Not to (a) step on the contemplation of Obama’s awesomely clear nailing of the GOP to their current platform: we-hate-America/lets-let-the-Chinese-eat-our-lunch, nor (b) to trespass on Dennis G.’s turf too much, but this, via TPM is in its way even more astounding than the Charleston objectively pro-treason story we enjoyed earlier in the day:
A fourth grade teacher in Norfolk, Virginia is in trouble for getting a bit too real in a lesson on the Civil War, in which she held a mock auction of black students while letting the white students bid on them.
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On April 1st, Jessica Boyle separated students in her class and put the black and mixed race students up for sale, according to WVEC News, apparently in a well intentioned, but ill-advised attempt to demonstrate the injustices of the slave era.
Oscar Brown singing “Bid ’em In”
“Ill-advised” is as nuanced a way to describe this as I can imagine. I’m even prepared to accept it.
__
But it’s funny. I’ve been off the ‘tubes for the last few days as I help my students work on their documentary shorts. This year their films are focused on research into conflict resolution. One common feature of group conflict is that one side tends to have more power than others. One thing the people we’re talking to about this research have observed with considerable rigor is that those more powerful folks tend to see the moral world differently — not just from a different point of view, but with different judgment — than do those out of power.
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Which is to say that I find it wholly believable that Ms. Boyle meant well…and wholly tragic as well.
Or to put it another way: on the 150th anniversary of Confederate treason in defense of their right to own human beings of African descent, this race thing ain’t over over here.
Update: I realize from the comments below that my that my line about differences in power producing differences in moral perspective/judgment may not have been that clear. That line was shorthand for this question: how it could be possible to genuinely possess good intent and yet produce behavior that to a neutral party — someone not a member of a group in conflict — seems obviously malign, harmful. In that context, the fact that some teacher could (perhaps) genuinely see this role-play as OK is a measure of just how far we have to go in dealing with issues of race and history in this country. (Update edited to make a bit more sense.)
Image: J. W. M. Turner, Slavers throwing overboard the Dead and Dying — Typhoon coming on, 1840.
Corner Stone
As tired as I am of the whole Confederacy schtick going on here, no one, anywhere, at any time, who is in their right mind even a teeny tiny bit would have done this.
She should not be making judgment decisions around children.
WereBear
Is this a consequence of NOT discussing or acknowledging it in any logical way, leaving so many people to grope their way through it, stepping on toes and feelings?
Maude
She was stupid.
How did she think this would go over well?
The ones with the power make the rules and then preen over their vast sense of morality.
Conflict resolution is one of the most difficult things to achieve. Passive resistance and non violence can be effective.
mss
My grandmother was an 8th grade teacher in Houston for many years. After the class read To Kill a Mockingbird (her favorite book), she conducted a simulation in which she told her class that they would have a vote to decide how to share a bag of candy, but that only blue-eyed people could vote.
Complaints would erupt from brown-eyed children, as well as a few grasping defenses from blue-eyed students. She let this carry on until someone would pipe up with the objection that my grandmother had unfairly created the voting in system in her own favor—after all, she had blue eyes herself. And then she would say: “Of course I do. Would I have proposed this rule if I didn’t have blue eyes?” And then she would pass out candy to everyone.
Maybe this was a better way to open children’s eyes to injustice than a slave auction?
Violet
What a horrible thing to do to children. Would it have been better if she’d split the children up by whoever was wearing a blue shirt or some other less personal issue? I don’t think having a mock slave auction with children is ever a good idea, no matter how well intentioned.
mr. whipple
Another nice Turner pic. I like your choices!
JPL
@Corner Stone: It certainly wasn’t an age appropriate exercise but blacks were sold into slavery so she wasn’t making judgment decisions. Those judgment decisions were made 400 years ago and continued for 250 years in the U.S.
bkny
‘well-intentioned’ … ‘ill-advised’
fire her ass now. i couldn’t believe it when i saw this earlier today. how in the hell can you even begin to think this is a good idea.
damn.
Pococurante
Democracy is an exercise in collective punishment.
The yellow stars comment? Odious. 2,500 years of dhimmitude for Christian and Muslim societies is not the same thing as a teacher who can’t play at collective punishment without forgetting to switch roles.
Hamas has the same “challenge”. And yet they get a cleaner bill of health on BJ with sad monotony.
WereBear
@JPL: Yes, but she could at least have mixed it up. People who work with small children should have some glimmer of sensitivity.
We had teachers who asked us to close our eyes and imagine… or mss’s grandmother’s solution, which was also getting the point across about injustice; without recreating it.
Violet
When I was 15 I went with my family to colonial Williamsburg. On the tour, the in-character tour guide singled me out of the group, asked me to come forward and then proceeded to check out my teeth to see if they were okay and if I might be worth buying as an indentured servant.
