What's "heartbreaking" is the teacher
A nine-year old Muslim girl in Dandenong writes a letter about the "racist" Donald Trump. The reporter calls the letter "heartbreaking", but the real thing to cry about is the role of the teacher.
A nine-year-old Muslim girl from Melbourne has written a heartbreaking essay about America’s President-elect Donald Trump, who she said is a “really mean, racist person”...
The handwritten essay was titled “Bad Donald Trump”, and addressed the little girl’s concerns about the new “president in America”.
“He wants to make a wall so no Mexican people come, also Muslim people,” she wrote.
“It makes me sad because I am Muslim myself and he does not respect us and women. He does not think about family, he just thinks about himself..."
Really?
But then some possible clues about how this letter came to be written and then published in the paper:
The full-page note was handed to her teacher on Thursday morning, who had been speaking with her year four class about the shock US election result the day before.
Do tell:
The girl also made mention of Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton, who she believed “was supposed to win president”.
“She is not racist, a very good person. She would include both men and women, which is fair,” she wrote.
“I wish Hillary Clinton was the president and my teacher would have cried tears of joy.”
Hmm. The teacher would have cried "tears of joy" had this "very good" person been elected with her "fair" policies? She taught her students that?
Who is this teacher in what is actually a state school?
The 28-year-old, who had spent 18 months living in the US before returning to Australia, admitted she was “super emotional” when she learnt of the gregarious businessman-turned-world leader’s victory.
Super-emotional? The student sure picked up on that.
And what kind of vulnerable students is she instructing on her brand of politics?
She said there was heightened interest around the historic poll in the community where she works, which has a large refugee and immigrant population.
Great. What politics will they have preached at them?
[The teacher] was especially touched by her student’s idea that Americans should move to Australia, where she believed they could experience a peaceful and inclusive lifestyle.
“That was really powerful for a nine-year-old to just get it, and to see it so clearly,” she said.
Any conservative-minded students in the class? Or would they keep their opinions to themselves?