Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Here's more on that Spanish grade school that sent anti-Semitic messages to the Israeli embassy (previous: Spanish School Kids Send Anti-Semitic Messages to Israeli Embassy): Israeli embassy complains over 'antisemitic' postcards from Spanish children
..."The connection between Jews and money is an old stereotype, and killing babies is also a stereotype that was used in Spain in the dark ages," he added. "We thought it was part of the past, but obviously it is not."
Joan Malonda, the head teacher of El Castell primary school in Almoines, today confirmed that the hand-drawn cards had come from his pupils.
He denied the children were being indoctrinated, adding: "A lot of this work was done at home and reflects the atmosphere in their own social environment. They were simply asked to write a postcard on the subject.
"We try to teach the children to have a critical attitude, but we also want them to contrast their criticism against other points of view."
Malonda, who received the backing of parents when he fought off attempts by local authorities to remove him from his post last year, said he would welcome an approach from the Israeli embassy.
"We haven't heard back from them," he said.
Disturbing point number one is that this came from whatever environment is going on at home. We've talked about the problem with schools is the lack of parental engagement. This would appear to be a contrary example.
Disturbing idea number two is the idea that nine-year-olds can be taught contrasting points of view on contentious and complicated international issues and somehow divine some sort of meaningful truth out of it. Nine year old children! They can barely tell time at that age! Shear idiocy.
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I linked below to a Guardian story about the anti-Semitic messages received by the Israeli embassy in Spain. I had linked purely for the news value and not, for once, as a matter of examining the media semiotics. Silly me,... Read More
I wonder how the school's the postcard series on gender apartheid in Saudi Arabia is coming along? Maybe they save that lesson for the 10-year-olds. Or maybe not.
I don't believe their disclaimer. No one should believe it just because they say so. We should have a thorough investigation into the matter brought before the appropriate authorities. There are still laws in Europe, even if Europeans don't want them to apply to Jews.
#1 g:
Presumably, they'll get to that after they finish writing postcards to the president of Sudan, Omar Al-Bashir, about the genocide against the Darfurians.