Swastikas: Misguided Teacher, or Parent?

* Re “Nazi Assignment Not ‘in Good Taste,’ Principal Says,” May 24:

So another parent has his nose out of joint. I fail to see what the problem is here. The assignment is guilty of being pointless but not much else.

It seems that teachers are in a no-win situation. Every time a parent or student gets offended by anything said in a classroom, their jobs are in jeopardy.

I would like to know exactly what it is about the assignment that caused parent Larry Finkle to be so angry that he lost sleep. What is his justification that the teacher who assigned the project should not be allowed to teach?

How does this in any way, shape, or form have anything whatsoever to do with the shootings at Columbine High?

The mere presence of a swastika is a ridiculous reason to be offended. It can be seen in all types of history books. Perhaps Finkle should pull his daughter from school to shelter her from exposure to this and material that he deems offensive.

Bravo to the administration of Mission Viejo High School for not bowing to the pressure. The self-righteous attitude of parents like Finkle will be the downfall of this country’s public school system.

DAVID EHRLICH

Coto de Caza

* Marilyn McDowell, the principal of Mission Viejo High School, commenting only about the history teacher’s use of swastikas on his assignment, was oblivious to the larger and more frightening concern: the disturbing method of teaching employed by this teacher.

The shocking use of swastikas drawn by the teacher on his assignment was horribly insensitive since it is a universally recognized sign of the ultimate hatred of others.

What is even more disturbing is the nature of the assignment itself: to sketch out a battle plan and write a one-page essay about how students would accomplish Hitler’s goals, including taking over the world with Aryan control of Europe and Africa.

Ultimately, students would discuss the mass murder and extermination of all non-Aryans or the brutal terrorizing and expulsion of any different race (as is occurring to the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo today).

There is no other way to correctly respond to the history assignment since Hitler’s “goals” included creating an Aryan state in which non-Aryans did not exist.

This assignment had less to do with a battle plan and more to do with crawling inside the mind of a murderer. Perhaps the principal would not be shocked at an assignment from this teacher on “how to accomplish Charles Manson’s or Jeffrey Dahmer’s goals.”

The teaching of history should include the stark reality of the evil leaders. However, there exists no social or educational benefit to students to devise a plan for mass murder.

ANNEE DELLA DONNA

Laguna Beach

* After reading about the “Nazi assignment,” I was reminded of an event that occurred early in my teaching career.

Our wise principal invited an army psychologist/psychiatrist to speak to us about the importance of teaching children not only those things that are politically correct but also those things which we would much rather forget, those things that offend us or make us uncomfortable.

He pointed out that the POWs of the Korean War, though obliged by their code of conduct to do so, never even attempted to escape from the POW camps.

Their captors did not have to punish or abuse them to create this situation. They simply took the time to indoctrinate them in the true history of their world, our real role in things that had been almost fantasized in school, if taught at all.

When they heard things the way they really had been, many of them literally broke down and became silent and uncommunicative.

If we don’t teach our children both sides of issues and events, and there are two sides to everything, we are assuming that our position is not defensible and that we don’t trust our children’s ability to make wise choices.

Children are much wiser than we think, but if we don’t arm them with information based on reality and a strong basis of historical events, we are doing them a great injustice.

Yes, the “young instructor” made a mistake, but it was not in attempting to teach the children about Hitler and “Mein Kampf.”

It was in capitulating to one or two mistaken, self-righteous parents, who are confused in thinking that not talking about something can make it go away!

MARTHA A. BRATTSTROM

Yorba Linda

This is another clear-cut case of a supervising educator and a tunnel-visioned parent overreacting.

The creative and inspired teacher’s use of swastikas to stimulate his students’ minds as part of a World War II lesson was absolutely appropriate.

What better visual to depict the infamous image of the horrors of the Nazi regime?

The principal states the teacher has realized his error and vowed not to use the work sheet again. Instead of being chastised, he should be congratulated for being creative.

Would this teacher be vilified for using a Confederate flag while teaching Civil War history? A pictorial of the Rising Sun while instructing on the Pacific theater of World War II?

Irate parent Larry Finkle should appreciate that his daughter is exposed to freedom of expression and accuracy of history. He should also communicate to his daughter to never forget her heritage, but to be forgiving.

TOMMY CROSSON

Newport Beach

When a teacher asks students to prepare a campaign for Hitler to attack the allies in Europe, he is not giving these students a history assignment but a military assignment.

Since I don’t know of any military classes being given in public high schools, it would appear that this teacher strayed from his curriculum.

It would have been more appropriate to ask why the German people followed this madman. And it would give the teacher a chance to introduce the results of the treaty of Versailles, 1,500 years of anti-Semitism in Europe and Henry Ford’s printing and distributing throughout Germany a translation into German of the false and forged document known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

The students would have learned far more about World War II and its causes than with the military assignment and the symbol of hate, the swastika.

JACK HEILPERN

Laguna Woods