A staff member at a Washington, DC, elementary school is under investigation after allegedly telling third-grade students to reenact incidents from the Holocaust, DC Public Schools (DCPS) said in a statement to CNN.
The instructor was placed on leave Friday pending the investigation, a DCPS official said.
The instructor at Watkins Elementary School allegedly assigned specific roles to students while in library class, casting one student as Adolf Hitler, and directing students to dig mass graves and simulate shooting victims, according to The Washington Post, which first reported the alleged incident. The parent of one of the students told the paper their child said the staff member made an anti-Semitic remark.
The parent also told the Post the instructor asked students not to tell anyone about the reenactment, but they told their homeroom teacher.
The third-grade class met with the school’s mental health response team after the incident, the Post reported.
“Earlier today, we received a report of a classroom of students receiving a lesson that included portraying different perspectives of the Holocaust,” Principal MScott Berkowitz wrote in a letter to parents Friday and obtained by CNN.
“Students should never be tasked with acting out any atrocity, especially genocide and war. Additionally, there were allegations of a staff member using hate speech during the lesson, which is unacceptable and not tolerated at our school,” the letter said.
The staff member was not named, and specifics of the alleged hate speech were not shared in Berkowitz’s letter.
“This was not an approved lesson plan, and we sincerely apologize to our students and families who were subjected to this incident,” DCPS told CNN, adding the school district has “launched an investigation, and students are being supported by our DCPS Comprehensive Alternative Resolution and Equity Team.”
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Original Article: Third-grade students in Washington, DC, were allegedly told to reenact elements of the Holocaust (msn.com)
Are they planning on reenacting the antebellum times in our nation? The space program? The civil rights movement, including the riots, of the 1960s? If none of the above, they are missing important aspects of American History. The Holocaust is not really part of our history, other than the fact we ended it.
I disagree with “ratwrangler” about the Holocaust not being a part of our history as it is one of the worst atrocities towards a group of innocent people, based solely on religion. If we do not teach our children what can happen if we allow these kinds of actions by people who feel they are superior it will be repeated again. Discrimination of any person is an atrocity itself as no one deserves to be treated indiscriminately. Kids are our future and if we don’t teach them the harsh realities of what has happened in our history; their lives are in jeopardy for what can happen. It is sad enough that people are still discriminated against based on religion, skin color, country of origin as it should not be happening. We all want peace in our lives and in order to keep that peace, our children need to be schooled on the good and bad events of our history. Look at some of our youth who were stating they wanted to live a communistic life, they clearly didn’t understand what that would mean or the impact it would have on their lives. We need to teach the difference between good and bad in school because we have no idea what they are truly be taught or not taught in their homes. Many orphaned children were sent here to the U.S. to be saved from what was happening during the Holocaust.
We should teach about the good and the bad but they should not be reenacted.