D has been known to voice a certain fascination with Hitler. It's a mix of the allure of the forbidden and the fact that this person still has so much power and as D is feeling powerless most of the time this strange man from the past seems very interesting to him. He would never say anything outright pro-Nazi though.
But some of the kids in this class lack empathy in some serious ways: As long as it didn't happen to them, it doesn't matter. When we talked about how ordinary Germans profited from the Nazis' politics, because it meant that they could buy Jewish houses and businesses for a lot less than their real value some of them were okay with that. Well, the people who bought the house didn't make the politics and wouldn't you want to get a house for a good price? (They honestly asked me that!) It was just bad luck for the Jews. When I tried to give them an analogy they could understand and used eye-colour as an example "Let's say all brown-eyed people are banned from Germany" the boy from the story above became outraged: "I'd hit those people who said that". I asked why and he said it was because he's got brown eyes. So, what if there were discrimation against green-eyed people? "I wouldn't care."
I've encountered lots of prejudice against homosexuality in different German schools. I got into a huge argument with one of my own teachers who maintained that homosexuality was abnormal, but that was more than 15 years ago. At the school where I did my teacher training there was an incident when a Year 11 pupil spewed forth a homophobic diatribe in one of my classes and then I made homosexuality the topic for one or two lessons and I got through to them.
Most of my students are having their last two weeks at this school and I think some of them have stopped worrying about what the teachers will think. The post sounds a bit like I didn't react - I did and gave them a lecture on tolerance. I hope that in a few years S will be mortified at the thought of what she said. She did backtrack and say that she didn't mean it literally. I think I'll need to have a longer talk with her again... She lives in a rather deprived area where social manners are very different and is immersed in local hiphop culture. And she likes to go in for shock value now and again. As far as the boy who started this is concerned, that's another can of worms and I'm sure this is something he hears at home a lot.
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D has been known to voice a certain fascination with Hitler. It's a mix of the allure of the forbidden and the fact that this person still has so much power and as D is feeling powerless most of the time this strange man from the past seems very interesting to him. He would never say anything outright pro-Nazi though.
But some of the kids in this class lack empathy in some serious ways: As long as it didn't happen to them, it doesn't matter. When we talked about how ordinary Germans profited from the Nazis' politics, because it meant that they could buy Jewish houses and businesses for a lot less than their real value some of them were okay with that. Well, the people who bought the house didn't make the politics and wouldn't you want to get a house for a good price? (They honestly asked me that!) It was just bad luck for the Jews. When I tried to give them an analogy they could understand and used eye-colour as an example "Let's say all brown-eyed people are banned from Germany" the boy from the story above became outraged: "I'd hit those people who said that". I asked why and he said it was because he's got brown eyes. So, what if there were discrimation against green-eyed people? "I wouldn't care."
I've encountered lots of prejudice against homosexuality in different German schools. I got into a huge argument with one of my own teachers who maintained that homosexuality was abnormal, but that was more than 15 years ago. At the school where I did my teacher training there was an incident when a Year 11 pupil spewed forth a homophobic diatribe in one of my classes and then I made homosexuality the topic for one or two lessons and I got through to them.
Most of my students are having their last two weeks at this school and I think some of them have stopped worrying about what the teachers will think. The post sounds a bit like I didn't react - I did and gave them a lecture on tolerance. I hope that in a few years S will be mortified at the thought of what she said. She did backtrack and say that she didn't mean it literally. I think I'll need to have a longer talk with her again... She lives in a rather deprived area where social manners are very different and is immersed in local hiphop culture. And she likes to go in for shock value now and again. As far as the boy who started this is concerned, that's another can of worms and I'm sure this is something he hears at home a lot.