Another School Task: Hero Or Complete Idiot?

[agchristie]

What do AB'ers think?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/12167963/Pupils-asked-whether-Scott-the-explorer-was-a-hero-or-an-idiot.html

[Peter Pedant]

agree db again

shackleton whom we never hear of
did much better - he didnt kill any of his mean
his risky decisions paid off rather than led to wholesale death

he sailed 900 miles with his men in a dinghy
landed on south georgia and someone walked over impassible mountains to get help

one of his silk pennants came up on the Antique Roadshow
but I cant remember how much

[DaisyNonna]

How tactful of the questioners

[EDDIE51]

Good one that, there are two sides to the argument.

[Togo]

Scott may have been foolish, but the men with him were certainly heroes.
They were drawn into a 'race' to the pole when the initial aim of the expedition was scientific. They actually discovered plant fossils that proved that Antarctica was once heavily forested and attached to other continents.
Cpt. Oates and Taff Evans were real heroes. The lefties would piste on the grave and memory of every achievement given the chance.

[Peter Pedant]

and as Ilie nastase said - the more I practise the luckier I become

Scott diaries show he thought they might die a few weeks before he did
( O the english wouldnt use the dogs as a food source as the norwegians did ) - and noted that good old man-hauling would work out
He also didnt jettison his geological samples - 25 st of them or something

Scott had two men die on the way ( PO Evans and Titus Oates )
and I think Amundson had none

[Peter Pedant]

Come on - there is no evidence that pinko wet lefties want to *** on their graves

Montgomery's men followed him everywhere because they knew he had the lowest mortality of any British general - the Auk apparently said to him he could have done it if he had the amount of materiel that Montie had and our hero said: but you didnt ask

Preparation is everything and if it saves men's lives then prepare away !

[agchristie]

Yep, measure twice, cut once.

[Togo]

Dance then P.P.

[Mamyalynne]

I think their wording of questions is lacking some finesse.

[Togo]

//During the 800 mile trek back, Scott and his party perished in bitterly cold temperatures of -44 degrees C towards the end of March 1912, just 11 miles from a food depot.
Karen May, a researcher writing for the Polar Record, the official journal of the Scott Polar Research Institute, said written instructions left by Scott before his departure had ordered the men left at base camp to send dog sleds out past the food depot to meet him and his party as they returned from the pole.
Mrs May said those orders were not obeyed and instead a series of mistakes by the men he had left in charge – including choosing not to jeopardise the scientific goals of the mission – led to his death.
Scott has been heavily criticised for not making use of dog teams during his journey to the South Pole, but Mrs May has shown that Scott left detailed written instructions for the party to be relieved by dog teams as they trekked back to base camp, at Cape Evans.
Instead the dog teams were only sent as far as the food depot, 11 miles from the spot where the frozen corpses of Scott and his men team were eventually found.//

Scott has carried the can. Easy to blame a dead man. More than one mistake was made.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/antarctica/robert-falcon-scott/9770678/Scott-of-the-Antarctic-could-have-been-saved-if-his-orders-had-been-followed-say-scientists.html

[Old_Geezer]

Are those titles mutually exclusive ?

[andy-hughes]

I think we are getting away from the OP here – which is not a debate about whether Scott was ‘an idiot’ or not, but what we think about the question being posed in a classroom.

Personally, I think it is an excellent idea, because it teaches you people a very valuable life lesson, and will fit them perfectly for their time on the AB. The lesson is – you can have absolutely any opinion you want, on anything at all – but you’d better be ready willing and able to back it up, because if you don’t or can’t, there are people on here who do and can, and they will eat you for breakfast.

It’s a simple instance to start with. The individuals questioned are unharmed by a simple school debate, they know nothing about it, and if they are not unharmed, then their reputations are on shakier ground than history and the passage of time would indicate.

So instead of everyone deciding if Scott was, or was not an idiot – let’s look at this in context – it’s a debating question for schoolchildren.

They are being given a question, and allowed to offer their views, but their views may be challenged, and it will show if they have researched the evidence to back up their individual points of view.

As an adult, I have no particular view one way or the other, but I have enough experience of debate and research to be able to provide a convincing argument for either side. All this exercise is doing is giving young people in education a chance to learn how to do that – which is what education is all about.

So, let’s not get into a tizzy about Scott’s name being maligned – it isn’t, it is simply a question, to be considered and thought about and discussed.

One teacher asking one question does not re-write history, or gainsay years of opinion, or indeed fact, so let’s not pretend that it does, or more importantly, that it is trying to do that. Clearly that is not the object of the exercise.

[agchristie]

> Note for all:

I suppose I made an assumption that following my OP yesterday regarding the wisdom of whether the school in Guernsey was write to set a task of writing about converting to Islam, that this discussion was to follow in a similar vein.

Many threads go off the intended discussion anyway but I have to admit that I have learnt quite a bit from the posts so far which I am grateful for.

Please continue to respond as you wish from either take ;)

[naomi24]

Unless I’ve misread the link the critics appear to be of the opinion that, possibly out of deference to Scott, commonly regarded as a national hero, the question shouldn’t have been posed at all. Personally, I think it’s a good question. I see nothing wrong in asking students to examine the facts to reach their own conclusion. I’ve always had a soft spot for Scott, but I can’t deny that his plan wasn’t the best.