban

Claim: Schools in the UK no longer teach about the Holocaust for fear of offending Muslim students.

Status: Multiple
All schools in the UK have stopped teaching about the Holocaust in their history classes: False.
One history department in a northern UK city stopped teaching about the Holocaust because it wished to avoid confronting anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils: True.

Example, via email:

In Memoriam
Recently, this week, the UK removed the Holocaust from its school curriculum because it "offended" the Moslem population which claims it never occurred.
This is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.
It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended.
This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the 6 million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russia peoples looking the other way!
Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be "a myth," it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets. This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide!

Origins: Versions that began circulating in September 2007 altered "UK removed the Holocaust from its school curriculum" to "University of Kentucky removed the Holocaust from its school curriculum."
Origins: This piece began circulating in e-mail in mid-April 2007. Its central claim, that schools in Britain no longer teach about The Holocaust for fear of offending Muslim students, isn't on the money: Even news articles that bear titles such as "Britain Schools Ignore the Holocaust" and "Schools Drop Holocaust Lessons" point out that only one history department in a northern UK school did that. In all the rest of the country's schools, information about the Holocaust was still being imparted to students.

Those news articles were a response to the March 2007 release of the Historical Association's report titled Teaching Emotive and Controversial History 3-19 (overview of its objectives here and full report here), a study funded by the UK's Department for Education and Skills to examine how educators in Britain were teaching sensitive and/or controversial aspects of history and to highlight what approaches had worked among those that had been tried.

(As for the reasons behind such a study, the report noted: "Teachers and schools avoid emotive and controversial history for a variety of reasons, some of which are well-intentioned. Some feel that certain issues are inappropriate for particular age groups or decide in advance that pupils lack the maturity to grasp them. Where teachers lack confidence in their subject knowledge or subject-specific pedagogy, this can also be a reason for avoiding certain content. Staff may wish to avoid causing offence or appearing insensitive to individuals or groups in their classes. In particular settings, teachers of history are unwilling to challenge highly contentious or charged versions of history in which pupils are steeped at home, in their community or in a place of worship. Some teachers also feel that the issues are best avoided in history, believing them to be taught elsewhere in the curriculum such as in citizenship or religious education.")

This study was an early step in the process of reworking national curriculum, not its final outcome. That is, it was a gathering and presentation of information rather than an assembly of recommendations meant to be implemented post-haste.

One history department looked at by the fact-finders was found to have cut information about the Holocaust from its lessons due to worries that Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic reactions. Said the report: "For example, a history department in a northern city recently avoided

selecting the Holocaust as a topic for GCSE coursework for fear of confronting anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils. In another history department, the Holocaust was taught despite anti-Semitic sentiment among some pupils, but the same department deliberately avoided teaching the Crusades at Key Stage 3 because their balanced treatment of the topic would have directly challenged what was taught in some local mosques.")

There are no plans to stop teaching the Holocaust. Indeed, the education department's plan seems to be ensuring that it is taught everywhere. A spokesman for the Department of Education and Skills (DES) maintained that "The Adjegbo report on citizenship [a different report authored by Sir Keith Adjegbo and released in January 2007] said key British historical events must be taught" and that while "the national curriculum is a broad framework and there is scope for schools to make their own decisions, teaching elements including the Holocaust and key British events will be compulsory."

Currently, according to a DES spokesman, "Teaching of the Holocaust is already compulsory in schools at Key Stage 3 (ages 11 to 14), and it will remain so in the new KS3 curriculum from September 2008." Schools in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have different guidelines and curriculums; in those parts of the UK, according to the BBC, "Holocaust teaching is not compulsory but schools may teach it if they wish, and this has not changed recently."

The bottom line to all this fuss? Schools in the UK are indeed teaching about the Holocaust, something British journalists seemed to downplay in their rush to report that one department in one city was not. The e-mailed call to arms cited above was likely the result of a misreading of those already badly-presented news articles.

Barbara "scrambled regs" Mikkelson

Last updated: 29 September 2007
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