The swastika t-shirt…

21Jun11

As you may know if you are following my blog – which has been very sporadic as of late – I am studying to be a teacher. And, as a student teacher, I’ve recently gone through a very bizarre “teachable moment”, which, unfortunately, I am not sure I handled correctly. Unfortunately, the said teachable moment became rather personal, and this made it rather awkward for me, but I guess that’s exactly what I need to learn from!

Here is the story:

Dinner at camp with graduating class of Grade 7 students (graduating from Elementary School). I’m happily chatting about some nonsense at the teacher’s table…one of the other teachers who has travelled with the class decides to interrupt me: “You know ________? Well, he was wearing a t-shirt with a swastika.” “Oh,” I say. “Wasn’t it the Buddhist one?” “No, it was not the Buddhist one.” “Are you sure?!” (I do not want to deal/think about this…). Anyways, I’m forced to pay attention and acknowledge this information. It’s explained to me that it’s some sort of picture with an alien Nazi soldier with devil horns written “Take me to your leader”. The boy is in my class…Luckily, the other teacher had dealt with it this time and had told him to take it off and not wear the t-shirt.

Next day, the same teacher comes to me again: “He’s wearing the t-shirt again.” It’s obvious she’s happy to find me and I’m supposed to go deal with it. Deep breath, count to 100…

Student is in his cabin. “_______, come outside.” Student protests loudly: “I’m in trouble because of my t-shirt?!!”

“You’re not ‘in trouble’ ____, I just want to have a talk with you.” Sh&*%. This is so hard. What do I say? Where can I start? Deep breath again. This is a teenager. Just a teenager being rebellious.

“Do you know what this symbol means?” “Yes, but I don’t agree with it.” “Ok, why are you wearing it?” “My cousin gave me the t-shirt. I didn’t buy it.” “But you’re wearing it, whatever you wear makes a statement about yourself. Is this the statement you want to make?” “No. But it’s not offensive.”

“What? Of course it’s offensive. It’s a hate symbol. Millions of people died because of this symbol. Many people lost their families…” I give him my little speech.

Student reemerges with hoodie. Later on that day, the t-shirt with the swastika comes out again. Same student, of course. This time, the other teacher went to deal with it, after I alerted her. I didn’t want to make this a personal thing, as in just me talking to him about the t-shirt, however, that plan totally backfired.

After a conversation with the other teacher, student emerges and comes to me: “I’m sorry if I offended you.” “_______, that’s not the point. The point is you can’t wear things that are offensive and you shouldn’t wear things you don’t agree with just because someone gave them to you. Would you wear a Boston Bruins jersey just because someone gave it to you?” Anyways, I tried, but I fear the message at this point had been totally lost on him. “No, but I didn’t know. I won’t wear it again.”

Later, I find out what the conversation with the other teacher had been like. The teacher had gone up to the student and said “I” (yes, apparently just me) was offended by his t-shirt. So, the student replied, “Well, I don’t know why she’s so offended, it’s not like she’s Jewish.” To which the teacher said, “Well, first of all, she is, and second, your t-shirt is not appropriate.” And then the teacher asked the student to come and apologize to me for offending “me”.

I fear that this teachable moment went horribly wrong. I think the end message that the student got was that he shouldn’t wear the t-shirt because it offended ME. And maybe, if the student teacher was not Jewish, it would be fine for him to be wearing his swastika t-shirt. Obviously, no one said this or even meant this, but that’s sort of what it ended up looking like. I mean, why should he apologize to me specifically? Am I supposed to be the only one offended by a hate symbol?

And I wonder if I should talk to this student again about this subject…it’s hard because he’s so defensive. And it’ll likely be even harder now. I honestly don’t know if the t-shirt was just very poor judgment in wardrobe choice – this is what I’d like to believe – or if he had a reason to wear it.

And how to tackle this issue with him, if I were to do so? Would it be the case of talking about the t-shirt and wearing offensive symbols only, or would the whole issue of anti-Semitism have to be brought up? Oh, so difficult and awkward…but this boy is a good kid…why the t-shirt? I honestly don’t know…

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Tags: anti-semitism, swastika, t-shirt