B.C. teacher gets three day suspension for long list of 'racist' and inappropriate comments | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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B.C. teacher gets three day suspension for long list of 'racist' and inappropriate comments

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A B.C. teacher who told his students they could end up in "Loser Langara" if they didn't work harder, made off-colour comments about rubbing rods and multiple "racist" remarks will lose his licence for three days.

According to the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation, Klaus Hardy Breslauer made a series of comments that prompted the Vancouver school district to file a complaint Nov. 27, 2018.

The complaint covered the 2017/2018 school year when Breslauer was teaching Science 9, Science 10 and Physics 11. On Nov. 16, 2018, he resigned from the district, effective Dec. 31, 2018.

"He was negative, aggressive and visibly frustrated in his interactions with his students," reads the consent resolution agreement that was made public this week.

"He frequently discussed his personal life during class time, which included making comments to the students about his family, his previous job as a bouncer, gambling, his travels, paranormal activity and his sex life."

Among the more specific complaints from the district, Breslauer told Grade 10 students who he believed had cheated on a test that they each deserved to encounter a cheater and get a sexually transmitted disease.

"He told students in his Grade 10 science class that with their grades they would end up attending loser Langara for post-secondary, using his thumb and forefinger to make the letter L on his forehead," reads the document.

"In January 2018, during an experiment about electricity which included lack rods, he commented that boys are especially gifted at rubbing rods and that he had years of experience doing so."

He also made racist comments, including telling a student whose father was from Iran that, in that country they send you to the minefields if you don't get good marks.

He told exchange students that they should go back to working on rice farms and asked a student of Japanese descent if they failed to answer a question correctly because they were searching too much anime pornography.

Another student was told they should go back to the Philippines if they weren't going to try.

In addition to comments that ranged from racist to aggressive, Breslauer also seemed to exhibit a poor work ethic, according to the decision.

"He allowed students to put in their own comments about their work habits in their report cards, telling students he did this because of his own laziness," reads the decision.

"A number of these comments appeared on students report cards in the first person such as "I need to start working on my homework" and "manage my time more, stop procrastinating" when they should have been reflections of Breslauer's own observations."

When he did decide to weigh in, it wasn't always positive. In a letter of reference for a student teacher, her wrote that (the student teacher) "spent a lot of one-on-one time and connected with some low performing students, not that their performance changed much, but we are not in the business of miracles."

Approximately 700 memes were stored on Breslauer's school-issued computer equipment, some of which he created and many of which were "homophobic, transphobic, sexist and racist", the commissioner said.

It wasn't the first time that Breslauer's behaviour had to be addressed through official channels and the district had previously issued Breslauer a letter of discipline Dec. 4, 2008 when he was suspended with pay from Jan. 22, 2008 to Jan. 31, 2009 and suspended without pay from Feb. 1, 2009, to June 30, 2009, following allegations that he made comments to students that were 'discriminatory, offensive, threatening and otherwise inappropriate.'

On one occasion he had used physical force against a student. For those earlier issues, the district required Breslauer to complete courses from the Justice Institute of B.C., including Foundations of Collaborative conflict resolution and dealing with anger. From the Hastings institute, diversity in our workplace.

These latest allegations were addressed July 25, 2019 with the commissioner and Breslauer agreed to all the incidents of misconduct.


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