Mother contests 'slave auction'

[davidinalameda]

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031780000256&path=!news&s=1045855934842

Michelle Wilson couldn't have been more surprised or appalled a few weeks ago when her 9-year-old daughter came home and proudly explained that she had bought a slave at school.


"She came home and said, 'I bought a slave,'" Wilson said. "I couldn't believe what I'd heard."

Wilson's daughter is a fourth-grader at Swift Creek Elementary in Chesterfield County. She is the only black in her class.


I'm of a mixed mind on this--should the teacher simply be fired or fired and tar and feathered

[slackmaster]

1. Neither fired nor fired, tarred, and feathered

The teacher should be forced to take sensitivity training and apologize.

[SmileyBoy]

2. No question - The teacher was out of line.

There's no excuse for doing that. Now on the other hand, if you want to teach the students about how slave auctions happened in those days in a standard matter, it's one thing. But this kind of behaviour on the teacher's part is uncalled for.

[skypilot]

3. Personally...

...I'd say neither. She should find a way to make her "lesson" more effective. The article says that the lesson was lost on the child because she didn't understand how wrong slavery is. I think that is what needs to be addressed. How is this woman teaching about slavery without conveying how immoral it is?

[Sandpiper]

4. Having a mock slave auction, tends to trivialize, rather than illustrate

The evils of slavery.

Unless the kids who were "sold" as slaves were forced to go home with their new owner, do whatever they were told, and were subjected to physical abuse and degredation if they didn't, the kids would more likely see the "slave auction" as a game than a moral indictment of slavery.

[skypilot]

7. seeing it as a game

I am inclined to give the teacher the benefit of the doubt based on what I've read in the article. I'm sure the slave auction was only one part of the lesson and should be considered in the context of whatever else the teacher was offering in order to teach the children about this subject. It depends on how it is done and apparently in this case it was done poorly. She somehow failed to convey the seriousness of the lesson so the children probably did, as you say, see the "slave auction" as a game but I'm willing to trust that that was not her intent. I'd have to have more info before I'd say that she should be fired or fired and tarred and feathered.

[noshenanigans]

6. That's what I thought...

It sounds like it just turned into a classroom game or something, probably all chuckles and "ooh, now you have to do my work!" kind of jokes, and none of the kids really understanding the extent of what was going on.

I'm all for teachers finding creative ways to involve children in history, but not at the students' expense.

[KurtNYC]

5. I think the troubling thing is that "she wasn't taught slavery is wrong"

We did a lesson for 3rd grade where we pretended to discriminate against kids with blue eyes. No recess for them and they were last to the lunchroom. I still remember it. We all felt how wrong it was.

Without seeing the way the auction was conducted it is hard to defend or condemn it but if the kids didn't come away with the message that slavery is wrong then it was a big controversial waste of time (or worse).

[Old Mouse]

8. I believe your 3rd grade lesson is now forbidden

as it can cause serous psychological problems.

[GarySeven]

9. You couldn't possibly teach the reality of slavery in this fashion

1. There could be no representation of foreign governments involved in the illegal shipment of African, trans-African or Caribbean slaves.
2. There could be no representation of Northern bankers, investments firms, agricultural concerns, cotton shipping agents, etc., who profited from the slave trade.
3. There could be no representation of the racist attitude that existed across the entire country that permitted trade in human chattel.
4. There could be no representation of how wide-spread slavery was - extending to the ownership of slaves by native Americans and the fact that some ex-slaves were even involved in the slave trade.
4. There could be no representation of the gross hypocracy of northern liberals who pretended to be "shocked" by slavery, but still enjoyed the low-cost fabrics and other agricultural exports it permitted.

I suppose the one thing you could do, of course, is oversimplify the whole thing and just teach the children that all Southerners were evil - and still are - because of slavery.

[Old Mouse]

12. They are in fourth grade

All subjects are simplified.

[GarySeven]

14. The subject is also simplified

in high school, college and in post-graduate studies, too.

[Old Mouse]

15. Too true n/t

[TahitiNut]

17. Just show them "Gone With The Wind" ...

... and they'll learn how well slaves had it, how wonderful the owners were, how the only problems the owners had were those nasty Yankess, and how the owners suffered and worked hard (for a year? three?). (Forget about the advantages of owning 1,000 acres drenched with the sweat of slaves - after all, ownership is hard work.)

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Your view of slavery seems quite restricted

it was (indeed, is) not limited to the USA and a couple of hundered years. It has occurred over much of the world, for thousands of years. Why you think the lesson would teach that (USA) Southerners were, or are, evil, I can't see. Do you have more of the lesson plan than this article tells us?

[oneold1-4u]

10. The curious have intelligence

Curiosity asks for answers and many of them as soon as a child leaves home environment and begins to see a world. Do most children today know or understand that likely one or many of their ancestors from Europe arrived on the shores of America to work for years (slavery) just to pay their passage to get here? There isn't a "color" of slavery, even today.

[Old Mouse]

11. I think people here are over-reacting

We only have the mother's interpretation that her daughter inadequately learned of slavery's evil.

At a time where slavery and the horrific Jim Crow aftermath are being reduced to a few lines in the American history books this teacher obviously grew it to something that she thought would leave a lasting impression on her class. Our schools do not currently do enough to teach about America's dark secret.

To suggest she went through the trouble to stage a participatory event in her class over a subject to trivialize it, or that she was unaware of the gravity of the history is to prejudge on information that is clearly not in that article.

I think that any attempt to educate further than what is currently required should be appreciated, and any teacher making a creative effort to engage her class should be rewarded.

[PowerToThePeople]

13. Outsourcing, the modern day slavery

With todays shipping methods, companies can pay foriegn citizens much less than US citizens in the labor industry. This takes jobs away from tax paying american citizens. The people in third world countries may be better off than they were previous(maybe with the dropping dollar outsourcing will be less profitable) But the foriegn Governments should insist on US style wages and tax those wages to "spread the wealth" to improve the whole country. Sorry for rambling, but just a few thoughts floating around my head, nothing too concrete to write on...

[jukes]

16. this is seriously troubling

i can't imagine any benefit from this kind of theatrics.

[arcane1]

19. I went to school in Chesterfield County

and we had Senior Slave days, where seniors could choose someone and they had to be the senior's slave for a day

this seems to be taking it up a notch :puke:

on edit- SSD was not about teaching the evils of slavery to students, it was merely a special day of priviledge for those in 12th grade

[Lisa]

20. my high school did this for a fund-raiser

This was in the late 1980s, in a large city in Ontario (Canada). I believe that most schools now see "slave auctions" as old-fashioned, if not inappropriate.

Does have that 1950-ish ring to it, doesn't it! At our school, the "slaves" wore bedsheet togas (presumably, ancient Rome was less cringe-making) and only did things like carrying the students' books ... but there wasn't any attempt to pretend it was part of a lesson. (or, as I think the education lingo now puts it, a "teachable moment")

What made the biggest impression on me, regarding slavery, wasn't anything so tacky. My Latin teacher, in Grade 10, quietly explained to us that slave-owners (including more modern times) viewed their slaves as possessions. Expensive possessions, sure (and that meant that not everybody could afford one, and it was wasteful to abuse a capable slave) -- but they would be bought and sold whenever it was convenient, and the owner would no sooner think of extending privileges than you would lobby to have your washing machine granted the right to vote! I found out about the really bad stuff later, but the utterly different mindset really stuck with me.

I think of that whenever I do laundry. Thanks, Miss Kinnaird.