At the private Mount Vernon School in Atlanta, the administration apologized after eighth-graders received the challenge of assessing Adolf Hitler’s leadership skills.
The teacher’s assignment asked, “According to the Mount Vernon Mindset rubric, how would you rate Adolf Hitler as a ‘solution seeker’?” The potential answers then included “Lacks Evidence,” “Approaching Expectations,” “Meets Expectations” and “Exceeds Expectations.”
Another question challenged students to rate Hitler’s ethics.
“We do not condone positive labels for Adolf Hitler,” said Kristy Lundstrom, Mount Vernon’s head of schools, in a statement on Wednesday. “The intent of the assignment was an exploration of World War II 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.”
Lundstrom said that “when leadership was made aware of how the assignment was written, it was removed from the curriculum.”
Founded in 1972, the school was formerly known as Mount Vernon Presbyterian School.