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When a Teacher Made His Students Debate Hitler's Final Solution
(Kveller) Lior Zaltzman - In 2017 in Oswego, New York, during a college-level English class at the Center for Instruction, Technology and Innovation, a teacher asked his students to imagine being one of the Nazis at Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin, where they discussed the implementation of the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." He asked his students to argue for, or against, the Final Solution. Two of the students, Archer Shurtliff and Jordan April, spoke out and pointed out the tastelessness of the assignment. Shurtliff told Oswego County News Now, he understood where the assignment was coming from but he found it unacceptable: "You can play the devil's advocate, but you can't be the devil." New York Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, when first asked about it, claimed that it was an exercise in "critical thinking." But Shurtliff and April took their fight to the media and to the Anti-Defamation League - and eventually, they won. Elia agreed to make sure the assignment was never given again in New York State.