Let’s Encourage Conversation

As I say, if you google around a bit you will find that Holocaust teaching is compulsory in the UK, but you will also find that the concern expressed is not utterly without foundation. Click on the following Daily Mail article, Teachers Drop Holocaust, for example. It’s clear that some people are concerned that the Holocaust is being soft-peddled in some schools, but that’s a far cry from suggesting that it’s a general policy of the schools of the UK, or that Muslims have had anything directly to do with it. Another article in the TIMES entitled, Holocaust Group Slams British Schools, leaves much the same impression.

These articles indicate that it’s difficult to teach controversial subjects in the public schools; something Christians know from our own experience here in North America. For us, of course, the big issues have been different -- evolution, sexuality, and a few works of literature like The Catcher in the Rye (the "F" word) and Huckleberry Finn (the "N" word) -- but the general situations are probably much the same. Though every now and then a particular issue blows up in the media, I expect if we did a study we would find lots of teachers just quietly soft peddle these topics, or avoid them all together, because they are "afraid" of what might happen if they wade in. It's not so much a concern for their personal safety, though in some extreme situations it may be, but they worry about what might happen in the classroom if, for example, an all out war were to erupt between the godless evolutionists and the godless creationists. I've been in these battles, on both sides of some of them, and I've seen what can happen. I understand the reluctance of teachers when they hit these hot topics

As the demographics of our society change, the hot topics will change, but the principles remain the same. Just as Christians resent it when departments of education mandate that our children be taught things in school that go against what we are teaching them at home and in church, so we can expect that Muslims and others will resent it when the same is done to them. And the solution, of course, is the same for them as it has been for us; public, reasoned, civil dialogue.

We need to have the humility to understand that, no matter what the topic, some people are going to disagree. Perhaps some of these disagreeable folk are evil, ignorant, confused or just plain stupid, but most of them are just like us, reasonable people with reasonable concerns. But the only way to know one from the other is by talking to them and, thanks to our own battles, Christians have the expertise to be very helpful in this situation.

I want to reiterate that I believe the Holocaust happened pretty much the way we've been told, and that I also believe it should be a prominent part of the public education curriculum. But the Holocaust, for many reasons, has always been a controversial topic for some populations among us. Learning to deal with controversial topics is part of education in a civil society, and it is, therefore, an important part of the work of public education to manage, not suppress, dissent.