John Simkin

It has just been reported that Becta has just negotiated a new deal with Microsoft. According to the press release schools will be paying between 20% and 37% less for licences, saving them around £47m in total. I know little about software prices but is this really a good deal?

Did you know the Adam Smith Institute, the ultra-rightwing lobby group, now receives more money from Britain's Department for International Development (DfID) than Liberia or Somalia, two of the poorest nations in the world? Last year the Adam Smith Institute received £7.6m in foreign aid. What do they do for their money? Well, the same thing they do for the British government. They advise on how to privatise government services. The advice they gave to the South African government led to 10 million having their water cut off. A similar number lost their electricity and another 2 million were evicted from their homes.

As George Monbiot points out in today’s Guardian this policy was pioneered by Clare Short. This passage from Monbiot’s article is especially powerful.

Aid has always been an instrument of foreign policy. During the cold war, it was used to buy the loyalties of states that might otherwise have crossed to the other side. Even today, the countries that receive the most money tend to be those that are of greatest strategic use to the donor nation, which is why the US gives more to Israel than it does to sub-Saharan Africa.

But foreign policy is also driven by commerce, and in particular by the needs of domestic exporters. Aid goes to countries that can buy our manufacturers' products. Sometimes it doesn't go to countries at all, but straight to the manufacturers. A US government website boasts that "the principal beneficiary of America's foreign assistance programs has always been the United States. Close to 80% of the US Agency for International Development's contracts and grants go directly to American firms."

A doctor working in Gondar hospital in Ethiopia wrote to me recently to spell out what this means. The hospital has none of the basic textbooks on tropical diseases it needs. But it does have 21 copies of an 800-page volume called Aesthetic Facial Surgery and 24 volumes of a book called Opthalmic Pathology. There is no opthalmic pathologist in training in Ethiopia. The poorest nation on Earth, unsurprisingly, has no aesthetic plastic surgeons. The US had spent $2m on medical textbooks that American publishers hadn't been able to sell at home, called them aid and dumped them in Ethiopia.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,...1116854,00.html

Did you know the Adam Smith Institute, the ultra-rightwing lobby group, now receives more money from Britain's Department for International Development (DfID) than Liberia or Somalia, two of the poorest nations in the world. Last year the Adam Smith Institute received £7.6m in foreign aid. What do they do for their money? Well, the same thing they do for the British government. They advise on how to privatise government services. The advice they gave to the South African government led to 10 million having their water cut off. A similar number lost their electricity and another 2 million were evicted from their homes.

As George Monbiot points out in today’s Guardian this policy was pioneered by Clare Short. This passage from Monbiot’s article is especially powerful.

Aid has always been an instrument of foreign policy. During the cold war, it was used to buy the loyalties of states that might otherwise have crossed to the other side. Even today, the countries that receive the most money tend to be those that are of greatest strategic use to the donor nation, which is why the US gives more to Israel than it does to sub-Saharan Africa.

But foreign policy is also driven by commerce, and in particular by the needs of domestic exporters. Aid goes to countries that can buy our manufacturers' products. Sometimes it doesn't go to countries at all, but straight to the manufacturers. A US government website boasts that "the principal beneficiary of America's foreign assistance programs has always been the United States. Close to 80% of the US Agency for International Development's contracts and grants go directly to American firms."

A doctor working in Gondar hospital in Ethiopia wrote to me recently to spell out what this means. The hospital has none of the basic textbooks on tropical diseases it needs. But it does have 21 copies of an 800-page volume called Aesthetic Facial Surgery and 24 volumes of a book called Opthalmic Pathology. There is no opthalmic pathologist in training in Ethiopia. The poorest nation on Earth, unsurprisingly, has no aesthetic plastic surgeons. The US had spent $2m on medical textbooks that American publishers hadn't been able to sell at home, called them aid and dumped them in Ethiopia."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,...1116854,00.html

There are approximately 300 MILLIONS arabs in the Middle East......surrounding 5 MILLION Jews. The Jews are persecuting arabs??

