SOUNDING OFF:

I want to thank Candice Baker for her coverage of Edison High School’s Bonus Army simulation (“Embellished Depression,” Dec. 18). The simulation serves to provide students with an understanding of the Great War, WWI, and the veterans’ experience interwoven throughout greater instruction on the great depression. However, the combined effort of teachers and students were undermined by the misinformed concerns published in a recent Mailbag letter (“Reality of Depression lost on students,” Dec. 25) by a fellow Huntington Beach resident.

The letter proclaimed false assumptions that may lead a reader to misconstrue the purpose and outcome of this well-designed activity. The Hooverville simulation is designed to promote student understanding of the surrounding plight those in need experienced during the Great Depression, with a concentrated focus on the actions of the Bonus Army. Though it may surprise readers that students are first learning about the Depression and surrounding events in their junior year, this blueprint for instructional content is formulated by the California Standards for Social Studies.

Edison’s teachers diligently prepare the students in order to give the event credence and relevancy. Students read the introduction of “The Bonus Army: An American Epic” by Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen and answer questions regarding the treatment of our veterans, the evolution of the Bonus Army, and the event’s lasting repercussions. The students view a segment of Peter Jennings’ “The Century,” outlining particular origins and ramification of the Depression. Implementing a variety of learning models, students partake in a mock stock market game with stocks of the era, which fluctuate, based real economic stock sales and bank closures during the ’20s.

Despite strategic planning, no historical simulation can completely recreate authentic pain and suffering felt by our American ancestors. The teachers at Edison carefully select historical events with the intention of creating a platform where students can begin to understand the connecting thread through which we all exist. Through experience, simulated or otherwise, students have an opportunity to develop a sense of compassionate understanding for the current struggles of today’s citizens. Each student participates in donating items to the mock soup kitchen; following the event, teachers Brian Boone and Mike Walters take the surplus of soup and supplies to a local women’s shelter in Costa Mesa.

Criticism is more easily practiced than action. Edison’s social studies department does not hope to develop students who only appreciate and understand history, but students who are able to look at an old problem and create a new solution.

Edison student Brad Schultz was quoted, “I didn’t know anything about the Great Depression before. Usually people just read about it in school. I’m glad we’re at a school where we actually do something to learn about it.” That is the focus of the simulation. For our students to be the next generation of great leaders they need to be inspired by the learning process.

As Edith Hamilton wrote, “It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought — that is to be educated.”

BRUCE W. BELCHER is a U.S. history instructor at Edison High School in Huntington Beach.