A truly stupid teacher in White Plains, New York deserves a failing grade for her lesson on slavery!  MSN reports that a White 7th grade history teacher at Haverstraw Middle School tried to “enliven” a lesson about slavery by using tape to bind the hands and feet of two Black students in her class and having them crawl under desks to demonstrate the conditions of the “Middle Passage” (cross-Atlantic voyage) of slave ships.  HUNH??!!

The outraged mother of one of the girls alerted local news media and the local chapter of the NAACP about what took place after her daughter returned home upset over the lesson, and has complained to her daughter’s teacher, principal and superintendent about the incident.  She says her daughter was publicly embarrassed, refused to go to school the following day, and burst into tears once she returned home the day of the humiliating lesson.

The mother and an NAACP representative met with school officials to discuss the matter and the teacher apologized to the student for the event. However, the family left the meeting unsatisfied due to the district’s lack of discipline for the teacher and the teacher/school district’s focus on the fact that the daughter was “upset,” rather than the understanding that such a lesson was unacceptable and hurtful.  I agree!!  I wonder if the school district would be as dismissive if a teacher locked a Jewish student in a closet to mimic the internment of Jews in Nazi concentration camps as a form of “teaching” about the Holocaust. 

Of the ridiculous lesson, school Superintendent Brian Monahan said, “We encourage our teachers to deliver the curriculum in a variety of ways, to go beyond just reading the textbook. We don’t want to discourage creativity. But this obviously went wrong because the student was upset.”  No, dearie.  This went wrong because you don’t bind any child, let alone an African American child, to demonstrate SLAVERY and this lesson was CULTURALLY offensive!!! 

This teacher should be seriously disciplined.  She (and apparently her superintendent) needs sensitivity, diversity and cultural competence training, and the district also needs to work with the students in the teacher’s class to help them process the hurtful and improper lesson.  This should NOT be minimized.  We send our children to school to be educated, not humiliated!!  The mother of the child is said to be undecided on whether or not she will pursue the matter any further, including the possibility of a lawsuit against the school and teacher.

For more on the story, click here.

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