Working in ISrael, getting ISraeli health care and social services is the right of all arabs of Palestine?? Illegally entering Israel to detonate bombs in Jerusalem busses are natural rights of arabs? and stopping that is persecution??

Mr Simkin, I ask you sir, are you qualified to teach anything?

I don’t mind you passing comment about my ability to teach history (unless of course you are an Ofsted inspector). However, others might be deeply offended by comments like that. It is hoped that in future your contributions will maintain a more academic tone. I would hate to think that members of this forum might be reluctant to post their views because they fear you will resort to the use of irrational, abusive comments.

Jews may, or maybe not, be persecuting Arabs. However, the relative numbers of the two groups is irrelevant. For many years a minority group (white people) persecuted blacks in South Africa. In fact, the idea of being outnumbered is often a psychological factor in encouraging intolerance and persecution.

I was not of course suggesting that Israel was persecuting all Arabs in the Middle East. As you know, the issue here concerns the way Israel is treating Arabs in the occupied territories. You no doubt will justify this treatment as a means to punish those using acts of terrorism against the state of Israel. The problem for all occupying forces, and this includes Allied forces now in Iraq, is that it is very difficult to identify people who are terrorists/freedom fighters. The result is that you end up treating innocent civilians as if they are terrorists. The inevitable consequence of this behaviour is that more and more of these civilians either become terrorists themselves or become willing to do what they can to protect those people who they now consider to be freedom fighters.

This is why the situation in Palestine and Iraq is so similar to the situation in Vietnam in the 1960s. The occupying forces do of course see themselves as liberators concerned with protecting the civil rights of the host population. However, the host population see them as members of an occupying force. The number of people resisting this occupying force gradual grows. The tactics used by the terrorists/freedom fighters becomes more and more extreme. The occupying force retaliates by using more and more force against an enemy that they find difficult to identify. This inevitably means an increase in the suffering of civilians and the production of more terrorists.

My reading of history tells me that it will only be a matter of time before the occupying force realises that it has made a terrible mistake. As in Vietnam, and all those other countries occupied illegally over the years, the foreign armies will eventually leave. The longer this takes, the more bitter will be the consequences. The state of Israel is a democracy and so the answer to this problem is in the hands of the Israelis. One of the most distressing aspects of this illegal occupation is that this hardline strategy is popular with the Israeli people. History indicates that this will eventually change (although the atrocities committed by the terrorists/freedom fighters will definitely encourage some sections of the population to call for more extreme measures to be taken). It was eventually domestic democratic pressure that forced the United States Army out of Vietnam. The same will no doubt happen in Iraq and Palestine.

Jews have been persecuted for thousands of years. For much of that time they identified with other persecuted groups. In South Africa and the United States they played important roles in supporting people being persecuted because of the colour of their skin or their left-wing political views. It is a reputation that has unfortunately been severely damaged over the last few years.

I am inclined to add my feelings behind Dan and not behind Andy. It's a shame some people have to be so full of victriolic and rhetoric - where is your spirit of the objective and parity driven historian, Andy? All I can sense is tension and anger which I don't believe befits this topic. I agree with your notion that the debate must be widened to include the unfortunate events and tragedies experienced by all nations, creds, colours, religions and societies but not whilst you attack one or other nations.

Dear Moderator - isn't this also straying from the topic of "Teaching the Holocaust"?

You later corrected this to John (John Kelly or John Simkin?). Not that it matters, as I don’t believe either of us were guilty of being vitriolic. Nor do I believe we were straying from the original topic. Teaching the Holocaust inevitably means that teachers will have to look at modern examples of persecution. Teaching history is invariably more about trying to understand the present than the past. After all, the conflict currently taking place in Palestine is strongly linked to the persecution of the Jews in Europe. The state of Israel would not exist today if there had not been a Holocaust.

