A Tennessee elementary school will no longer have a student portray Adolf Hitler Y”MS in its living history exhibit after a group of students began giving Nazi salutes.
Rutherford County school district spokesman James Evans said in an email Wednesday that the fifth-grade student portraying Hitler was supposed to give a speech and a Nazi salute as part of the exhibit. An investigation by the McFadden School of Excellence principal later found that other students had started giving the salute as well both in and out of rehearsals, Evans said.
The issue became public after Middle Tennessee State University professor Keith Gamble tweeted on Tuesday that his daughter was sent to the principal’s office for yelling at the other children to stop.
Evans said the girl was not punished but was taken to the office because she was upset and would not calm down. He also said no staff members were disciplined.
“We do plan to use a different means of covering the history standard in the future, and we consider this a teachable moment for our staff and students,” Evans wrote.
Please comment with support for my 11-year-old daughter. She was removed from class and sent to the principal’s office for the rest of the day last Thursday for shouting, “Stop it, put your hands down now,” to a group of students giving the Nazi salute. pic.twitter.com/9d9LpI5V5r
— Keith Jacks Gamble (@KeithJGamble) May 14, 2019
The director of schools also sent an email to parents “to assure them we do not condone any type of symbolism or actions that can interpreted as hate-filled or insensitive.”
Gamble did not immediately respond to phone and email messages on Wednesday afternoon.
Two social studies teachers in a different Tennessee district resigned earlier this year after an uproar over an assignment that asked students to pretend to be slave owners and brainstorm expectations for their slaves.
Williamson County schools recently announced it was changing how it teaches its students about slavery and the history of black people in the United States. The new curriculum will be exclusively online and teachers will get extensive training on sensitive topics.
Each time, my daughter spoke out even though she was told by a teacher “not to address it.” She has been bullied by classmates and targeted personally with Nazi salutes, so school feels lonely sometimes.
— Keith Jacks Gamble (@KeithJGamble) May 14, 2019
— Keith Jacks Gamble (@KeithJGamble) May 14, 2019
— Keith Jacks Gamble (@KeithJGamble) May 14, 2019
— Keith Jacks Gamble (@KeithJGamble) May 14, 2019
— Keith Jacks Gamble (@KeithJGamble) May 14, 2019
(AP)
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6 Responses
A young person with a soul and conscience of an adult. Good for her. Shame on the school’s staff.
More fake news. The headline states that she was sent to the principal’s office for yelling at them and implies that she was punished. In fact, she was so distressed that she needed calming.
> Avi K
“calming down” is the spin given by the propagandist. What is obvious and self-evident is that if they wanted to calm her down, then simply stop saluting. Simple enough, no? Instead, other sites make it clear that the teachers confronted her and told her that she already had her say and now she has to let them continue (with saluting), or else. So she suffered “or else”.
Georgeg, the did away with the program and did not punish the girl. Thus it is self-evident that she was hysterical.
This is the best article ever posted on this site. It outlines the double-standard of who is important and who is not without requiring me to post it over and over again. However, I will re-hash the article anyway. Two teachers were forced to resign for forcing students to pretend to be slave-owners.
Instead of an “apology”, they should follow their own precedent, and the entire school should resign over it’s even better idea of pretending to be nazi’s!
It’s freaking Tennessee. What do you expect? These hicks think they’re part of the master race and they cannot even get their lessons right.