My wife was a 10th grade student in suburban N.J. One day, he distributed raw cotton to each student in her class and told them to take the seeds out. This was life before the cotton gin.

Last edited Thu Feb 28, 2019, 11:35 AM - Edit history (1)

If it was just Afro-American students, I’d say it was insensitive as all get-out. OTOH, I think handing cotton balls to white and other kids would also have made sense. NOT ALL COTTON-PICKERS WERE AFRO-AMERICAN. There were a LOT of white cotton-pickers back in the days before machines took over, particularly migrant laborers and share-croppers, and learning the unpleasant and occasionally painful parts of picking cotton makes for a more rounded education.

and picked cotton. Horrible work. The conversations between the siblings were sure eye openers.

He claimed one of his shoulders was lower than the other because of dragging a heavy bag around.

I'll never forget the looks on my mother and aunt's faces when they were talking about it, or when they were discussing a neighbor
planting a few cotton plants in a flower bed because it was "pretty". <eyeroll>

What's wrong with the white children imagining that? Wouldn't that be desirable for them to learn? And for pete's sake, black children today know no more of it. I suspect now you will argue their disadvantages, and I see that, but they aren't still picking cotton or slaves.

In other words, if white students got a piece of cotton and were told to
imagine "picking" it as slaves etc.., would there be a problem? Or,
should we have a custom curriculum for each and every student?

Let's say you're at a holocaust museum and are handed a number and
asked to imagine what it would be like to be reduced to a number.
History is replete with suffering. How do you get that across?
What teaching methods do you suggest that won't upset
some people?

Seriously...

maybe should be given up during Black History Month. Stick to dry lectures.

A teacher in my family got away with dramatizing a slave auction in the 90s. Students of either race could take any of the parts. She was very popular and in sync with kids, so I guess that is how she got away with it. Now I'm thinking it would go viral and get her fired.

Hell, even a dry lecture about picking cotton would be taken amiss. But then skipping the entire subject would be offensive too, I predict.

and asked them to imagine what it would have been like to be a slave picking cotton.

Maybe she would have done the same thing to a white student if they were standing closest to her. But it was tone-deaf and insensitive.

As a former black child, I remember those kinds of class trips and "learning experiences" and remember how mortifying it was to feel as if I was an exhibit. These things have to be handled very carefully and she blew it.

Perhaps the governors' spouses should leave these kinds of "learning experiences" to historians and teachers who know how to do them without making the children feel embarrassed or uncomfortable.

there have been those cases. How are kids to learn about the antebellum and Jim Crow era South and its practices? What is the ideal plan?

It's very awkward and uncomfortable when they're made to feel as if they're on display or are being treated as Exhibits - especially since slavery and black history is usually not taught as part of the regular curriculum but often treated as something separate and distinct from the rest of American history.

For example, when I was a kid, I can remember holding my breath and the heat rising to my face during Black History Month when the teacher started talking about some aspect of slavery or brought up one of the three black people we always covered almost exclusively - Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Martin Luther King (sometimes Harriet Tubman made it in there) - knowing that all of the white students would turn and look at me for my reaction and that I would likely get called on to offer my perspective. It was horrible to be singled out that way.

It's better now, but it still happens too often.

It takes sensitivity and skill to discuss these issues with young people and can't just rely on good intentions.

One way to learn about the antebellum and Jim Crow era South is for it to be taught as an integral part of American history, not some special, standalone lesson that ends up putting minority students on the spot.

I work with a historical museum that does a lot of teaching about slavery and the docents all have extensive training in how to handle this history with young people. Among other things, they're very skilled at walking the fine line between encouraging empathy and understanding on one hand, and making young black people feel awkward and embarrassed and white youngters feel guilty, on the other.

For example, they would know not to single out kids - be they black or white - by handing them cotton and asking them to imagine what it was like to be a slave. There's nothing wrong with asking them to step into someone else's skin. There's nothing wrong with using cotton as a visual aid. But to hand it to a couple of students was tone-deaf. Kids aren't adults. They react to these things very differently and children who are in racial minorities are particularly sensitive to theae kinds of things because they're ALWAYS singled out by and among their peers, often unintentionally and sometimes without anyone actually doing anything but just by being present in their different skin color.it may be hard for anyone who isn't, as you described yourself, "a former black child," to understand, but it's very real.

Thanks for trying to explain it.

with American History rather than as a special standalone lesson. Would that be any improvement, when the subjects still came up? Just mentioning Frederick Douglas puts the minority students on the spot and makes them feel like an exhibit. I imagine not every black student feels this way as there are probably as many different reactions as there are black people.

