Primary School Children told they will be taken from their families in Holocaust 'game'

How long before someone decides that subjecting children to these 'games' has gone far enough?

It's bad enough frightening the wits out of them by telling them that ufos have crashed nearby and providing 'debris' to prove it, but this story is beyond the pale.

Without any warning a class of 11 year old children were told that some of them were to be segregated and taken away from their families. The reason - so they would know how Jewish children felt in World War II. Oh, and to help develop their creative writing skills.

This absolutely beggars belief.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

A group of primary schoolchildren were left traumatised after their teacher told them they were to be taken away from their families during a bizarre Holocaust classroom 'game'.
Pupils became hysterical after a number of them were separated and told they were being sent away or might end up in an orphanage.
The terrifying ordeal was meant to give the students at the Lanarkshire school an insight into the horrors faced by Jewish children during the Second World War, when they were plucked from home and sent to Nazi death camps.

But the ill-conceived exercise, which was sprung without warning on the children at St Hilary's Primary School in East Kilbride last Thursday morning, went badly wrong with many pupils, aged just 11, reduced to tears.
Deputy head teacher Elizabeth McGlynn was responsible for segregating the pupils and telling them they were to be sent away.
One angry parent, who has lodged an official complaint about the project, told how the 'barbaric' role play left children crying their eyes out in class.
In a letter sent to council bosses, the unnamed mother said: 'Mrs McGlynn told the children they would probably have to be sent away from their families and that their parents had been informed about this and knew all about it.
'When one child asked if that meant they might have to go to an orphanage, they were told that might be a possibility.
'At that point many of the children became very distressed.
'One boy kicked his chair over, one was angry and demanded to speak to someone in charge but most were crying on a scale ranging from mildly to severely.
'Their ordeal lasted between 12 and 15 minutes before the children were informed that it was all an act but that the role play would continue until lunchtime.'
One girl said her classmates began crying when Mrs McGlynn told them she had a letter from the Scottish Executive saying nine children had to be separated from their classmates.
She told the shocked youngsters those who were born in January, February and March had lower IQs than other children, 'due to lack of sunlight in their mother's womb', and that they had to put yellow hats on and be sent to the library.
The mother added: 'When I asked why on earth they thought it was appropriate to deliver a role play situation to the children in this way, Mrs Stewart informed me that they didn't inform the children beforehand.
'This was because they wanted the children to experience an "accurate emotional response" to this scenario in order for it to be reflected in their story writing.
'Mrs Stewart then invited me to come up to the school and see the excellent work that had been produced as a result of the exercise.
'I declined and my position and opinion on the method used to extract emotive story writing from the children was cruel, barbaric, traumatic and totally, totally unethical.
'My daughter and indeed no child needs to feel the terror, fear, panic, segregation and horror that a child of the Holocaust experienced during one of the worst atrocities in history to be able to empathise with them in order to produce good story writing.'
A South Lanarkshire council spokeswoman, who confirmed that a role play activity took place, said: 'The council can confirm that a parent handed in a letter to Education Resources on Monday, March 8, 2010, and this will be responded to shortly.'
An estimated six million Jews died in the Holocaust. Jewish children in Nazi Europe had to wear yellow Star of David badges during the Second World War.
They also had to live apart from the rest of the population in ghettos.
Finally they were taken to concentration camps, where most were separated from their parents then killed.

I have quoted the article in full.

Link for anyone who missed the crashed ufo (plus alien abduction) story:

www.telegraph.co.uk...

[edit on 10-3-2010 by berenike]

What the hell were they thinking!? What's next, an atomic bomb game!? African slave game!? Those children won't learn a thing from such methods!

People are so stupid!

reply to post by Foranki


Absolutely agree.

I am just hoping there isn't some sinister agenda behind this, but you have to wonder....

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/38a6aac9525e.jpg[/atsimg]

'nuff said.

You know how law enforcement and emergency management agencies have to drill life-like scenarios? Do you think this could be a State contrived experiment/drill and not just an ill-begotten idea by a teacher?

Stinks to high heaven of Social Darwinism, Eugenics, EcoScience, Margaret Sanger, the whole bloody lot of em.

reply to post by berenike


I can't imagine why anyone would subject children to
this type of role play.I think it was the ultimate act of
stupidity on the school's part.I think someone should
lose their job over this one.

Originally posted by primus2012


Stinks to high heaven of Social Darwinism, Eugenics, EcoScience, Margaret Sanger, the whole bloody lot of em.

What do any of the listed have to do with this article?

reply to post by primus2012


Honestly, I'm not sure which would be worse.

I'm hoping there'll be enough of an outcry over this to stop anything like it happening in future - whoever's daft idea it was.

I am normally a very peaceful person. However, I think this scenario would push me beyond the limit.

The idiots that thought this up need to be fired.

I remember there being a bomb threat called in at my elementary school when I was in grade 5 and that was terrifying enough with all the police, fire trucks and an evacuation. To have children acting out games like the ones mentioned in the OP without their for-knowledge and parental consent is just another form of abuse.

The fact that the police were involved makes me wonder if they are trying to de-sensitise them? It seems strange that people in authority would permit something like this to happen. Surley someone had enough common sense to realise that this would scare the kids.

