Hate In High School….Hateful Teachers…

Public School was a glorious time for Eddie Gilbert. He had loved going to Scenic Park School and was excited about the future and life in High School.

A few of Eddie’s friends would be attending Arcell Collegiate and Vocational Institute, ACVI (or at least that’s what it was called back in the day) with him, and he was ready to start learning and growing.

Eddie had no clue that his life at ACVI would be filled with teachers who were hateful and ignorant. He had never experienced antisemitism in his life but that all changed when he started attending Arcell Collegiate.

The first sign that there was going to be problems happened when it was time for the Jewish Holidays. Holidays was a misnomer because all the time away from school was spent in the Synagogue praying, not exactly the most joyous way to spend time. Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur were important days in the Jewish religion and for some reason, this seemed to irk some of the teachers.

Eddie had an English teacher who was best friends with a French teacher. His name was Ian Harton and her name was Ms. Flately. Eddie was excellent in English but after presenting his note that he would be absent from classes, Harton took a very negative attitude towards him. Eddie couldn’t understand it till it came time to read the Merchant of Venice. The teacher would insist that Eddie read the part of Shylock because he was a Jew and could understand the role better than anybody in the classroom. This caused some of the less cerebral students in the class to pick up on it, and try to insult Eddie outside of the classroom for being Jewish.

Eddie experienced discrimination when he received a seventy on an exam and noticed that three-quarters of his test had not been marked. When he brought the problem up while the class was reviewing the answers for the exam, Haton told him to meet him after school to discuss the situation. When Eddie went to the class after school, Haton looked at him and the other two people who were standing in the class. ‘’Here comes Eddie Gilbert, looking for more marks, he’s a Hymie for marks, but I’m not surprised, after all, he is no different than Shylock. I’m not giving him one more percent for his mark, even if he deserves it.’’ He then looked at Eddie in a growling and menacing tone said…