John Kelly is right to ask about the political reasons for studying the Holocaust. The historian A. J. P. Taylor upset a lot of people when he pointed out that the majority of people who died in German prison camps during the Second World War were non-Jews. However, he was factually correct and one has to ask political questions about why and how we study certain subjects in the way that we do.

I have produced some material on some early experiments to produce flying machines. This includes people such as Francesco de Lana, Laurenco de Gusmao, Joseph Michel Montgolfier, Jean Pierre François Blanchard, George Cayley, Henri Giffard, Louis Charles Letur, Alphonse Pénaud, Alexander Mozhaiski, Otto Lilienthal, Clement Adler, Percy Pilcher and Samuel Pierpont Langley.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Aviation.htm

Are we thinking of creating a different forum for this? I would have some reservations about students registered on a forum for 'Teachers and Educators'.

The plan is to create a forum within a forum. These carefully selected students will only be able to post within the Student Debate section.

If we find the 14-18 goes well we can introduce a 11-14 section.

I have produced a comprehensive encyclopaedia of how British women got the vote.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/women.htm

I have the same thing for the Americans.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAwomen.htm

I also have a page of annotated links to websites on Women’s History.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REVhistoryW3.htm

I have produced a page of annotated links to websites that can be used in Geography.

Please let me know if there are any other good ones that I should include (they also appear in the Education on the Internet newsletter (42,400 subscribers).

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REVgeography.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/internet.htm

I have also produced a page of annotated links to websites on MFL.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REVlanguages.htm

Adeline - send me a 200 word description of your website and I will include it in a future edition of Education on the Internet (42,400 subscribers)

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/internet.htm

If the focus in e-learning – as it appears to be – is on distance education then we need to look carefully at the experiences of distance-learning institutions. My wife Sally embarked upon an Open University degree course in the 1970s, finishing in the early 1980s with a very respectable degree, having never sat a public examination in the whole of her school career. In those days the OU distance-learning materials dropped through our letter box, backed up by TV and radio broadcasts at very unsocial hours (we didn’t have a VCR, but we did have a tape recorder). What made the whole thing work was the human factor, i.e. the weekly telephone contact with the tutors, the meetings with other students at the local tech college, the one-week residential summer school but, above all, first-class teaching materials. Technology has changed the ways in which materials are presented and delivered, but let us not forget the lessons of the past…

Could not agree more with this. Harold Wilson once said that the OU was his greatest achievement in government. Interestingly, it was based on the ideas of his former political mentor, Aneurin Bevan. That is why he selected Bevan’s widow, Jennie Lee, to take the bill through parliament. The Conservatives originally opposed the scheme and planned to axe the measure. However, as Margaret Thatcher pointed out in her memoirs, when they were in government they realized it was a cheap form of education and allowed it to continue.

I was a first year student of the Open University. I was one of those who joined without any formal qualifications. I had left a secondary modern school ten years earlier completely disillusioned with education. The reason the OU was such a success concerned the enthusiasm of the tutors. They were fully committed to the idea of bringing higher education to the working classes (although most of the students, like in conventional universities, were in fact from the middle classes).

Everything I have done in education since, including the development of my website, has been based on what I learnt from the OU. It is no coincidence that the enthusiasm of the early pioneers of online learning, is very similar to that of those of OU tutors in the early 1970s.

What the government needs to do is to recapture that vision and enthusiasm that it managed to achieve with the OU.

Also the original plan behind curriculum online was to try and build a contextual information network - what we got instead was a watered down and cumbersome catalogue of thousands of pieces of software.

People will only engage in online learning if it is meaningful and compelling to them. In the first instance the technology infrastructure has to be so familiar to them that it is easy and mundane to use.

One of the problems seems to me that the government has tried to create an artificial structure rather than working with teachers who had already made inroads into online learning. For example, members of the Association of Teacher Websites, who have created websites without commercial considerations. Their main objective was to create online teaching materials that their students could us in the classroom. We made many mistakes but gradually effective strategies began to emerge. The establishment of the ATW and forums like this one has helped a network of online educators to evolve.

