Grade 3 Students Were Reportedly Told To Reenact The Holocaust & WTF Were They Thinking
The teacher has been placed on leave.
A teacher from Watkins Elementary School in Washington, D.C., is coming under fire for making her third grade students reenact the holocaust.
The teacher reportedly directed the students to play out morbid scenes from the holocaust like digging mass graves and shooting their classmates, according to The Washington Post.
Since the event took place on December 17, the teacher has been placed on leave and will be subject to a school investigation.
It is alleged that she even went as far as to assign students with roles, giving a Jewish child the part of Adolf Hitler.
The child was even told to reenact Hitler's last moments by pretending to commit suicide.
The school principal, MScott Berkowitz, sent an email to the parents of the students that were involved outlining what had happened.
In the email, Berkowitz wrote, "I want to acknowledge the gravity of this poor instructional decision, as students should never be asked to act out or portray any atrocity, especially genocide, war, or murder."
When the students questioned the motives of the Germans to murder Jewish people, the teacher replied with an anti-Semitic remark saying that it was "because the Jews ruined Christmas."
A student's parent told The Washington Post that her son was told to present like he was on a train to a concentration camp and then pretend to die in a gas chamber.
After making the children do all of that, the teacher asked the students not to tell anyone about their performance; however, the students informed their homeroom teacher.
According to Berkowitz's email, students have been provided with access to the school's mental health response team since the incident.
The email sent by Berkowitz did not contain the teacher's name and details of the alleged incident according to reports by CNN.
DC Public Schools provided the following comment to CNN regarding the situation: "This was not an approved lesson plan, and we sincerely apologize to our students and families who were subjected to this incident."