The Nazi in the Classroom Blog: Policy Questions Seeking Answers
Wednesday, 18 July 2007 Clay Burell 
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An interesting issue: A student posts a reflective entry including YouTube video on a class history blog. The video creator is an anti-Semitic apologist for Germany in WW II. The student wrote two remarks that offended him. First,
Today, there are still some racists believing in anti-Semitism just like Hitler. We cannot say they are wrong but we need to be aware of resources they make. Don’t be brainwashed by them! We really should have our own thoughts towards Hitler.
And second,
A video clip that shows about a racist idea towards Hitler. It makes me sick. If you look at the comments, it’s so funny.
Two comments from the videomaker have popped up recently that sent a bit of a chill up my spine. The first came last week:
what the [expletive deleted] you, using my video just for an attack.
Since school is out and this blog is now an “artifact” anyway, I experimented a bit when I saw the comment. I wrote,
[note from the moderator: the above message would have been deleted for its language and lack of any substantive ideas, but since said author claims it’s “his” video, maybe the conversation can move in interesting directions. Mr. “[Name],” if you would limit your profanities, it would be appreciated.]
The author responded with this second comment today:
Alright, you know people have there limits but this is extremely unacceptable for this attack on me and my video.
So much for “interesting directions.” I made the blog post itself “private” after this one. The student had actually written a preface saying “Don’t read this until I fix it” anyway, so I don’t feel unjustified.
[Update: You know, the second comment is so ambiguous, maybe the guy is trying to admit he shouldn't have cursed. Also, his opinion is justified. The student was uncivil and ad hominem in the remarks above. It all goes back, for both of them, to clear and civil writing, in a way. Interesting.]
But to me, this clearly raises some interesting issues about classroom blogging. I’d really appreciate feedback to help make some policy decisions before school starts again next month. Here are the issues I see:
1. The student’s innocent embedding of a neo-Hitlerian video from YouTube created a “teachable moment” about information literacy, source evaluation, and the ubiquity of the Holocaust revisionist movement on the internet. How would you have dealt with it?
2. Ping-backs are enabled on the blog to foster that “real-world connectivity” we value so much as adult bloggers. The rationale is, if students are linking to other content-creators interested in similar subjects, those pings will show up on their Technorati accounts or elsewhere, and potentially invite them to join the conversation. But here’s an example of it getting uncomfortable. Would you disable pings to avoid disturbing possibilities like the one above, or use a different approach? What approach would that be?
3. Free speech issues and “teaching the controversy.” How would you deal with comments from people in the world with unpopular points of view on your classroom blogs?
4. Moderation. Any teacher who has actually done classroom blogging will tell you that moderating before publishing is an enormously time-consuming task. But to not moderate before publication invites incidents like this. So what’s the solution?
- Another Comments Thread Worth Sharing: Grappling with the Big Questions on Classroom Blogging Policy
- Beyond Parent Complaints to Principals: Let Them Comment on Our Blog
- More on Protecting Classroom Bloggers from Teachers
- New Literacies in Classroom Action: A Middle School Social Studies Wiki
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Tags: history, information literacy, lessons, web 2.0/ read-write web Print This Post
No. 1 — July 17th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Tricky.
My first instinct would be to respond to the commenter with something along the lines of “if you’re not into having other people bring up your viewpoints just to knock ‘em down, then you don’t get to write about the Holocaust.” But that’s not the right idea.
It’s tough, because this is such an emotional issue. As someone who would have had a LOT more guests at his Bar Mitzvah if it weren’t for the Nazis (a lot of my mom’s family didn’t get out of Dresden in the 30s, and my dad’s ancestors are from some shtetls on the Ukrainian/Polish border that were utterly annihilated), it’s really hard for me to look at this in a purely educational fashion.
But then I realize that that’s probably okay. I would encourage the student to write a response to this person (a response that I would offer to read before it goes live) either as a comment or as a new blog post. I strongly believe that we need to equip our kids with the knowledge to confront racism (which we already do, to some extent) and, more importantly, the courage to do so.
That said, I fear that certain people at my school would call for the immediate shutdown of all student blogs if this ever got out, so there you are.
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No. 2 — July 17th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Thanks, Jeff. It is tricky. I hope more ideas follow.
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No. 3 — July 17th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Clay, When we venture out into the world, it can follow us back home. The type of response your student got is exactly what some of our administrators and parents fear when teachers advocate for fewer blocks and more freedom on school networks.
My daughter and I have been having discussions regarding my plans to use a variety of techtools in the classroom.(She is in her twenties, a college graduate, and works in a public library). When I mentioned e-mail accounts, she reminded me to caution students about spam, chain mailings, and scams. Obviously, education in cyber safety is a given before any online interaction. We can’t shield our students from everything; we need to arm them with information, provide guided learning, counsel them if they feel confused or threatened, and prepare them for life in their 21st century environment.
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No. 4 — July 19th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
I am attempting to set up a classroom blog in which approved contributors can post and comment as much as they like; visitors may comment, but comments will be moderated.
However, only the blog manager (that’s me) would have edit/delete privileges.
Thus, I won’t have to worry about visitors being nasty; I can just cull the nastiness. And if students misbehave, they cannot later claim not to have done so. If I can’t figure out how to screencap the evidence before removing it, I’ll just take a photo. ;p
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No. 5 — March 11th, 2008 at 1:18 am
Wow this is a tough question. I don’t think I would be able to cope with it differently. The moderation before publication is a lot of work but if these incidents continue you’ll have no choice. I don’t think the children have the tools to know which YouTube videos are balanced and which are biased. A class discussion might be in order.
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