The obvious strategy was for the government to use the experiences and skills of these pioneers of online learning. Instead, the creation of Curriculum Online was an attempt to help commercial companies to survive in a weak marketplace (although I accept Graham’s point that this has actually hurt some small companies – but then again, they were not really the ones the government was trying to help). By placing the emphasis on subscription content, those teachers and small companies trying to provide teachers with the content they needed, have been marginalized.

I have just checked it and it seems to be working if you follow these instructions:

Select My Controls (top, right of the screen).

On the left-hand side click ‘Edit Avatar Settings’ (under Personal Profile).

Go to the bottom of the page where it says ‘Upload a new image from your computer’. Click ‘Browse’.

A box will appear at the top that will show what is on your computer. You now have to find your photograph (best to leave it on your Desktop – if not, find the folder where you have stored it).

Click the image and then click ‘Open’.

Now click ‘Update Avatar’. You picture should now appear on the screen. It will now appear every time you make a posting.

Excellent work Nick. The animations are tremendous. Look forward to seeing you tonight at Anne's. (I expect you will be late as I’ve noticed Southampton are playing Newcastle tonight).

I find it hypocritical to devote teaching time to the Holocaust without then subsequently talking about the genocide of the Palenstinians, Kurds, Cambodians etc...

We don't need to spend any time looking at other countries crimes, we have enough of our own to look at.

I don't either want to downplay or minimise the attrocities of the Holocaust, but elevating the Holocaust above other acts of genocide is I feel is dangerous.

It might be a good idea to use this quotation as the basis of our first International Student Debate.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=116

I would be interested - I will make an announcement in the upper school assembly at the start of term.

There may be a misunderstanding of how the project will work. It is for the teacher to select two very able students who will be able to cope with a high-powered debate.

My personal view is that e-learning has been over-hyped. Perhaps a sense of ennui has set in. Computers are just another tool, and I am no more enthralled with computers than I am with audiocassette recorders and VCRs. I got very excited about using email when it first became available to me back in 1986. Now I just regard email as useful but also as an irritation, with 100-plus spam messages arriving in my mailboxes every day so that I have to shield myself with an aggressive filtering system. Recent anti-spam legislation has not improved matters one iota, but let’s see what happens as a result of the US CAN-SPAM Act being introduced on 1 January 2004.

I got very excited about the Web when it was launched in 1993, but in many ways it is a disappointment. I thought the Web would have developed a lot further by now. It is still quite primitive as a learning tool. A good deal of what is being done on the Web could be executed much more efficiently on CD-ROMs.

I agree with a lot of what you say. I began making predictions about the revolutionary nature of the internet for online learning in 1997. Since then I have worked as an educational adviser for two very large corporations trying to get into the educational market. I still have copies of the documents where I outlined the changes that would take place in education. In most cases I was wrong. However, not because of what I said did not happen (although some of my predictions have not happened yet). My major mistake was to overestimate the speed it would happen.

There are two major reasons why the speed of change has been much slower than I predicted.

(1) I overestimated the willingness of the government to spend money on the training of teachers and the provision of the equipment to make online education a reality. This was a silly mistake on my part. I was also involved in the first computer revolution in schools that began in the early 1980s. I observed at first hand how the government was slow to put money into the right areas and as a result many of those computers ended up being locked away in cupboards. Online learning in the classroom will only take off when teachers have access to enough computers with broadband connections to the internet. Over the last couple of years I have made several visits to the International School of Toulouse. They have these facilities and they have experienced this revolution. Unfortunately, the vast majority of schools in the world has not reached this stage yet.

