LETTER: Pupil who reported teacher’s threats was ‘wise, courageous’

To Ozaukee Press:

     The Ozaukee Press article about a Grafton teacher who had responded to a swastika on a student’s paper has brought interest and concern in readers and in the general community. The letter to the editor you published from a reader who cited the research by the Southern Poverty Law Center added important insight to the situation. Anti-Semitism, hate crimes and extremism are on the rise in our country. This is a fact.

     However, as an experienced educator, for far too long I have been concerned about the speech and attitudes of some teachers who spend more waking hours with youth than the students spend with their own parents. The discussions in teachers’ lounges are often troubling. That speech cannot help but leak into the classroom.

     The fact that a young student thought to figure out a way to go to the office to warn administration of hostile, hateful speech is very hopeful. Let us hope that he or she was praised for such a wise and courageous act. When the administrator took immediate action to remove the teacher, we can also trust that he or she held the students’ safety as a priority rather than being concerned about negative publicity.

     Allow me to quote Nelson Mandela whose life was an example of triumph over hate: “No one is born hating another person, because of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

Alex Campbell

Port Washington