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  • TillieNeuen [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Many years ago, I was a student teacher in a rural middle school in the Midwest. It was a history class, and time to teach about the Holocaust. The kids took it seriously, of course, but I was really struck by their reactions when I started talking about the victims of the Holocaust. As I was going down the list of groups the Nazis targeted, the kids reacted seriously but not emotionally for most of the list. After all, in their area, they were very unlikely to personally know a Jewish person, or Roma, or an out gay person (again, years ago), etc. Then we got to disabled people and the kids were SHOCKED. Suddenly the cruelty of the Nazis was so much more real to them, because they knew people who would have been rounded up. There were kids at the school who would have been rounded up. They were in complete disbelief.

    So, you know, you can live in a society where people are shocked by the cruelty of others, or you could teach your kids to hate and fear people who are different than themselves. No matter how many times I see it, I can never stop being surprised that people choose the latter, and think that it's good and funny to reinforce that with their kids.

      • TillieNeuen [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Yeah, I'm sure that's true, unfortunately. The power of social pressure was on my side that day, I suppose. The vibe was strongly shocked disbelief and horror, so any little chuds who thought it was funny definitely kept that to themselves.