Then again, they say common sense isn't so common anymore.

reply to post by Phlynx


Telling a child he/she is being taken away because of his/her inferiority has absoulutely everything to do with that statement and with my question.

"She told the shocked youngsters those who were born in January, February and March had lower IQs than other children, 'due to lack of sunlight in their mother's womb', and that they had to put yellow hats on and be sent to the library".

As Primus said, it stinks to High Heaven of something rotten.

This is definitely pre-meditated, and certainly not something that would have been "an accident".

Regardless of what happened in the past, doing this to children, is wrong, should never have happened, and should never happen in the future.

The teachers involved should be suspended immediately, and then sacked after determining who was involved!

It really does make me cross that they have done this to children.

reply to post by primus2012


I think that's possibly the worst aspect of the story.

I hope somebody explains very carefully to those kids that the suggestion they had lower IQs because of their birthdates is totally wrong. They're so vulnerable to suggestions coming from adults, especially those they trust. And who are there to teach them.

Imagine getting a piece of information like that from a teacher. You'd always have a bit of a lingering doubt no matter how much they told you that they'd made it up for a game. Or actually, let's be blunt, Lying.

What sort of person would even think of something like that, let alone think it was a good idea to tell it to kids straight-faced.

PTSD anyone for lunch?

In my school we had an excellent history teacher.

For many weeks we explored genocide, he slowly introduced us to it.

First we all took turns to read out diaries of those (not just Jewish btw, this is maybe where the real conspiracy is), who had been through this.

Then he showed us one day a Photo of Concentration camps etc (it was no shock to me I had a family member who was there just after Belsen Nazi’s did a runner), then next lessons lots of them.

WE got the message.

We understood, had empathy with and many who were not aware of this aspect of human nature, were shocked, and upset at some of the pictures, and diaries, that this happens in the world.

But that emotional shock was not mixed in with FEAR that it would happen to us that day.

The teacher made us aware of the importance of tolerance and not letting things get to that point by groups and states.

The teachers should be arrested for Psychological Abuse, Kidnapping and assault.

What’s the difference between this and Paedophilia except the sexual context?

Sick

Elf.


[edit on 10-3-2010 by MischeviousElf]

Sounds like the teacher was trying a Jane Elliot style experiment.

Controversial but, apparently, ultimately successful.

Thread about it here.
Brown eyed children are idiots and worthless

More than 450 children went through her experiment from 1968 to 1984 and many say that she is “a hero, a teacher extraordinaire, whose simple experiment, which lasted just two days, forever changed their lives.

[edit on 10/3/10 by Horza]

reply to post by Horza


Thanks for the link to Kandinsky's interesting thread. I notice that one contributor, lizziejane, quoted the Daily Mail article about an hour before I started this thread. Oops, I didn't see that.

I couldn't watch the first video, youtube had pulled it, so I have to ask. The kids who had the 'wrong' eye colour on Tuesday morning, did they have to go home without being told that all was really ok?

In the Wednesday experiment the second group of kids were told reasonably quickly that it was all rubbish. You have to feel sorry for the first group if they had to carry that burden overnight.

It appears to me that the kids in Jane Elliot's experiment were not told that they would be taken away from their homes and parents. That would seem to be the big difference between Jane Elliot's experiment and that of Mrs McGlynn, the teacher in the Daily Mail article.

Anyone, even those with little knowledge of children, looking at Jane Elliot's class would see immediately how impressionable they are. I can't understand how a teacher like Mrs McGlynn, with all her experience of kids, could come up with her idea and think it was a good idea to carry it out.

reply to post by berenike


Its more likely training kids to accept passively when Martial Law is declared in the UK after the total economic collapse and the election has been suspended "temporarily".

Remember, what has Gordo been spending all the stimulus money on? Sports complexes with high walls and teeny windows at the top, you know, where the guy in the rubber suit chucks the tablets of Prussic Acid in.

reply to post by aristocrat2


Please, please don't make any suggestions about the General Election being suspended.

If that happens I think I'll throw myself into the sports complex with the kids

I knew as soon as i read the title that it would be from a daily mail article!

Well it obviously worked. At least now the children will have at least some understanding of what Jewish and many other children felt.

But in this case they can be told, that it's just a roleplay.

If they'd have told them beforehand it wouldn't have been as effective.

If this is about genuine emotional responses, as is suggested in the article, then what would have happened if a child had have kicked-off? What would have happened if one of these children had a thrown a chair at the teacher, or perhaps gone for the teacher with a pen?

I went to junior school during the 1970s, in an era where it's assumed that schools weren't the hotbeds of violence and animosity that they are now. However, I'm fairly certain that at least a few of the boys in my class would have kicked off if there was any chance they'd be bundled-up and separated from their parents. I can honestly envisage windows being broken and children climbing out of them.

If anything similar would have happened, what would have happened to the child? Would they be, for the rest of their school years, seen as a potential danger to staff and other children - through no real fault of their own? What would have happened if the teacher had have got hurt, or if windows or furniture had been broken and what if children were hurt as a result of that?

This teacher is really not fit for teaching. To be honest, I'm not sure what's she's fit for, but I'd like to see her separated from her family for - oh, I don't know - maybe 18 months with time off for good behaviour and no previous.

[edit on 11-3-2010 by Merriman Weir]