A schoolgirl was baffled when she realised her teacher had allegedly rubbed out the prosthetic leg she had drawn on her great-grandfather in this picture and added a new leg instead so that it would capture the “heroism of war”.
The bizarre case happened in the School 141 in the Russian capital Moscow where the teacher had said that the picture of the girl’s war hero great-grandfather with a prosthetic leg needed to be changed to show a “normal person”.
Local media report teacher Natalya Prudnikova had asked her students to draw a “war scene” about the exploits of Soviet soldiers which should show the “heroism of war”.
The father of the unnamed girl wrote on social media: “My daughter portrayed German and Soviet tanks and a soldier who had a prosthetic leg. After examining the work, the teacher erased the prosthesis with a rubber.
“After that the teacher spoke with her telling her it’s not good to draw something like this and that she should portray a normal person”.
He added: “My daughter drew the portrait as a reference to her great-grandfather who lost his leg during the war and returned back home on crutches with medals on his chest.”
The image shows the final picture with the soldier having two complete legs in front of two tanks, once bearing the USSR star after it had been modified by the teacher.
Teacher Prudnikova however insists she did not alter the student’s work herself, but simply asked her to redo the picture to show that “the wound had healed since he returned back home, so it’s not that scary”.
The school’s director, Vitaly Hudoshin, backed the teacher. He said that the children were not asked to draw the fear and horror of war, but the importance of it. Vitaly also said that the students were tasked in the assignment with portraying the “heroism of soldiers”.
The teacher herself said that she did not touch the girl’s work, and only asked her to show that “the wound had already healed since the grandfather had returned home so that “it would not be so scary”.
Netizen ‘tankist’ wrote: “There’s no place in a school for such people. You fire them!”.
While ‘andrei’ wrote: “These types of people shouldn’t even come close to students!”
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Story By: Gheorghi Caraseni, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
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