Last year, I published a post titled Killing Baby Hitler & Student “What If?” Projects.
In it, I talked about (and linked to) a regular project I do with my IB Theory of Knowledge and ELD History students where they research and present on a “What If?” possibility from history.
I also discussed a recent addition I had made to the lesson that had been prompted by a New York Times project and the reactions to it from several U.S. Presidential candidates – would they go back and kill baby Hitler.
That addition, and how I connected it to ethics, went very well.
Today, Vox published a new video titled “Would you use time travel to kill baby Hitler?” and it’s embedded below. After my students complete their own responses to the question, I plan on showing the first minute of this video and then skipping to 4:30 to the end. It should be a nice way to finish it.
Would I kill Hitler? honestly yes I would, but I wouldn’t kill baby Hitler. Why? Because When Hitler was a baby he didn’t kill millions of people he didn’t even kill one person so no I wouldn’t kill baby Hitler. I’m sure your thinking is she crazy! who wouldn’t kill baby Hitler! But the problem is that since he didn’t kill anyone and he didn’t torture anyone than the real question is would you kill a normal baby. Just think about that for a moment. The only reason we would want to kill baby Hitler is because we know hi future all his wrong doings. So maybe just maybe instead of killing baby Hitler we could guide him to be something great that we would remember him by and not something horrible.