Hitler themed class assignment has caused some controversy at a
metro Atlanta school.
Fox 5 exclusively obtained the questions posed to 8th graders
at the Mount Vernon School which asked them to rate
some of Hitler's attributes.
Fox News Brittany Edney joins us now live from outside
the campus.
Brittany, this is has a lot of people talking.
How are families reacting to this?
Well Courtney, as you imagine there are some strong feelings
here.
Parents that we spoke with,
they have expressed outrage and concern at that assignment,
even questioning if it is anti-Semitic in nature.
Now school officials told me this afternoon that as soon
as they saw how it was written,
they immediately removed it from curriculum.
This screenshot shows two questions posed to 8th grade students
at the Mount Vernon School.
Quote how would you rate Adolf Hitler as a solution
seeker?
And also, how would you rate Adolf Hitler as an
ethical decision maker?
It's troubling as written, some students question the appropriateness and
if it's glorifying the Nazi leader,
obviously that looks horrible in the current context.
Knowing Mount Vernon, you know,
we do things a little odd around here.
We try to think outside the box.
Oftentimes that doesn't work. Several students told us that wasn't
in their curriculum when they were in 8th grade.
We weren't aware of that at all.
The Mount Vernon school says they wholeheartedly denounce anti-Semitism.
And gave us this letter in response,
saying, quote, the intent of the assignment was an exploration
of World War 2 designed to boost student knowledge of
factual events and understand the manipulation of fear leveraged by
Adolf Hitler in connection to the Treaty of Versailles.
One student says he can see the school's intended approach
to critical thinking.
I can definitely see why they would be upset,
but overall I feel like it's important to look at
both sides of the coin and every situation,
and I think it's important to just be able to.
Compare and contrast everything that's happened in our world history,
whether it's been good or bad.
We have the full letter and response from the school
on our website,
so you can read it in its entirety.
Just head on over to fox5atlanta.com reporting live in Sandy
Springs.
Brittany Edney, Fox 5 News.
All right, Brittany, thanks.