Terrorism Lesson in School.

[Rebel]

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-...l-australians/

The teacher had good intentions when teaching about terrorism, but she put together an assignment for her students that was in poor taste.
The basis of the assignment?

To pretend they were terrorists planning to make a political statement by releasing a chemical or biological agent on "an unsuspecting Australian community".

"Your goal is to kill the MOST innocent civilians in order to get your message across," it said.

One student protested the assignment and refused to do it. Eventually the principal was notified and the teacher was spoken to and the assignment withdrawn.

I kind of agree that kids should learn about terrorism and they should be made to understand why terrorists take these sorts of actions, but I kinda draw the line at making a group of 14/15 years olds try to think like them and plan fake terrorist acts themselves. Especially against real Australian landmarks and cities.

[Jack]

It does seem like a fun thought experiment, but of course should be voluntary. Here we have the problem with general schooling. It's impossible to really do anything interesting without stepping on toes.

[Nyoibo]

Sounds like an interesting assignment, but it sould have been for an older class.

[AdminAssistant]

Yeah...if the teacher had set this back in time by a couple of thousand years....maybe. (If you were Julius Caesar which lands would you try to take over?) But asking teenagers to plan fake modern terrorist attacks against real cities and landmarks is horribly inappropriate.

[Red Panda]

Seems like an interesting, if inappropriate assignment. I would suggest we make a thread were we do that but then we would all end up in Gitmo.

[Kimmik]

While it is a very thought provoking assignment, it would have been better to set it in a fantasy setting.. ie not real places. It is a way to see how the other side might view it.
After all ALF and ELF can be considered Terrorists, how ever they may not view themselves that way. Same with any group that tries to use fear ie terror to obtain their goals.

[draggar]

This is a very interesting project - but not for 14/15 year olds, they're too young for that. I could see it as a collegel level course (but then it might be considered "recruiting"). Rebel has a good point, too. Teach them why they do what they do and students could pick a terrorist organization and do a paper on why they do what they do.

At least those involved reacted in a mature manner (unless it's just not being reported). I can be pretty sure if this happened in the US we'd have lawsuits, demands that the teacher be fired, not allowed to trwch ever again, thrown in jail, drawn and quartered, beheadded and then her head on a pike. The school wouold be sued and the parents would have all their children scheduled with shrinks.

[Jack]

The school might get to the shrinks first. I swear, some schools I went to, a guy couldn't hardly have a seizure without the place being flooded with counselors and nurses to tell everyone what a seizure is and why it happens and what to do (bit late there?). The point is that they seem to act like anything out of the ordinary is the first time every time.

[joe hx]

What if the students planned an attack on the school? I know here in the states, the schools are super-edgy about anything remotely resembles plans to attack the school.

[Hyena Dandy]

If the goal is to get into the terrorist's heads, I understand that. But I don't see how "Plan an attack that'll kill the most people" helps us see the reasoning behind it.

[smileyeagle1021]

I like the concept of the assignment, I do not like the application of it though. Perhaps a better way to do the assignment would to do something like "research (insert less known terror attack here), analyze the effects of this attack, and discuss whether or not that is the outcome that the terrorists most likely were working towards"