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Australian students assigned to plan terrorist attack

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Absolute waste valuable class time for high school students, particularly if you see where that school is. More people die in car accidents than terror attacks in Oz. Perhaps if this was at a police academy or a military college it would be time well spent but this teacher is trying a bit too hard to seem relevant.

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This teacher is a twit and should be fired

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I've no idea how old year 10 is in OZ, but it does seem a strange exercise unless you were training at some government anti-terror academy...

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Year 10 - I was 15-16 y.o.a. in Year 10. Year 12 is the end of high school, i.e. 17-18.

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Thanks for the clarification.

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...and the Students with the 3 highest grades on the assignment get a certificate and their work published in a special feature article on the Al-Jazeera News Online Edition...

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Publish her name. What an idiot.

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Gee. Does nobody remember the article in ... I think it was Scientific American... on how to build a nuclear bomb? Where was the outrage then? It was a big hit on campuses from MIT to Caltech. It seems odd to me that people express such shock and outrage at this school assignment and then ask children not much older than this to go to other countries and kill people.

If education at a higher level demands circumspection, then this is education. Hiding our heads in the sand does nobody any good.

I will not bore anybody by defending the teacher, but I do want to state a reality: this is what conflict has become. If you want to learn about conflict, the Cold War is not going to teach all that much that is useful to people in the near future. World War II isn't going to help much either. Textbooks ignore terrorism.

If I could make a lesson from this assignment, it would be this. 1. Draw up terror plans everybody. 2. Observe everyone, the awesome destruction that could be meted out by 15 year olds. 3. If you can't credibly stop 15 year olds from killing huge numbers of people, then how can we better address conflict in the modern world? 4. The discussion will show that societies all over the world are going to have to get better at creating systems for inclusion and conciliation and alliance, or we are all doomed, at the very least, to never-ending bloody massacres and poverty, probably perpetuated by 15 year olds, come to think about it.

And if you need a counterpoint or rebuttal, watch Fox. They'll tell you how the world really works.

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What were the "best intentions" of this teacher then? The less time we spend thinking about and fearing these so called "terrorists", the better.

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I thought the first step in terrorism was figuring out a way to blame the intended victims that they brought it on themselves.

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I am against these Gov-sponsored terrorist education camps. Thankfully the media is not encouraging these people or trying to provide a social split as a basis for their future attack(s).

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What subject was this in?

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I agree with thepro.

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I think I can see what the teacher was going for but that it was poorly presented. Perhaps step 2 was going to be counter-measures which would lead into a discussion of poverty-stricken countries. If so, it would have been much better to be upfront about the complete topic and discuss it with other teachers beforehand.

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Considering that jihadists all over the world are pondering exactly this, it is a valid exercise. I just hope the teacher supplied the necessary ideological background information, which I doubt.

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“The teacher, with every best intention, was attempting to have the students think through someone else’s eyes about conflict,” O’Neill told reporters in Perth. “I think there are better ways to do that."

Yes there are... just sit down and watch Spielberg's "Munich".

In the meantime- how about a name for our ditsy 20 something ? She's an adult and a public servant in charge of educating young adults. The public has a right to know her name !

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As interesting an intellectual activity as this is...

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We can go on about freedom of speech etc...but who in their right mind asks students in a western, democratic country to think of the best ways to be a terrorist?? This teacher sounds like a real ding bat, and I would love for her to try and get away with this in NYC public schools. I am sure the survivors on 9/11 their families, friends etc...would like to have a word with this radical school teacher. I hope she is just some hippie 20 year old and not some agent for Alqaeda etc...Aussies, time for you mates to ask your schools about exactly what they are teaching your young ones, because this sounds extremely stupid and possibly problematic for your future. BTW I am a teacher, and this woman just sounds insane, their are a million other ways to try and make other people understand the views of other cultures, this woman, well, needs to relax in Guantanamo, Cuba, Camp X Ray for a while.

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I certainly hope the teacher was fired over this.

How incredibly wrong. And from a teacher no less.

Taka

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Well each teacher adds their own flavour-adds their own distinction. Which is probably why Australia should just publish a stack of texts of the core subjects and actually give them to the kids. The system that was always wary of it's people. Who said; There were people sent (there), and the people that were meant to be sent went as their caretakers....or something like that. This way the teachers can keep the facts and throw their opinion-maybe it's time to start thinking about homeschooling. Do they get texts to keep in WA?

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