It was all part of the historical tour experience, but I still remember how it felt to be put up in front of everyone and looked at as if someone was going to buy me. And I was a teenager and it was just an historical tour and pretty much all in fun. I can’t imagine how it must have felt for those kids to have their teacher, someone with power and in a position of trust, do that to them.
Corner Stone
@JPL: She made a judgment decision to racially divide a children’s class and then conduct an auction. That’s the judgment decision she made.
Cassidy
Heh…who’d have thunk that being “sold” into slavery makes you feel bad. Not surprising the parents missed the whole point of it.
Maude
I got confused about your post title as I wrote about in the last thread. Must be highly confused. I understand it now.
The term yellow stars does indeed give me the creeps, just the same.
MikeJ
I was in college during the era of student groups trying to get Unis to divest from South Africa after The Specials did that song. One group put up signs on every water fountain, every restroom, every entrance to every building. Colored door. White Door. Colored Restroom. White Restroom.
Pissed off many people, but at least (most of these) college students could have a conversation about it, which was the idea. Of course there were those who thought it was an indictment of their racism. Their children are now analogizing the annual rivalry football game with civil war terrorism and taking the wrong side.
JPL
@WereBear: That type of exercise was not age appropriate. I’m not sure what age would appreciate it, though.
I do think it is important to talk about holding humans as slaves simply because of the color of their skin.
WereBear
@JPL: Fourth grade does not have the distance to role play in that way; however poorly thought out this was, the fact that she type-cast the children, instead of simply treating everyone the same; that made it worse, somehow.
Martin
Sad. Probably the most useful and lasting lesson those students will receive in grade school. Yes, people were sold. Yes, it’s degrading beyond all description. Yes, most well-meaning people didn’t have the courage to stop it. Yes, we’re the same goddamn people today that did this just a few generations ago.
I bet at least half of those kids have a much clearer notion of what this nation is capable of when we give into our baser instincts. I don’t think there’s any easy way to learn that, but it’s a bit sad that we’re so afraid to teach it.
Keith G
@WereBear:
Really? Was the injustice of slavery actually recreated in that class room?
She made a mistake. She will learn. Next year she will teach the test and all will be well.
Cassidy
@Martin: And a significant protion of our electorate want to go back to it. That’s a lesson they need to learn ASAP.
M-Pop
Kind of OT, but I was wondering if Tom teaches new media – I’ve been reading up on it and would like to try teaching this in my rhetoric and composition classes.
WereBear
@Keith G: No; it wasn’t slavery.
The injustice I meant was casting the African American kids as slaves. That must have been humiliating for them; it was racist in itself.
That’s why I wonder if it was even well-meaning; why not cast the white kids in such roles?
Martin
@Cassidy: Agreed. Hell, we don’t need to go back to it – we just shift populations. Target the latinos, or the gays, or the poor, or workers. There’s always some underclass that we can fuck over.
It would have been interesting to then reverse the roles and explore what the black kids would do. Would they be compassionate or vengeful?
Don’t get me wrong – the real problem is that the kids shouldn’t have been segregated along an identifying line. 20 random kids here, 20 random kids there would have taught the same lesson, but not risked carrying a stigma out of the classroom. But there are some real serious things to learn in that kind of an exercise.
PhoenixRising
There is no age at which re-enacting the auctioning of human beings is an appropriate teaching tool. I wouldn’t do that as an exercise with college students.
When I was a sprout of, uh, a young age, my 5th grade class re-enacted a local historical event of 1859. This event included a fleeing runaway slave being freed from bounty hunters by a mixed race crowd.
My teacher, wisely, allowed all students to sign up for the role they wanted; there was then a debate, which the teacher moderated for civility, among all the volunteers for the role of runaway slave–some of whom raised the point that they felt entitled to the role because they were black (which is what we said back then).
I learned a lot that day about what makes race identity, because my teacher had me read aloud the advertisement for the runaway from our history book. When we made a drawing based on the description, the kid in the class he looked most like, according to our composite, identified as white. He didn’t get the part, though–our teacher put all the names in a hat and drew one at random.
How did ‘make history come alive! with pretending!’ bring us to an annual fiesta of ignorance and bad judgment in which children are assigned roles based on their perceived race? That’s just…dumb.
JPL
@WereBear: The recent polling about the causes of the Civil War indicates to me, that teachers are ignoring the fact that states seceded over the rights to own slaves. There are some fourth graders that won’t forget that, imo.
I am not condoning the teacher because I think what she did was inappropriate and totally agree with your statement.
Keith G
@Martin: Good statement
@Corner Stone:
No, she needs to be in a classroom continuing to try like hell to find ways to create a hook that gets students into a lesson.
