A Vermont teacher has been fired after being seen showing a group of third grade kids how to perform a Nazi salute.
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The long-term substitute teacher had the students give the salute while walking to the cafeteria. It is unknown whether the kids were also goose stepping. The unnamed teacher was immediately fired, local media Seven Days reports.
“The children were standing with their arm out in front of them and the teacher was modeling the position,” school superintendent Ned Kirsch wrote to parents Thursday.
“She then raised her arm slightly and said, 'And now we say, Heil Hitler,” he added.
“I'm at a loss on the whole thing,” Kirsch told the publication on Friday. “People are shocked. People I've spoken to are at a loss for words.”
“It's not a pattern. [I] never had a report about her, nothing. No one can quite understand what happened.”
It is unclear whether the teacher had Nazi sympathies or was simply demonstrating to students how Nazis saluted during the war. Either way, it was a costly error that lost the teacher her job.