Progressive instruction or racism?
From MSNBC:
A white social studies teacher attempted to enliven a seventh-grade discussion of slavery by binding the hands and feet of two black girls, prompting outrage from one girl’s mother and the local chapter of the NAACP.
There are some details missing: Did the girls volunteer? Were they selected at random? Had this lesson been given before? It would be a shame to label this exercise as racist simply because it offended, for perhaps that was the point of the lesson. As a high school English teacher, I have divided the class into groups, making one sit silently in the back while instructing the other to demonstrate segregation. Reading Elie Weisel’s Night, I’ve been known to ask students to step into a small confined space to demonstrate what it was like to be confined to a cattle car. I hope I didn’t “offend” anyone, but I also hope that I did.
We should be outraged. The treatment of people as lesser citizens or as animals is plainly objectionable, and lessons such as the ones described above teach that point. I hope that a misunderstanding — unless, of course, there are other factors not mentioned in the story — does not dissuade teachers from teaching progressively.
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