Here’s an opportunity where I’ll actually defend a teacher. It seems to happen once a year in some classroom in the United States, that a young idealistic teacher wants to give a lesson about the civil war and gp beyond just reading a few lines in a textbook.
Daily Mai reports that school bosses have apologised for a controversial classroom lesson involving the mock auction of black students.
During a fourth grade teacher’s lesson on the Civil War, children at a school in Norfolk, Virginia were separated by race. White students at Sewells Point elementary school were allegedly told to stand on one side of the classroom and African-American and mixed race students on the other. It is claimed the African-American American and mixed race students were then offered up for sale in a mock auction.
The school principal has apologised for the lesson involving the pupils aged nine and ten years old and has vowed to make sure it never happens again.
In a letter to the parents and guardians of the students dated April 6, Principal Mary Wrushen wrote: ‘I recently became aware of a history lesson that was presented to the students in Ms Jessica Boyle's fourth grade class. ‘Although her actions were well intended to meet the instructional objectives, the activity presented was inappropriate for the students.
‘The lesson could have been thought through more carefully, as to not offend her students or put them in an uncomfortable situation.’
More details here
I have no problem what Ms Boyle tried to do! I support anything that helps kids learn a topic. Considering how our children have much shorter attentions spans than previous generations, I don’t an issue here.
We adults that participate in civil war reenactments of battles every year. But, we can’t have a re-enactment of what the war was all about in the classroom?
Do we think our children are so feeble minded that they’ll fall apart by such a demonstration? You’d be lucky to get them to pay attention long enough because they’re probably thinking about lunch or recess, or texting their friends.
If it wasn’t comfortable for some of the kids, that’s the whole point of the lessen and why slavery was wrong, and why this country fought a war to settle the issue.