(2) The other reason is because of our current economic system. We live in a capitalist society where companies are willing to make large scale investments in order to make long-term profits. For example, the impact of inventions such as the motor car was based on the belief that investment and innovation would lead to healthy profits. This is not the case with the production of online educational resources. Since the late 1990s conventional publishers have made an attempt to make profits out of online educational content. Large sums of money have been invested and so far they have received very little in return. At first it was believed that the ITV model would work (content paid for by the advertisers). Income from advertisers has been very poor and has come nowhere near the levels of money spent on the production of content. The long-term objective of these companies has been the introduction of the BBC model (people are charged a fee for using the content). However, all the evidence is that while there exists a large body of free content on the web, people and organizations are unwilling to pay subscriptions to obtain content.

There is no doubt that without government help these commercial organizations would have completely stopped investing in the production of online educational content. The government was forced to respond to the demands that these commercial companies applied (especially as this pressure was being applied by organizations that had the power to shape public opinion). The result is Curriculum Online. This system forces schools to spend money on digital content. This has in the short-term enabled commercial providers of content to survive. However, the problem with a government subsidy like this is that it distorts the market-place. It also protects companies producing poor materials that in normal circumstances teachers would refuse to buy. Once e-learning credits come to an end, they will again refuse to buy these materials. At sometime in the future, probably after the next election, the government will bring an end to this mad scheme.

The government has a two prong strategy. The decision to invest money into projects that result in content being provided free at the point of delivery is far more sensible. My complaint about this is that too much of this money is going to the BBC. As a result of pressure from the European Commission, 50% of this money has to be sub-contracted to commercial companies. Most of this will go to the multinationals (within hours of the European Commission giving permission for the government to give the BBC £150 million, it was announced that Microsoft had been granted a contract to produce a lot of this content). No doubt Bill Gates will become a significant contributor to New Labour’s next election campaign.

My argument has always been that money should be going to small organizations and individual teachers to help produce free online content. In this way this material becomes available to everyone wherever they are in the world. Just think what could be obtained by just spending, say £5 million, on helping members of the ATW to produce this content.

The main reason I believe this is that the best way forward is to ensure teachers play a central role in the development on online resources for the classroom. As Leon Cych (a member of the ATW and this forum) pointed out in his excellent article in yesterday’s TES:

“One main focus of the e-learning consultation process is the question of how public-private models will work. So far it seems that commercial companies are given all the work and have all the responsibility. They design the resource and give it to teachers to test, before taking in a few suggestions and giving it back to teachers as a model.

It is obvious what is missing here – effective pedagogy. Surely, we should start with the teachers. If the companies found and paid those who effectively champion e-learning in the classroom useful solutions would be developed much more quickly.”

My only disagreement with Leon Cych concerns the relationship between the companies and the teachers. My experience of working with large organizations, including the BBC, is that teachers are treated as experts as long as their advice corresponds to the ideas of those in control of the project. I believe the funding has to be made available in such a way that gives more control to the individual teacher producing the material. This is the model that has been successfully used by Comenius. It is also the one that is currently being employed by Becta in its relationship with the European Virtual School.

I have grave doubts about the provision of free digital learning materials by the BBC. The materials are not free, of course. We, the public, are paying for them via our annual licence fees. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

The BBC should concentrate on what it's good at, namely producing worldclass TV programmes and providing an excellent news service.

You are of course right that the BBC web content is being produced with taxpayers money. However, I think it is very sensible of the government to use organizations such as the BBC to produce free online resources. I would argue that most of the best educational resources come from government funded projects (along with that being produced by the classroom teacher). Take for example the excellent Learning Curve (Public Record Office) website.

My concern is over the role that classroom teachers will play in the production of this material. The main reason that the Learning Curve is so good is that Tom O’Leary, the man who runs the website, has recruited a team of excellent teachers to produce the material. My experience of the BBC is that teachers only play a marginal role in the production of its educational materials.

