OH - School Apologizes for Having Black Student Play 'Slave" Role

[Nova]

I wasnt specific enough-my son did not see the MLKJr "cartoon" that depicts firebombing and firehoses being turned on black protestors by white law enforcement officers and his assasination at the hands of a white man with a gun. However, the other children in his class did. Which led to much discussion between the children on why do white people hate brown people? My son decided that the reason that his parent split up is because one is brown and one is white, so they must hate each other.

THIS is why it pisses me off that the state interferes in my right to parent my child. Because all of those children, not just mine, carry away these ideas that need further discussion. But the school just checks off the unit and moves on.

:banghead::banghead::banghead:

I certainly appreciate your frustration, believe, but I have no doubt whatsoever that your son benefitted greatly from the discussion that ensued with you.

That being said, there's got to be a way to acknowledge our racist and segregationist past without giving children the impression that all white people hate all black people--something that was never true.

I remember segregation--in schools, water fountains and toilets. Even then there were plenty of white people (including my own parents and grandparents) who found the practice appalling! And, of course, there were hundreds if not thousands of white volunteers working to end segregation, poling taxes and other aspects of Jim Crow.

I'm sure schools want to avoid the "Hollywood treatment" of the subject, where noble-but-helpless black people are rescued from villainous white folks by the noble-and-mighty white people. But white people have never been in agreement about slavery or racism and there's no reason to pretend we have been.

 

[Nova]

I do firmly believe that the school featured in this thread is not trying to make all of the children understand ownership of another. I do believe, because I am cynical, that "white" children are being taught real history and the choices being made as to how that is communicated seems to be via shock value.

Why does any child need to learn to label people by color? Sure, there are all kinds of people who label others by the color of their skin, their height, their hair, where they live etc....but why TEACH that to children? They are not educating children in my opinion.

In the example I posted, no 6 year old needs to be fully informed about racism. No 6 year old needs someone to point out to them that people can be categorized by skin color. Teach them how to tie their shoes and teach them how to read. They have a lifetime to learn about hatred.

Sure, teach an older child about the slave trade. But in the context of history, not using shock value. What lesson will these children REALLY take away from the experience?? People continue to be trafficked in all kinds of ways-not simply Molasses to Rum to Slaves. If the truth be told, how much of the Civil War was actually about slavery? Lincoln was the worst kind of bigot, yet he could not equate ownership of people with what America stood for...fair enough. IMO, slaves were freed under his watch for an ideal, not because he was doing slaves a favor. Again, JMO.

History is too nuanced to condense it into an auction inside a classroom that risks emotionally hurting a group of children who were far removed from the event itself-there is no real way to replicate it in a meaningful fashion and maintain accuracy. IMO, this activity satisfies some superficial purpose that does not have anything to do with the actual subject.

Off my soapbox now.

I didn't see the soapbox until you mentioned it, just a lot of good points.

I should point out that when my niece had the same lesson, she was in 6th GRADE, not 6-years-old. She was plenty old enough to understand "make believe" and that they were re-enacting actions from the past.

I don't think schools can ignore the subject of race. For one thing, black, Latino and Asian children are going to encounter it whether the subject is raised by parents or teachers or not. Personally, I'd rather see the subject discussed in a class full of children of various races, rather than only at home, where the racial diversity tends to be minimal. (Believe09's house is an exception, obviously.)

The issues here seem to be what is age-appropriate and whether it is ever a good idea to ask an African-American child to take the part of a slave in an historical exercise. For the latter, I'd say no, not until high school at least and not unless it is entirely voluntary (which doesn't mean putting the black kid on the spot in front of his entire class).

 

[WhyaDuck?]

In my elementary school, we were given profiles (with a picture) of a slave child from pre-Civil War and we were told to write a short story about the child. It seemed to be a good empathy-builder, without being traumatizing. It was a very sad exercise, but it is hard to imagine it not being.

I am glad the child had the guts to refuse to participate.

 

[Nova]

I'm not in favor of this exercise any more than I would be if there was an exercise where some students played Nazi concentration-camp guards and the others played Jewish prisoners going to be slaughtered. (I don't see anyone trying to get students to feel what it would be like to be accused of being a witch to be burned at the stake, fall down with the Twin Towers, or undergo torture by the Inquisition.) I think you can teach children about the evils of slavery without insisting that they FEEL what being sold would feel like.

Children aren't that good at distinguishing what is pretend from what is real, and being sold by a class member, even as sanctioned play-acting, would be humiliating and dehumanizing to most children. I think it's especially insensitive to compel an African-American child to undergo the feeling of being sold.

Most importantly, though, dividing the class into "owners" and "slaves" only reinforces the idea that it is alright to divide people and put some above the others. "The teacher did it, so it's okay sometimes, right?"

I do think young children need to be taught about embracing and celebrating the differences in all people, and I also think that teaching about the history of slavery in the U.S. is one good way to illustrate how horrible things turn out when our differences are misrepresented and denigrated. But I think the lessons about slavery should be supplemented with lessons celebrating the contributions to our country of African culture and people, since that is the larger point, really. Otherwise, the children are just going to come away from the whole thing knowing only that black people used to be slaves here, which IMO would increase discriminatory attitudes and divisions among the children.

Great post. The "thanks" button didn't suffice.

I'm trying to be open-minded about this. Personally, I am very word-oriented, so reading about something produces just as much empathy and understanding as acting it out. But I am told that isn't true for all children, so I'm trying to allow for the possibility that physical exercises have some merit.

But 6 seems much too young to me. Isn't it the lesson from some of the child-molestation scandals that kids that age can be convinced that untrue things are true? If so, then I am adamantly opposed to any exercise that tells 6-year-olds that some of them are inferior or superior to others.

