Teacher Asks Students To Plan a Terrorist Attack 412
Tired of looking at an endless parade of dioramas, an Australian teacher had her class plan a terrorist attack that would "kill as many innocent Australians as possible." "The teacher, with every best intention, was attempting to have the students think through someone else's eyes about conflict. I think there are better ways to do that. ... This is not what we expect of professional educators," said Sharyn O'Neill, director-general of the state's Department of Education.
school (Score:1, Interesting)
There's a Sun Tzu quote for that (Score:5, Interesting)
"So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself."
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War
I propose we ban the discussion and analysis of hypothetical terrorist attacks, military invasions, and network breaches because they're insensitive to victims of terrorism, veterans, and poor blokes like me who've had their medical records compromised.
Re:This teacher should be marked Troll (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How do you anticipate weak points (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, my high school computer teacher didn't so much teach us how to break into computer systems, as much as challenge us to break into the school computer systems, and then disclose our methods. It was part of their ongoing security auditing and improvements.
It was a lot of fun. Starting with the library computers which had limited internet access and less-than-perfect policy controls. I remember using Netscape Navigator on one machine, to associate command.com as the default application for .wav files, then clicking through to a .wav file to get to a command prompt and wreak havoc. Years later we were breaking into the main school Unix network with ctrl-break's at susceptible points during the execution of scripts with elevated priveleges (which they rapidly fixed as a severe issue). Ahh great times. Alas, I was a mere hobbyist back then, and have trouble actually relating what I was dealing with at the time because I didn't really know... Fun times.
Re:Wonderful idea (Score:3, Interesting)
I beg to differ with your point. I think this is an excellent exercise in figuring out the consequences of one's actions. Indeed, I think this was the purpose of the exercise. Planning a strategy from beginning to end, and predicting the outcome of certain events will surely reinforce the causality training. They will understand the ramifications of what they are planning, because that is the exercise.
Given that the kids were 15, as mentioned above, their sense of morality should already be quite well developed. Therefore I do not expect them to have any doubt in their minds as to what they are planning or thinking about is good or "evil". I actually think this forced thinking about such planning will enable them later on in life to make clearer distinctions between both. In other words, how do you know something is bad if you have not given it serious thought? Apart from the clearest examples (like killing as many innocents as possible), in many cases it is hard to see whether a certain plan has negative or positive consequences.
As for your last point, I think the distinction between adult and children is a little too black-and-white. As soon as you think of yourself as an "adult", you will stop learning from life because you think you (should) already know. That is why you learn when you are young, before you make preconceptions and assume your way into adulthood. I forgot who said it, but this is very applicable: "Stay young, stay foolish".
Finally, hindering thought on the matter will only make kids want to do it more. Supervised thought is better than hindering thought.
Re:so... (Score:4, Interesting)
OP is quite right: student obviously missed most of the lesson.
Terrorism has a few faces that can be taught about, including why people commit these acts, how they are committed, what we can do to prevent such attacks (acting on both the how and why questions), and the result of attacks.
Seriously thinking about how they are committed (from the linked article: "The task included choosing the best time to attack and explaining their choice of victims") can give great insight ways to mitigate such attacks, and dealing with them if they occur. Coming up with a terrorist attack plan is doing just that, it makes one think about how an attack could be done. It makes you look at it from the other side.
I know it can be challenging for a 15yo to actually go deeper in matter than the face value of what the teacher produces. It's out of their comfort zones. And if this student thinks that learning about terrorism (which imho should include THINKING about it) makes you a terrorist, then indeed he missed the point entirely. Stepping into the mind of a terrorist is a very good way to think about the matter, and if that student thinks that merely thinking about terrorist attacks, how they were done, how they could be done, and why they are done, makes him a terrorist then this student himself might need some urgent counseling to stop his terrorist tendencies.
And about WW2: in my history lessons I have learned quite a bit about tactics used, particularly related to the invasion of The Netherlands (my home country). About how the Jews were deported and killed. Why this was done too. How the Dutch helped rounding up the Jews. it doesn't make me a crazy statesman like Hitler at all, on the contrary even. The same for such a lesson on terrorism: it won't make children into terrorists.
Re:I'm tired of this... (Score:3, Interesting)
In Dutch we always say "you have to speak the language of the enemy".
In a literal sense (during the war it helped many resistance fighters to speak German, and to speak it well, if only to understand what the enemy is saying to each other),and in a more figurative sense (knowing their tactics and way of doing).