The Digital Learning Alliance is understandably concerned about the role that BBC is playing in the production of online materials. While this is happening they will indeed find it difficult to make a profit out of its materials. However, it is not only the BBC that is undermining their efforts to make a profit out of educational resources. Pressure groups and charitable organizations are also willing to provide free materials. So also are a large number of teachers who are so committed to online learning that they are willing to give their time and effort without payment (see for example, the membership list of the Association of Teacher Websites).

Thank you for the link to Tom McMullan’s article, Wired to Learn.

http://www.adamsmith.org/policy/publicatio...-jan-02-doc.pdf

McMullan makes some interesting points and I agree with some of his criticisms of government policy towards online education. The problem for the Adam Smith Institute is that it is supposed to be committed to the free market and is totally opposed to government subsidies. Yet in this article it supports Curriculum Online. However, this is only a government subsidy to bail out large commercial organizations in serious financial trouble. It seems that the Adam Smith Institute is not so keen on the free market when it applies to the production of online resources. I personally believe that the large amount of money being poured into Curriculum Online is a far greater waste of taxpayers money than that being spent on the BBC.

The problem for the Adam Smith Institute is that it is impossible to apply capitalist doctrines to online education. Without government subsidies, it will remain impossible for commercial companies to make a profit while organizations and individuals are willing to produce materials free of charge. Until the arrival of the Internet it was impossible for individuals and small organizations to compete with the multinational corporations in the education marketplace. Now, because of low overheads, they have a distinct economic advantage over the big players. This is indeed the real revolutionary significance of the internet. Although they are not aware of it, teachers are on the verge of a grassroots revolution. This forum, and others like it, will play a vanguard role in this revolution.

A survey by the National Union of Teachers found that despite serious reservations, only one out of eight wanted GCSE coursework scrapped. However, 62 per cent of NUT members surveyed said that coursework had added too much to their workloads. According to the survey, one of the major concerns of teachers is that coursework favours middle-class students, who were more likely to get “support” from parents.

John Bangs, head of education at the NUT said: “Too often, instead of encouraging pupils to take risks in their work, it is in danger of becoming a bureaucratised part of the examination process. The mixture of good practice templates on the web combined with enormous pressures to enhance schools’ positions in league tables is draining the creative value of coursework.”

http://www.teachers.org.uk/index.php

In today’s TES Jonathan Osborne, professor of science education at King’s College, London, claims that the pressure to do well in assessment meant that coursework investigations were now being taught as a set of “receipe-like steps” that have little to do with proper scientific exploration.

Osborne argues that assessment of investigation is dominated by just three experiments: measuring the resistance of a wire, the rates of chemical reaction and the rate of osmosis in a potato. Osborne adds: “How can such a limited set of practicals develop or exemplify the wide range of skills and scientific practices that constitute science… It’s a bit like reducing the teaching of performance in music to three standard scales on a recorder.”

I would like to organize a weekly student debate on international issues. At first I think it would be wise to restrict to about two students per school. However, if you are at an international school we could have two students per country. The debate will be in English but it is hoped that those running the different language sections will also offer similar debates. It is a project that lends itself to the very able student. In Britain we have been discussing ways of how we can stimulate the minds of the most able. Debates like this will enable bright students all over the world to stimulate each other. Ideally the debating group would include students from as many countries as possible.

The idea is that one of the teachers on the forum would start the debate and pose a question with international relevance for discussion. The students will then contribute to the debate. After a week the debate will be closed. Teachers could then post details of how they would make use of this debate as a teaching resource.

Please post details of your school and country if you are interested in joining this project. As soon as we have more than ten schools involved we can begin the first debate.

John - I am not sure what you meant by the phrase 'In the same way that those on the receiving end of Jewish racial prejudice today will eventually win' - I fear that you have fallen into the trap of equating all Jews with the offensive policies of Ariel Sharon - there are many Jewish and Israeli opponents within and outside Israel that oppose his policies towards the Palestinians and support the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Of course I was not implying that all Jewish people support the persecution of Arabs in the Middle East. In the same way I would not be referring to all Germans when discussing the Holocaust. The point I was making is that most groups have at some time in the past persecuted other groups. In the 1930s it was some Germans persecuting Jews for racial and political reasons. Today it is some Jews persecuting Arabs in Palestine for the same reasons. Those Jews resisting that process today need our gratitude as much as those Germans who bravely stood up to Hitler in the 1930s.