Or, she could bust out the DVD player and show Roots while 1/2 the class sleeps.
Comrade DougJ
Like Paul Ryan, she started a conversation, right?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
It sounds like she was trying to teach an important lesson, but failed on the details. She should have talked to some of the other teachers about her idea first. Creativity in such situations may not be her strong point. Give her some training, or the school should come up with a way to teach it. Don’t fire her for trying to teach something this important.
freelancer (itouch)
@Comrade DougJ:
I find her actions bracing and courageous in their lack of good judgment, but the ball is in the white students’ court now!
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
History is a living process, constantly occurring. By failing to expose ourselves to the misery of events which happened not all that long ago, we risk suffering those events again. In my lifetime, people of color in the South suffered legal oppression and exclusion from the economic and political life of their own communities. My mother knew a man who was born a slave. Undoubtedly, my own great grandparents, known to me, had multiple lifetime interactions with Confederate veterans.
We’re not so far off that this is ancient history. We risk stumbling into bad habits when we forget, or turn a blind eye.
Corner Stone
@Keith G: We’re going to disagree on this because I find it the absolute height of lunacy any thinking person would choose to do this to those kids.
I have a child in Kindergarten and I know exactly how little it takes to get them to question themselves and those they have trust in.
Do you think these kids went home and reflected on the sordid history of racial divide and exploitation that is mankind?
Joshua Norton
So do the Northerners get equal time to celebrate Sherman’s March to the Sea? You bet you sweet ass we do.
No matter how many times the good ole boys wave the stars and bars. Or give a rebel yell. It doesn’t change one simple fact. Y’ALL LOST!! Deal with it.
Cassidy
…so some creationist whackjob could report her for having bad thoughts about white people? This is the south we’re talking about.
Corner Stone
@Comrade DougJ: Where is the Democrats plan to racially divide a classroom of children and auction them off?
They can not be considered serious on this matter.
JPL
When polls are released that indicate 42 percent do not think the civil war was fought over slavery, it’s a sad indictment on our education system. All a teacher has to do is read the secession documents from GA, VA, or other Southern states.
Those that preach states rights are the same who same we are to politically correct now a days.
Corner Stone
Who here thinks the 4th graders are better off for this lesson?
That’s the fundamental question of the -left- this thread.
DPirate
Stupid, certainly, but probably effective were it not for the mock outrage.
Joshua Norton
@efgoldman: Just goes to show. They haven’t stopped being a bunch of losers to this day.
All their BS since then is nothing more than a way to compensate for their inferiority. They lost. Lost. L-O-S-T. And it drives them crazy.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone:
Did any of ’em get to keep their purchases?
lamh34
@Corner Stone:
Ok, the big problem for me, is that in all likelihood, the AA kids and biracial kids are more well-versed in the cause and trauma of slavery. As an AA myself, my first lesson about slavery WAS NOT a lesson at school. The reality of enslaved Blacks was known to me seems like since I learned to read and understand. For many American born Blacks whose family history in America can be traced back to slaves, you will learn about slavery from older fam, neighborhood, pastors, councilers, etc.
So the attempt to show the kids how it would feel would have been a better idea if it was the White kids who were made to be “treated” like slaves. I might be exaggerating, but I don’t believe that most white kids grow up learing the lessons of the past as it pertains to slavery.
So NO, I don’t think the kids have learned much. The blacks kids learned that even if ur half-white, you will have to play the role of slaves. The white kids learned???
Keith G
@Corner Stone:
Obama’s real budget plan.
Proper Gander
@Pococurante: Crucifixion of Jesus: CE 33. The Hegira of Mohammed: CE 622. 2011-33= 1978. 2011-622: 1389. If 2500 years is an aggregate figure, 1389+1978=3367, so you lowballed it. If it isn’t, well, if you’re going to complain about history, a prior familiarity with the subject couldn’t hurt.
n.u.m.b
Wonder how the black and mixed race kids felt after being “sold as slaves”? And the white kids – how did they feel “buying” their fellow students and being “slaveowners”?
Just Some Fuckhead
I was one of the chaperones at my son’s recent Colonial Williamsburg field trip. No matter what exhibit we were visiting, the cast members always seem to hammer home that only white property owning males had any standing back then. They’d painstakingly go down the hierarchy starting with the white males and all the white boys would beam proudly, followed by the white females, at which time the white girls would make a face at the white boys, followed by people of color, servants, slaves, indentured servants, no rights, etc. at which time the black kids would just sorta stare blankly and we’d all shuffle uncomfortably. My heart must have broken a dozen times that day. I know it’s silly.
We were walking past a cast member of color who yelled out “God save the king” and I said to one of the little girls with me, “Do you think she knows the leader of our country is black?” She stared up at me wide-eyed and I said, “Go tell her, brighten up her day!”