Re:so... (Score:4, Interesting)
Also that type of assignment is nothing new, especially in forensic science classes. When my daughter was attending HS in Oz (over a decade ago) she came home with an assignment to plot the perfect kidnapping/ransom crime. The teacher then selected several of these plots and the new class assignment was to use forensic methods to cath the fictional kidnapper. The upshot was that her teacher and I learnt that my daughter had a promising career as either a forensic scientist or a master criminal.
Most of her classmates also loved forensics, IMHO it's an entertaining and engaging way to teach science and critical thinking, which btw is the very thing that is lacking in the tabloid reporting of this story.
Re:How do you anticipate weak points (Score:4, Interesting)
Every armed force in the western world operates an OPFOR type organisation for just this purpose. Often using tactics, vehicles and equipment expected to be used by foreign aggressors (I.E. a lot of Ex-Soviet and old US equipment that got sold on). Sometimes up to the point where a foreign allied force is acting as OPFOR.
As an Australian, I dont see what is wrong here. Frankly we could use more of this kind of out of the box thinking in the glorified day care system that is education. But unfortunately the NIMBY's wont have a bar of it.
Re:How do you anticipate weak points (Score:3, Interesting)
That being said, As a teacher, I would definitely write a carefully worded curriculum plan and be ready to defend it. It wouldn't hurt to have the department head on my side either.
That, to me, is essentially what this boils down to, is how the assignment was introduced to the class. The same goal here could have been achieved with a scenario along the lines of, 'You're in charge of a city (instead of a terrorist cell); where is it vulnerable, where would be most likely to be attacked if the goal is maximum casualties, (and add) what steps could be taken to mitigate such an event?'
The end result, that way, is almost the same; the students have to think critically, and ultimately would be charged with the same thing--think like an attacker--but with the exact opposite spin. Presented that way, there likely would have been some resistance, but continuing the assignment would be much more justifiable.
Making a fuss for nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
In this society, it is not possible to learn something, or teach something, without other people making a fuss over it. In the previous few years, I was interviewing candidates for quite a few security engineer positions. We want to hire someone junior who has the potential, and we would train him/her to do the work.
So we asked the following question during the interview: We know that A is sending a very important email to B. Your job is to get your hand on that email, no matter what. Show me the different ways of getting that email.
We were trying to find out if the candidate could come up with a plan to solve the problem. If he/she could come up with an attack matrix, it would be even better. But our goal is to find out if the candidate could consider the problem from all angles.
The funny thing about this experience was that, one of the candidate who didn't get hired, reported the experience to the Public Safety Department (i.e. Police in China), saying that we are recruiting crackers, probably for some unspeakable purposes. We got a few visits (you know whom!), and I was to be specifically "interrogated".
Re:How do you anticipate weak points (Score:1, Interesting)
> the TSA thinks binary explosives are dangerous but lets any fool take a laptop full of explosive batteries onto a plane.
You meant "and proceeds to put the alleged components of binary explosives together - in one bin made from thin metal in a place with crowd they gather"?
Re:How do you anticipate weak points (Score:2, Interesting)
Did you even know that martial arts are exactly what you would say causing violence and social disorder?
Every martial arts students learns how to attack, but they are teached to not attack but to defend themselfs. If they do not know how to attack, they can not defend.
Example from Karate, it is only for defence, never for attack. You continue defend youself as long as the other can just stand. The idea is to use the attacker own force and actions against itself. It takes longer than do a counter-attack or attack directly but it is effective.
With Bruce Lee's "Intercepting Fist" (idea in Jeet Kune Do) the idea is what it says. Before enemy even attacks, you intercept the attack. All by knowing the ways of attacking.
The wrong way is to teach that the violance is answer for your problems. And that is as well about movies, they teach that violance is accepted answer for problems. And the fact really is that young peoples brains has not developed enough to understand so complex philosophies and the chicken-egg / action-re-action questions. They can not find out the purposes what is behind the story or what history books are not telling.
And even that there would come a ONE student who turns to be a person who wants violance and start planning and executing somethings, there is the rest of the class who know how to defend against him and think like him. Btw, terrorist is not a single person or group of persons. Only king/government can be a terrorist. The meaning what media now call "terrorists" is twisted version to hide the true actions of the government to have a control over own citizens.
Schneier's Movie-Plot Threat Contest (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/04/announcing_movi.html [schneier.com]
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/06/movieplot_threa_1.html [schneier.com]
My idea for a terrorist attack (Score:1, Interesting)
I would frame about four dozen teachers for paedophilia. And the reaction in the country would be so severe that public school systems would be unable to educate children. Then my plan will be realized as the new a generation grows up to be a collection of overprotected and uneducated idiots. I would basically throw their rich nation back into the 7th century in a single simple attack.