Our schools were de facto segregated still (a busing order started when I had already graduated) and we had one black family only (they lived in the district). There was no Black History Month then. I don't think we learned about it except as it came up from the civil war. I didn't know our one black student that well to know if he had any issues in his classes. That sounds like your situation? But after integration, where there would be a number of black students in the class and it might not have be as bad a feeling.

Carter G. Woodson started Black History Month in 1926 because black history was ignored in school curricula.

It's long past time for black history to be integrated into ordinary history classes as a natural part of American History and not segregated out as some strange, separate aspect of out past and only recognized one month a year.

Probably best to leave it as independent study at this point. Assign some books, have the students read them, and then write reports only they and the instructor see to make sure they have learned the material and then move on. I think given the times we live in it’s probably the safest route.

Last edited Thu Feb 28, 2019, 05:43 PM - Edit history (1)

Just give every kid, regardless of color, a generic, meticulous, backbreaking, and mindnumbing task and have them do it for a few minutes. Tell them they need to complete x units in y time. Have a stopwatch handy.

The task can be anything. Bending over, reaching down, and assembling Lego into certain configurations. Bending over, reaching down, and crafting pieces of paper on the floor into specific shapes which mustl be put into a bucket.

Let the students know how they did on the exercise. Let them also know that, historically, they would have been whipped, beaten, or otherwise punished severely if they didn't complete x units in y time.That's what slavery, in any form, is all about.

On edit: I see now that you were being facetious. My apologies.

Basically if you’re a history teacher in an American school first off you’re probably feeling under appreciated because there is almost no value placed on history as a subject in our schools, but you’re also tempted to stick to the textbook exclusively on controversial subjects because it’s a mine field.

You were serious? Really??

Your suggestion is not a non-offensive way to teach black history to students, black and white. Your suggestion would make the black students feel like they were on the spot.

The state first lady tried to do just that, at least in imagination. It was about picking cotton, which white people did too, though not at Mt. Vernon. Your suggestion parallels hers.

Completely tone deaf to the students. Very poor judgement! The first family of Virginia seems to be out of their depth with lots of privilege showing. Handing out free cotton samples with a historic brochure would have been better, but not by much.

I was actually aghast when I heard this story.

it might be both the name and number but you are given details of a person as part of your ticket.

I went to a Titanic exhibit once, same thing, everyone was given the name of a passenger on the way in and could learn that person's fate at the end (not that being on the Titanic compared to slavery or the Holocaust, but it was an egalitarian exercise).

and ask them to demonstrate laying some rail line.

At this point just lock the Northams in the Governor's Office by day and the Governor's Mansion in the evenings and don't let them out until the 2021 election...

Ralph doesn't need to be out in public to sign/veto legislation and Pam doesn't need to be in public to perform philanthropic works...

Based on this part of the article:

“I will give you the benefit of the doubt, because you gave it to some other pages,” the girl wrote to Pam Northam. “But you followed this up by asking: ‘Can you imagine being an enslaved person, and having to pick this all day?’, which didn’t help the damage you had done.”

Her question is problematic, cause it assume the black kids haven't thought about slavery.

No matter their age. they've thought about and been exposed to the history before a teacher covered it. Black parents can't depend on Virginia's school curriculum. If they want their children taught the truth about the civil war and slavery. They have to do it themselves.

When I first entered this thread, I thought it was about a teacher who handed cotton to two black students and left it at that. That, apparently, is not the case. It seems like the lesson she was trying to teach was equitable to all of the students.

I can't remember a time where I didn't know about slavery and the civil war to some degree. My mom made sure to teach me things she felt the school didn't properly cover about our history.

Amazingly, a lot of people newly minted and growing up in the 21st Century don't know about this and can't even comprehend what it was like to be a slave in early America. I mean, we all know that slavery happened, but we don't KNOW how terrible it was.

I know we learned about it, but probably not that much. It was likely a lot more about battles and causes of the War that included the states rights' and other such issues. What I know I have picked up on my own as an adult. In fact, in high school the biggest race question was the impending possible busing order. I was for it, I recall, but there were students dead set against it. I think we were allowed to discuss it in class. It was more of a current event.

Since the third grade at least. The civil rights movement and massive resistance.

Christopher Columbus is fully covered as is the ugly truths about Jamestown/Pocahontas

"Imagine being a slave and having to do XYZ" is potentially a worthwhile means of illustrating an educational point, as long as the same is being to told to everyone ... black, white, asian, etc.

POTENTIALLY.

I am wondering if this thread should be locked.

To ALL the Gov pages.

The bigger issue.

And that would be, try not to do anything at all that may come across as potentially racially insensitive!