Politically Correct Teaching or Re-writing History?

I read an article in the UK's Daily Mail newspaper a few weeks ago that I found unbelievable and disgraceful. It is about what some British students are learning, or rather not learning in school. In the article "Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims" by Laura Clark (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=445979&in_page_id=1770), Clark makes reference to a study conducted by the Department for Education and Skills that found that some schools at the primary and secondary level are not teaching the Holocaust in history lessons to avoid offending Muslim students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial. Also, some teachers do not cover the Crusades, where Christians fought the Moors for control of Jerusalem, because it contradicts what is taught in local mosques.

As an information professional, I find this type of institutional censorship very detrimental to the learning process. When it comes to history, and life, there are a lot of truths that are not pretty or simple. In an effort to be politically correct, teachers who fail to teach of past atrocities are in effect choosing to re-write history; and denying young minds the opportunity to form their own understanding of historical events that have had a major impact on how the modern world has evolved. Furthermore, they are suppressing their students' right to grasp, question, debate and learn from these events. 

In Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451, Montag  tells Granger that the books the firemen are burning are not lost because they are still alive in the memories of the people who carry them. "But our way is simpler, and, we think, better. All we want to do is keep the knowledge we think we will need intact and safe...We'll pass the book on to our children, by word of mouth, and let our children wait, in turn, on the other people. A lot will be lost that way, of course."

If the stories don't get told they will die with the people. The same is true with history.