There's always a special kid. (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with the sentiment that the assignment is good for getting student brain activity going and for learning about critical thinking.
However, I've also worked with high school students and the opposing argument is not entirely without merit. There *are* those kids who don't understand sarcasm, don't follow even the most basic logical arguments and may not understand that discussing terrorism does not imply becoming a terrorist. Slashdot posters who breezed through high school should understand that many people barely passed (hell, many people fail).
And obviously, school administrators don't want to get the angry phone call from a parent "you're teaching my kid to be a terrorist!" so they have to say they don't support it even if they could care less.
Trying to understand is demonized (Score:1, Interesting)
It seems in our age, understanding of subjects classed as unsavory is demonized and hard to justify.
Western civilians seem to all pat each other on the back with their "Terrorists are all evil, end of discussion". Everybody says so, so how dare you question them! The same applies to other subjects. This keeps people unquestioning of the laws, and makes them good little civilians.
People love to think they're right. So if 99% of people are unquestioning followers of the herd, then 1% raising an unsavory question falls not only on deaf ears, but on angry ears closed to consideration of an alternative view.
Slavery was once such a subject.
Gay rights still is.
As is terrorism.
People don't blow themselves up for nothing, they really REALLY want what they have to say to be noticed by the herd.
Re:How do you anticipate weak points (Score:4, Interesting)
First, I'm pretty sure a student who turns into an attacker doesn't need their teacher to tell them to think about how to attack.
Playing devil's advocate - this student may be too dumb to figure out a decent method of attack, and a much smarter kid or group of kids could provide him with a great plan.
Pussies (Score:2, Interesting)
Spartan wives and mothers said their goodbyes by saying "with the shield or on the shield" which meant "come back victorious (holding the shield) or dead (on the shield)". These days we are becoming too soft and psychologically weaker. Really? We are overprotecting the kids from stress at all cost with these neurotic worrying over videogames, movies and creative teachers who break canons. Our society is full of mediocres and pussies, I am sick of it.
Re:How do you anticipate weak points (Score:3, Interesting)
I had a professor do somethin similar (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was in Uni my senior year, I had a "Sociological Problems" class. On the first day, doing introductions one of the questions we were asked was "if we were a terrorist, what would we attack in the US to try and strike fear into the most people?" The rationale was to see what we thought was most emblematic of the US and what we would be the most shocked and horrified to see attacked.
Everyone except for me said they'd attack either the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Build, or the Lincoln Memorial. Mostly the Statue of Liberty.
I said I'd launch a coordinated car bomb attack at random points around Kansas City, probably on a Thursday morning. Of course, this caused everyone to freak out. But that just proved me point -- if everyone's expecting the Statue of Liberty to get hit, then no one is going to be surprised when it happens, unless they were there when it went down.
My answer was the only one that got an emotional response out of the class, because my target was the only one that would have had people believe "if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere!"
In Australia, it'd be the difference between the Sydney Opera House and some podunk burg in Tasmania.
If you don't really understand terrorists, how can you hope to defeat them, either militarily or rendering their tactics ineffective through rising above? You can't. Good for this teacher, of course most of the kids probably came up with the same, lame-ass plans that never would have actually terrorized anyone, just like my classmates did.
Re:The Wave (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah but... on that movie the teacher goes very far away pushing his students.
And of course, the only thing you get from there is that if you pus a crazy lonely guy who needs psychological help, then he will can do terrible things.
That same guy (the character depicted in the movie) could have attempted on the life of a president just to impress some random actress (sounds familiar?).
Re:This teacher should be marked Troll (Score:3, Interesting)
It would also be interesting to not tell the students who is who. Just tell each one which team he is on. The teams have to find each other.
Re:How do you anticipate weak points (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How do you anticipate weak points (Score:1, Interesting)
Well, there's the group of people who believe that if we just left the muslims the fuck alone, they'd leave us alone, which is probably not true.
Then, there's also the group of people who believe that time and time again we keep propping up corrupt dictators and arming and training muslims and then are somehow stupid enough to be shocked and surprised when our weapons and training are used against us, which IS true. It's hilarious watching this "ground zero" debate and people calling the imam or whatever unamerican for saying that bin Laden was a "product of America" when the CIA was responsible for training him. Meanwhile Obama continues to prop up Bush's corrupt Afghan buddy rather than "accidentally" letting him get assassinated and starting over. (Speaking of which, it's kinda funny how everyone Bush spoke highly of turned out to be rather shitty. How long after Bush "looked into Putin's soul" did Putin start shelling Georgia?)