Ija
@Corner Stone:
You think Dennis G passionate posts on the subject are schtick?
Mike in NC
@Violet:
Mock slave auctions were also a part of the Colonial Williamsburg “living history” shtick until just a few years ago, I believe. They finally got the message that it wasn’t funny.
Bobby Thomson
Sigh.
And just as occurred when this was posted at TPM, so many remain oblivious to the fact that the students who were assigned the role of purchased slaves in this exercise didn’t need the exercise to know that slavery was a really bad, stupid, evil, destructive thing. And that using them as instruments to teach a lesson to the white kids is itself dehumanizing.
No, this classroom exercise wasn’t in the same ballpark, league, or sport as slavery. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t all kinds of fucked up.
Mike in NC
@Joshua Norton:
But they get to flash those cool “Sons of Confederate Veterans” license plates. Gotta count for something?
Omnes Omnibus
My IB European History class in high school reenacted the trial of Louis XVI. I got to be Louis.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
@lamh34:
I have to agree with you ladies — the lesson probably would have come across much better if the teacher had reversed the roles of who were the “slaves” and who were the “buyers.”
I don’t think it’s a terrible lesson idea, but then again I was already reading about the civil rights movement on my own when I was in 5th grade, so I may be an outlier.
ETA: Bobby Thompson is also right, though I don’t think he’s a lady.
Corner Stone
@Keith G: {knew it}
wasabi gasp
White kids should’ve been the slaves. Sheesh! Who’s this lesson for anyway?
Corner Stone
@Ija: I usually skip them, or at most skim them. The schtick I am referring to is the inevitable comments like Joshua Norton et al that infest every one of Dengre’s posts.
And so it doesn’t do me any good to point out I have lived in the South my entire life, worked, visited, have friends all over, etc, and have never one time in my life met a person who thinks the way they are portrayed here.
I, for one, do not want the South to Rise Again. And I denounce Stalin as well. But not broccoli, fuck the haters.
Just Some Fuckhead
@wasabi gasp: Meh, she coulda had the black kids be slaves and then followed up the auction with a bloody slave revolt.
Or, better yet, the Underground Railroad. All the black kids coulda snuck out and gone home for the day and the white kids had to stay.
Tom Levenson
@M-Pop: Not new media, as such: I teach an advanced documentary class — both audio and video — in which the students work on science films/radio work. I used to do that for a living, so that’s what I teach.
wasabi gasp
@Just Some Fuckhead: Locking the black kids out will be a lesson for another day.
Stillwater
@Tom Levenson: Those who
can’tdo, teach.Studly Pantload, Vibrant Trollbot for Obama
Love me some Turner.
That is all.
debbie
I think the use of “yellow” is appropriate. Considering it’s still being used by the Taliban to mark non-Muslims in the villages they control, it needs not to be shelved away as some kind of historical aberration.
mike
That Turner painting: Wow. So beautiful. So horrible.
adolphus
@Mike in NC:
Mike: They did ONE (1) mock slave auction in the mid-90’s that was produced in consultation with African-American historians and interpreters and participants ADULTS who chose to participate themselves, and were themselves trained professionals. That’s a far cry from forcing children to do this in a class with their friends.
The auction was actually well received by those who saw it, but, not unlike the Smithsonian’s Enola Gay exhibition, people totally unconnected and with and no knowledge of content used the event for political posturing by both the local NAACP chapters and the Lost Causers in VA.
Colonial Williamsburg presents, by and large, a Disney-fied version of Colonial America. They tried to TALK about the inequalities, brutality, and suffering of the time, but the area is well maintained, they don’t let shit pile up in the streets, everyone is bathed and combed, no one has pox scars or other ravages of illness, accidents, and the medicine of the time, and there is no way they could treat their AA,female, children (then again what children)or lower class “characters” in the brutal way they would have been treated as they were treated in the era CW has chosen to interpret and still attract visitors.
Even if they TALK about slavery and inequality, the overwhelming message at CW is that it was great to be an American colonist. I applaud there attempt to inject some realism into their interpretation, even if it was politically naive.
adolphus
And by the way, this exact same thing happened in Ohio back in March. Was it discussed here at BJ? I don’t recall. I wonder if there is some sort of mathematical axiom at work, the odds that an event will make news is proportional to the event’s distance from D.C., NY, or LA?
Paul in KY
@Pococurante: IMO, our black brothers & sisters during their years of bondage got everything the Jews (and other persecuted minorities) received. The title was apt, IMO.
Paul in KY
@wasabi gasp: Definitely. That shows the Southern mentality. The teacher automatically fixed it so the black kids would be the slaves. It may even have been totally subconcious.