Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

WATCH: Middle School Hitler Homework ‘Flabbergasts’ Parents In Chicago Suburb

A Hitler version of “My Little Pony.” Spongebob Squarepants with swastikas.

Parents of middle schoolers in a Chicago suburb were horrified to find these images in their students’ language arts folders after a teacher gave them a controversial, Hitler-themed assignment, the New York Post reported. Modeled on the celebrated children’s book “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie,” the tweens were expected to create “a comic strip for kids that exemplifies Europe’s appeasement of Hitler.”

The students were encouraged to use “Pictures fun and colorful” and accurate information about the Munich agreement of 1938.

“I asked him, ‘Did you ask the teacher if you could use these images?’ and he said, ‘Yes,’” one concerned mom, Kelly Masterton, told a local news station. “Not sure what’s an appropriate manner to use a swastika.”

“I don’t think she did it on purpose, to be anti-Semitic,” Masterton added. “I think she was trying to teach that there was propaganda … It did not come through the assignment that way.”

The school district apologized to parents in a letter, saying the “‘cartoonish’ elements of the activity… did not fully represent the intent of the teachers.”

Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.