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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsToronto middle school students give a Jewish teacher the Hitler salute
Police and school authorities are investigating an incident in which Toronto middle school students gave the Hitler salute to a teacher who is the daughter of Holocaust survivors.
The incident is the third such display of Nazi symbology at middle schools in North York, a Toronto district, in recent weeks.
One of our teachers, a French teacher, a Jewish teacher walked out of the room, Shari Schwartz-Maltz, a spokeswoman for the Toronto District School Board, told City News, a local TV news outlet, on Tuesday. When she came back into the room, several students surrounded her and gave her the Heil Hitler salute. This particular incident was very hateful, very hurtful, very upsetting to the teacher who happens to be Jewish, and shes just allowed me to share with you that shes also the child of Holocaust survivors. So this is something that hits her in the heart.
Schwartz-Maltz, who chairs the school boards Jewish Heritage Committee, said there would be consequences for the children involved, and that there would be expanded Holocaust education. This has come from the top that we are committed to proactively bringing more Holocaust education into our schools for middle school up, she said.
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ProudMNDemocrat
(16,785 posts)Chances are, parents are at the forefront of such behaviors of their children.
AngryOldDem
(14,061 posts)This is exactly why we need an honest teaching of history. It can be hard, it can be unpleasant, but thats how we learn from it.
If kids dont know the meaning behind this stuff and if their parents give them the idea that its okay then were fulfulling Santayanas prophecy.
This is one of the biggest mistakes weve made deemphasizing American and world history. This started when the parents of these hoods were in school themselves, most likely.
A few years ago I saw a stage production of The Diary Of Anne Frank. Schoolkids were in attendance, and as we were leaving afterward, many of them were sobbing because they clearly had no idea what happened to Anne and her family. While it hurt to see them crying, a part of me thought it was a very good thing. Maybe they learned something that day.
EYESORE 9001
(25,938 posts)Parents are getting an early start on indoctrinating their children in hate.
Busterscruggs
(448 posts)The school should teach these kids to punch their nazi parents
JanMichael
(24,887 posts)Forced images of the worst examples of human beings behavior to exist.
Fucking punk scum. I don't give a shit if they are someone's precious baby. Don't give a fuck.
nycbos
(6,034 posts)MineralMan
(146,308 posts)Note the incident on their transcripts, as well.
There is no excuse for this.
hunter
(38,312 posts)The kid was sent to the office and suspended a few days but he didn't change.
He was also one of the kids who called me queerbait and constantly bullied me. He never got suspended for that.
The community I grew up in was affluent, 99% white, and rotten with racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and homophobia.
Middle school children say and do all sorts of hateful things, that's not surprising, but these things are often reflections of the underlying social pathologies of their home and community environment.
Poiuyt
(18,123 posts)I'm not excusing them, mind you, but I did things when I was young that I cringe at today. These kids definitely need education about what the Holocaust was.