GENOCIDE CURRICULUM CANCELED : CLASS TOO EMOTIONAL FOR KIDS, SCHOOL SAYS.

Byline: Associated Press 

A history class comparing the Holocaust, the Armenian and Cambodian genocides and the war in the former Yugoslavia has been canceled because the curriculum didn't address students' feelings, a school principal said.

A description of the Mountain View High School class, called ``Facing History,'' advised students to be prepared for ``a meaningful, powerful learning experience which will explore a harsh side of history.''

Principal Tom Baer said he canceled the class because he felt the teacher's preparation did not adequately take into account how students might react to such emotional material.

``I did feel that class really dealt with a sensitive area,'' Baer said Friday. ``Because it deals with some very bleak topics and emotional things, there is no telling where young people will go with those feelings if you don't have all the pieces in place, and that is why I didn't feel the course was ready.''

Fifty-two students had signed up to take the class with teacher Frank Navarro, who has taught in the district for 18 years and studied the Holocaust in Israel.

John Hemingway, 16, who was planning to take the class, was upset that it wouldn't be offered.

``I feel it was absolutely ridiculous. This was an opportunity to really make this class special, but the principal has blown the opportunity,'' Hemingway said.

Navarro said students are the ones who will suffer.

``I feel the students have been denied and cheated,'' Navarro said. ``They are well aware of what the class was to be about, and they want to be challenged intellectually and morally.''

Baer said Navarro could teach the class in the future if it is ``properly organized.''

The high school newspaper, The Oracle, reported in May that Baer wrote a memo to Navarro, saying the topic of genocide has ``the potential to further confirm some students' confused views of the world as an evil place'' and would leave students ``hanging emotionally.''

``I worry about those who would make the Holocaust too schmaltzy, almost glorifying it in its horror, trying to be the most sincerely horrified observers, and missing the point that any and all of us could participate in similar mistreatment of others,'' the memo said.

The real problem, Navarro said, is that Baer is uncomfortable with him teaching the course because he is Mexican-American and not Jewish. The teacher noted that Baer's parents lost most of their family in the Holocaust.

Baer, who canceled the class in June, said that did not play a significant role in his decision.

``The concern isn't that he is a gentile, except that there may be some elements in such a course that may touch some nerve unless he is on top of it from the beginning,'' he said. ``I do have a personal history that might make me more attuned, but I detached myself from that in this.''