I received a forwarded email today, whose main purpose was to react to a new turn of events in Britain:

“This week in England every memorial of the holocaust has been removed from the schools study programs, arguing that it hurts the Muslim population that denies the holocaust. That is a sign of an upcoming worldwide disaster, terrifying evidence of how easily countries can give in to anti-Semitism.”

The rest of the email is about how we all must band together, forward this on to everyone else you know to stop this horrible turn of events.

Now, were this an entirely accurate statement, then I would be concerned about it. However, the email I received cited no official source or explanation of this new “sweeping change” so I did a bit of searching. First checked snopes, but nothing there (update 3/31/08: Snopes has since included details on this, as have many other sites). So I’ve turned up a few links Here’s one link, here’s a second link, and here’s a third.

To roughly summarize these articles (although I recommend reading them yourself) this change was not brought about specific to the holocaust, but as an overall change to the way Britain approaches its teaching of history.

Instead of teaching history by time periods, they will be teaching it through concepts. According to these articles, it is untrue that they will STOP teaching about the holocaust; what they WILL be doing is incorporating different beliefs about history, including people who deny the holocaust. Here is an explanation from the guardian:

“Historical controversies will be a key topic. For the first time, OCR, the exam board launching the A-level, will also study Holocaust denial, teaching pupils how to defend against the claims.” (source:the guardian)

Yes, while it is understandable to be concerned about this, especially for all of us who know all too well that the holocaust was very, very real, it is very important to not mischaracterize the change.

Anyway, if you’ve been a party to this particular email forward, I recommend you forward this new, more accurate data on to your lists, because no one is helped by getting overly upset and reactionary without having a clear picture of the truth. In fact, isn’t “an accurate view of the truth” the reason you forwarded this email on the first place?

Additionally, if you turn up any more data on this topic, I would appreciate it (as would the others who are reading this post) if you could post your findings in the “Comments” section of this post. The more data the better.

There’s this whole thing going on in the NYC School system, where parents want their kids to have cell phones in case of emergencies, and say it’s a security threat that the school wants to ban cell phones from school.  The schools argue that cell phones increase distraction and cheating.  Here’s one article on the subject.  Here’s an article from last month describing a lawsuit that parents are bringing against the school, and this is an excerpt from that article:

“[The lead lawyer said that] the cell-phone policy, in effect since 1988, is illegal and unconstitutional because it interferes with parents’ rights to oversee their children’s safety.”

Here’s my position:  I don’t care which side is “RIGHT” or “WRONG” - My take on it, is that there is a solution which can equally and directly solve both parties complaints.  I have called the school board to try and offer this advice, but never got a reply back from anyone.

Here it is:  There are cell phones which are designed specifically for parents to give to their children.  It has roughly four programmable speed dial buttons, and NO DIAL PAD.  The point?  The phone can ONLY call the four numbers which mom and dad have programmed into it.

Why is this solution so simple?  It absolutely, 100% addresses the parents’ concern over security and ability to communicate with their children, while at the same time absolutely, 100% prevents students from sending text messages back and forth to each other.

Here is one such example:  The Verizon Migo - I’m sure other carriers have similar solutions.

Folks:  Just agree to make these phones the only ones allowed in school, and we can all get on with our lives, stop clogging up our airwaves with the complaints, stop wasting tax dollars defending this lawsuit, we have a solution at our fingertips, lets use it.