Posted on 03/01/2019 6:49:16 AM PST by bgill
A Tennessee school district apologized Thursday after a homework assignment asked students to pretend their “family owns slaves.” Dr. Mike Looney, director of Williamson County schools, called the assignment “insensitive” and “wholly inappropriate,” in an apology he issued on Twitter...The assignment, which dealt with issues of slavery, immigration and child labor, was given to 8th-grade social studies students at Sunset Middle School in Williamson County. Part of the homework asked students to imagine that their family owns slaves and then “create a list of expectations” for those slaves, FOX17 Nashville reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
When the word ‘slaves’ is erased from our history, both oral and written, we will ALL BE SLAVES....................
*Williamson County ping*
It’s part of our past and it’s dangerous to ignore it and try to rewrite history. Grow up, face the facts, and deal with it. This PC-ness is gone way too far.
Mike’s a looney!
You don’t have to pretend.
Just have a field trip to any muslim country...
Instead of the ludicrous idea of pretending to be a slave or, creepily, slave owners, why not assign books on the subject when the appropriate time comes? I suppose books on the subject are just too damn difficult and boring for the average kid of today.
Luckily, I grew up at a time when America was celebrated. Our schools did not overlook slavery or the Civil War but also took into account the glorious history of the Republic. There was no time spent pretending to be Gerald O’Hara!
END PUBLIC EDUCATION!!!!
I think this could be an excellent assignment. I would include a list with pictures and short biographies of slaveowners and suggest that students use them as models for their imaginative family stories. This list should be fairly drawn so as not to misrepresent the dominant fact pattern, but it should also be inclusive, with slaveowners of French and Spanish heritage represented, as well as a couple of black and Native American slaveowners to round out the picture.
Agree. We’re already slaves to sm.
It would be interesting to see how many wrote that all slaves were beaten, abused and killed considering how expensive they were to purchase and take care of.
Nothing wrong with the assignment. To have children see a little (very little) of what it was like cannot be a bad thing.
Long past time to blast back at these over sensitive asshats.
Civil war is indeed coming.
The pendulum will swing.
I’m sick and tired of idiots who should be back in a 1925 grade school learning things that children should know.
Back in the '90's, I substitute taught in a high school US History class in which the students were assigned to write an article on slavery from a pro-slavery point of view. This is an excellent way to teach students about what motivated those who advocated slavery. However, I felt at the time that this teacher was jeopardizing his future. If some liberal journalist had heard about his assignment, his career as a teacher would have been over.
The problem was likely the use of the word ‘slaves’ rather than ‘enslaved people’. It strikes me as being similar to the approved use of ‘people of color’ vs the obviously vile and racist ‘colored people’.
The man who complained because he and his daughter are black? 1. It’s the white kids who were targeted and 2. Blacks owned slaves too.
I agree.
This was a REALLY STUPID assignment.
Hate the constantly offended, but yeah if black kids were given a task to pretend they owned white people, many here, including me would blow a gasket.
That gets me too. Saying colored people is considered offensive, yet saying people of color is ok.
Colored people was once an acceptable term. So was Negro. Language use changes, but it can be hard to understand the logic behind those changes.
I saw that......I can’t stand Looney
I’m sure Williamson Strong will be all over this lol
He’s a liberal ex or former marine officer
Somewhat rare
I agree with you. My son’s (private) school has a weekend outing/field trip where the students are randomly selected to be slaves or owners and it goes through the whole process from slave sales to the end of the civil war.
It has been done for years at the school and really builds empathy for the people in those circumstances. An AA family tried to shut it down a few years ago but they were overruled rather soundly.
All my slaves would be second generation Vienamese kids.
They would do my homework and take my tests and I would get a scholarship.
The End.
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