In July 2003 Charles Clarke published the government's e-learning strategy. He asked for teachers to respond to this policy. The deadline is the 30th January, 2004. Apparently, very few have bothered to do this. Maybe members would be interested in commenting on this issue. I will then make sure these views are passed on to the government.

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/elearningstrategy/about.stm

Economic and political awareness are best taught with reference to current news items, as there is up to date material available, and the issue has immediacy. A good topic in January is Corporate crime. Parmalate an Italian food group has found that it has a £3 billion hole in its accounts. The company employs 36,000 people in 30 countries.

There are also many examples of corporate crime that can be used in the history classroom. I have always been interested in the way the wealthy Germans who backed Hitler were treated after the Second World War.

The case of Alfried Krupp is particularly interesting. During the Second World War Krupp ensured that a continuous supply of his firm's tanks, munitions and armaments reached the German Army. He was also responsible for moving factories from occupied countries back to Germany where they were rebuilt by the Krupp company.

Krupp also built factories in German occupied countries and used the labour of over 100,000 inmates of concentration camps. This included a fuse factory inside Auschwitz. Inmates were also moved to Silesia to build a howitzer factory. It is estimated that around 70,000 of those working for Krupp died as a result of the methods employed by the guards of the camps.

In 1943 Adolf Hitler appointed Krupp as Minister of the War Economy. Later that year SS gave him permission to employ 45,000 Russian civilians as forced labour in his steel factories as well as 120,000 prisoners of war in his coalmines.

Arrested by the Canadian Army in 1945 Krupp was tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg. He was accused of plundering occupied territories and being responsible for the barbaric treatment of prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates. Krupp was found guilty of being a major war criminal and sentenced to twelve years in prison and had all his wealth and property confiscated.

Krupp's American lawyer, Earl J. Carroll, began work on persuading the authorities to free him. In February, 1951, John J. McCloy, the high commissioner in American occupied Germany, ordered Krupp's release from Landsberg Prison. His property, valued at around 45 million, and his numerous companies were also restored to him. When he died in 1967 he was one of the richest men in Germany and was the owner of the 12th largest corporation in the world.

McCloy was an interesting character who was later, as a member of the Warren Commission, was able to help cover-up the Kennedy assassination. Richard Bissell and Richard Helms were two other Americans involved in gaining the release of German war criminals. Both went on to become leading figures in the CIA and were the men behind the Executive Action strategy (a plan to remove unfriendly foreign leaders from power).

In 1975 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began investigating the CIA. Senator Stuart Symington asked Helms if the CIA had been involved in the removal of Salvador Allende. Helms replied no. He also insisted that he had not passed money to opponents of Allende.

Investigations by the CIA's Inspector General and by Frank Church and his Select Committee on Intelligence Activities showed that Hems had lied to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They also discovered that Helms had been involved in illegal domestic surveillance and the murders of Patrice Lumumba, General Abd al-Karim Kassem and Ngo Dinh Diem. In 1977 Helms was found guilty of lying to Congress and received a suspended two-year prison sentence. Once again showing how the world has a two-tiered justice system.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWkruppA.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccloyJ.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbissell.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhelms.htm

Educational forums like this have great potential for helping gifted and talented students. For example, there is currently a discussion going on at the moment about how you teach about the dark periods of our past.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=96

What about us creating a thread where students from different countries discuss the topic of history and nationalism. Maybe members could select two or three of their sensible students from their own school with a good use of the English language to discuss these issues. This debate could then be used as a teaching resource. I would be willing to make an opening statement to get the debate going.

What do you think? Please post if you are interested in taking part in such a project.