 

[Lucid]

Though I don't agree with this lesson or acting something like this out, I also don't think this is racism or discrimination. Of course I don't know the exact details, but when I was a kid and the class had to divide for various activities, the teacher would pretty much split the class down the middle of the room. Everyone on the right, A, everyone on the left, B. I really don't think the teacher picked and chose who would be what. No teacher I ever had wasted time on such things.

 

[STEADFAST]

Six-year-olds have a very well developed sense of what is unfair, so they really don't need a lot of extra help learning that slavery is wrong.
As an example, here is how I learned about slavery and racial bigotry when I was five. (It illlustrates both wrong and right ways to educate young children.)

We lived in Nebraska at the time, and I knew nothing of the existence of any non-white human beings. From friends, I learned the n-word version of Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe. Having no idea that the n-word was anything other than a nonsense word like the Eenie, Meenie part, I went up to my dad, who was working in the yard, and began reciting the rhyme to him. When I got to the n-word, he knocked me to the ground. (That's the wrong-way example, although not at all considered abuse in those days.)

I jumped up and ran into the house to ask my mom what I did wrong, and told her what I had been saying to Dad when he hit me. So, she gave me the appropriately-simplified version of American race relations:

"There are people whose skin is brown, and a long time ago, people whose skin is white stole them from their homes and MADE THEM WORK FOR NO MONEY."
[I capitalize that phrase because it's all I needed to hear at that age to be completely outraged about slavery.]
"Then Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, but some bad people still are mean to people with brown skin, and they call them by that word. You can't use the word the bad people use."

Now, I didn't even understand all of that, but I knew I wasn't going to be on the side of the bad people. Upshot is, a while later, new people moved in next door, and their movers were black. When I saw a line of black men carrying things into a house as a white woman directed them, I ran over and yelled, "Don't you know Lincoln freed the slaves!?" They all laughed at me -- a lot, so my first attempt at activism was pretty much a bust.

But the point is, a simple story, appealing to the particular mind-set of a young child, is ample to teach them to treat others equally in spite of differences. The horrifying details about slavery and race relations in our history can wait until they are older.

 

[believe09]

Nova, I agree that the subject of race has a place in our schools-diversity does absolutely. I have seen a good faith attempt here in my town to do that, in spite of the mis steps I related. But I am curious as to who is setting the curiculum and whether they are seeing the bigger picture with the lessons they are choosing.

Back to my issue with my 6 year old if I may-I contacted the school superintendent with a request to have him meet with me and review the unit as well as the video in question.

He replied that neither he or the principal of my school had seen it. Or reviewed it. Huh? The percentage of non whites to whites in our school system has changed from 12 percent to 40 percent in the last 10 years-our teachers are scrambling to try and integrate multi ethnic cultures into the classrooms...fair enough. But no one who had the ability to edit the unit saw this video. No one who might determine the appropriateness of it for the class room.

Someone raised a point here that the slave auction might have been the idea of a teacher-I agree. Well intentioned perhaps, but without any real thought as to what they were doing. We all know the slave auctions were not simply about ownership-they were cattle auctions...live people were displayed naked in chains, whipped, ripped from the arms of their families and dragged away. The people who bought them viewed them as property, like the oxen that pulled the plows or the horses that carried their carriages to the places where people were bought and sold. They genuinely believed Africans were a different kind of animal. No more, no less. There is no appropriate way to capture this-no way.

6th grade-sure, a good time to introduce how people can treat each other badly based upon something pretty superficial. High school-sure. The Holocaust and Slavery, and Brahmins vs the Irish vs The Italians and "Bitter Fruit."

Until then, I want to handle it here. Inside my own walls-I am qualified, you are qualified-we know what our little ones can handle.

Ok, trying to get off this soapbox one last time.

 

[Nova]

Nova, I agree that the subject of race has a place in our schools-diversity does absolutely. I have seen a good faith attempt here in my town to do that, in spite of the mis steps I related. But I am curious as to who is setting the curiculum and whether they are seeing the bigger picture with the lessons they are choosing.

Back to my issue with my 6 year old if I may-I contacted the school superintendent with a request to have him meet with me and review the unit as well as the video in question.

He replied that neither he or the principal of my school had seen it. Or reviewed it. Huh? The percentage of non whites to whites in our school system has changed from 12 percent to 40 percent in the last 10 years-our teachers are scrambling to try and integrate multi ethnic cultures into the classrooms...fair enough. But no one who had the ability to edit the unit saw this video. No one who might determine the appropriateness of it for the class room.

Someone raised a point here that the slave auction might have been the idea of a teacher-I agree. Well intentioned perhaps, but without any real thought as to what they were doing. We all know the slave auctions were not simply about ownership-they were cattle auctions...live people were displayed naked in chains, whipped, ripped from the arms of their families and dragged away. The people who bought them viewed them as property, like the oxen that pulled the plows or the horses that carried their carriages to the places where people were bought and sold. They genuinely believed Africans were a different kind of animal. No more, no less. There is no appropriate way to capture this-no way.

6th grade-sure, a good time to introduce how people can treat each other badly based upon something pretty superficial. High school-sure. The Holocaust and Slavery, and Brahmins vs the Irish vs The Italians and "Bitter Fruit."

Until then, I want to handle it here. Inside my own walls-I am qualified, you are qualified-we know what our little ones can handle.

Ok, trying to get off this soapbox one last time.

I couldn't agree more about the issue of age-appropriateness. And what's the rush, anyway? It's not as though 6-year-olds are going to the candy story and accidentally buying slaves while they are there.

 

[believe09]

OM Goodness-coffee everywhere...thanks for the laugh Nova.