High school teacher asks class to plan terror attack

[Whiplash]

(CNN) -- An Australian high school teacher caused a stir this week after asking her class to plan a terror attack that would kill as many innocent people as possible.

The teacher of society and an environment class told her pupils to plan a chemical or biological attack in Australia, the Australian Associated Press reported.

The students were instructed to explain how they would choose victims and were urged to devise a plan to kill as many innocent people as possible, the news agency reported.

The teacher canceled the assignment after a 15-year-old student objected to it.

But word of the assignment got out and became a hot topic on radio shows in Australia on Wednesday.

The principal of the school said the assignment was made by a young inexperienced teacher. The principal said he pushed to have the assignment canceled once he heard about it.

"This is one mistake by a hardworking, keen young teacher who is highly regarded by staff, students and community,'' Terry Martino, principal of the West Australian school, told the news agency.

Um, I can't even say good idea, poor execution. What the hell was this guy thinking?

[Stark]

This would be an awesome class. Building awareness is cool!

I can see how its not really a highschool assignment though...

[JointStrikeFighter]

I would have aced that assignment had I received it in school

[Stark]

Listen Zak. Bags without people DON'T MAKE SENSE.

I'm glad we have all that paranoia to prevent terror attacks!

[JointStrikeFighter]

Maybe they can offer a class on terror attack planning at the Polytechnical?

Terrorism attack planning would make a great 2nd or 3rd year management or logistics unit

[Stark]

AMN378 - DIVERSITY ISSUES IN MANAGEMENT (TERRORISM)

[Alyrium Denryle]

That actually sounds like a fun assignment. I dont see why people would object. Know thine enemy after all.

Of course I am a rather twisted individual.

[Mr. Tickle]

Would be nice to know the context of the course but it's easy to see how it could "blow" up in the teachers face.

Zing.

[Jadeite]

That would be an awesome assignment.

[Ford Prefect]

I would have aced that assignment had I received it in school

This is pretty much the entirely wrong thing to brag about. :v

To be honest, I'm interested in why the teacher put this assignment together. Specifically, I wonder what she wanted her students to learn in particular; I'm guessing some kind of awareness thing, but that's pretty vague.

[Hawkwings]

There was a class here at USC which was taught by a CIA agent, one of my friends took it, and one of the assignments was to plan a terror attack on 1960s London. The final project I believe was with half the class as terrorists planning an attack on a target, and half the class as law enforcement trying to prevent it.

I also heard that one of the kids lost his write-up on his plan to attack 1960s London, and later when somebody found it, he got a nice visit from the FBI.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I imagine that this sort of thing is useful as thought-experiment stuff for much the same reason that we conduct viral warfare research so we'll have the understanding necessary to combat it.


And really, it sounds like a better idea to recruit random people to do the think-tank terrorism than it does to recruit old military sawhorse and such. After all, terrorists aren't usually old military sawhorses, and the most successful ones tend to think outside-the-box. A think-tank composed of randoms is more likely to think outside the box because they don't have a fucking clue where the box actually is.

[Samuel]

Knowing where the box is is helpful- if you don't know what your assumptions are, you don't know how to check if they are wrong.

That said, the best people to figure out how terrorists plan is to recruit people with similar professional backrounds and give them the same tasks. Aren't terrorists heavily made of engineering majors? Or do the planners generally have different educational backrounds?

[Ford Prefect]

I imagine that this sort of thing is useful as thought-experiment stuff for much the same reason that we conduct viral warfare research so we'll have the understanding necessary to combat it.

Except ... this wasn't research, it was high school.

[Serafina]

I imagine that this sort of thing is useful as thought-experiment stuff for much the same reason that we conduct viral warfare research so we'll have the understanding necessary to combat it.

Except ... this wasn't research, it was high school.

Ford, obviously every single american child must be prepared to fight the evil terrorists, this is a war for survival after all

I honestly don't get what this is supposed to teach to the children. If you want to do a planning exercise, why this one?
I see no benefit of using this particular subject over another, but i see lot's of potential dubious reasons (IMO, at least) to use it.

[Ford Prefect]

Except ... this wasn't research, it was high school.

Ford, obviously every single american child must be prepared to fight the evil terrorists, this is a war for survival after all

Except ... this wasn't America, it was Australia.



Anyway I have no doubt that the teacher in question has some reason for setting this assignment, and I'd honestly like to know what it was. I seriously doubt it was some kind of anti-terrorist jingoism, but I'm having trouble guessing the reasoning from the limited information.

[Serafina]

Oh..
Either way, i still see no legit reason to do so. Nor do i see necessary harm to the children, but that's only because i have limited information on this.

[cosmicalstorm]

I've thought about starting a thread in this forum regarding plausible terror-attack plans but I never got around to doing it. I'm not even sure if forum policy or American/Canadian law would permit such a subject to be discussed.
I do have a vague memory of Stuart mentioning that his friends had taken a look at what different terrorist attacks could conceivably be carried out by a 9/11 sized cell and the result was apparently horrifying.

[tim31]

If this was a movie, the student(s) with the best proposition would be then set up by the government to take the fall in an assassination used to bolster support for the war/cover up some nasty little secret etc.

We used to do though experiments like this all the time in school, just never with a focus on killing people. Can't say it bothers me?

[Temujin]

I've thought about starting a thread in this forum regarding plausible terror-attack plans but I never got around to doing it. I'm not even sure if forum policy or American/Canadian law would permit such a subject to be discussed.
I do have a vague memory of Stuart mentioning that his friends had taken a look at what different terrorist attacks could conceivably be carried out by a 9/11 sized cell and the result was apparently horrifying.

If they are very smart and capable, and really do their homework, then yes, they have the potential to do serious damage. Fortunately most of them are walking Darwin Awards just waiting to be awarded.

[mr friendly guy]

This created a shitstorm over here, since it occurred in Western Australia. BTW the teacher was female, so it should be What the hell was this gal thinking?

In any event I think I, and the SD.net crowd must be a bunch of weirdoes, because the best reason I can think against this assignment is that it might be a bit deep for high school students, although without knowing more of the objectives of the unit its hard for me to judge whether the topic is related to it. Generally it does benefit society to be able to anticipate terrorists so coming up with a "terrorist plan" helps us achieve that goal.

[Kanastrous]

The political angle is easy enough to understand, but I don't have a problem with the assignment (although the time could possibly have been used for something more productive...)

Being able to identify your own weaknesses and vulnerabilities is an invaluable skill and that's the kind of skill the assignment seems designed to develop. Nothing wrong with that, at all.

[Darth Fanboy]

Fuck this is Australia it will be a piece of caske, you don't even have to do anything directly violent just destroy the Tim Tam factories and the breweries and watch the mass suicides begin.

[Silver Jedi]

Could any of our members from the magical land of Oz enlighten us on what a "society and an environment class" actually is?

[GuppyShark]

It's the bin you put all the social sciences in so you don't have to get qualified people to teach them.