According to a recent
Time Magazine article
(source) two 4th grade teachers in the past month have gotten in trouble with their schools, parents, and students for their handling of teaching about pre-Civil War slavery in their classes by conducting mock slave auctions pitting white students agains students of color. Apparently, at least two 4th grade teachers in different states thought this would be an excellent lesson plan. Neither was well-received. These incidents are wrong on so many levels it's a challenge to know where to begin. Clearly, however, something is wrong with the 4th grade teachers certification process, the lesson plan approval process, and the notion of teaching slavery to 4th graders in the first place.
How do people receive teaching credentials in two different states, Ohio and Virginia, to be qualified to teach 4th grade and think that a good idea for teaching components of the Civil War and slavery in particular would be to conduct mock auctions in their classes? What aspect of their own educational background would possibly make them think this was a good and viable lesson? Is there a website out there called
www.LessonPlan.edu (not a real website) that proposed such a concept? An isolated incident would be one thing, but twice in the same month in different parts of the country, perhaps, suggests a pattern. This could be going on all over the place but only two principals received complaints. In any case, something needs to be done to ensure teachers with better judgement are hired to teach at the elementary level where children are so impressionable.
It's also difficult to comprehend how this lesson was taught. Is there no dept. head to oversee lesson plans? Is there no one at the disposal of these teachers to whom they could go and bounce ideas around? It is very difficult to imagine conditions where reasonably educated teachers of 4th grade would think this was a good idea, however a school is not a vacuum. There are loads of resources, usually, available to teachers with new ideas. It's difficult to imagine had these teachers just asked a colleague about the idea that either would have proceeded. It certainly does beg the question as to who was asleep at the wheel?
Lastly, there is no earthly reason that slavery needs to be part of the 4th grade national curricula. Those in history instructor circles often rely on the George Santayana quotation "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
(source) to justify their work. Unfortunately, with all due respect to the Spanish philosopher, there is another possibility. Children who are not taught the past may not know to repeat it. This is a controversial comment not meant to disavow the teaching of any history to anyone ever again, however, there is certainly something to be said for the concept of not giving anyone certain ideas. From where may young children raised in ethnically and culturally diverse communities by non-racist parents get an idea that their race is lesser or greater than that of another? How does it feel to be a little Black 4th grade boy and learn that it used to be perfectly legal in the United States for you to be owned, bought, sold, and so on? How might it feel to be a little white 4th grade girl and find out your ancestors might have abused and enslaved Black people? By extension the concept rears its head when teaching about any past subjugation including the Nazi's of Jews. Do young children need to learn about these incredibly traumatic incidences in human history? What goes through a young mind when it first learns that a group of people was once hell-bent on the destruction of his or her ancestors? Does he or she look around the room to see the descendants of those people sitting across from him or her? How does a society ever move on from these hideous crimes against humanity if we saddle each new generation with this baggage?
It was a controversial topic not too long ago when the notion was raised that the government of the United States should pay reparations to the descendants of African American slaves to compensate them for the pain and suffering of their ancestors. While many of all compositions were in favor of this plan, there were many more against it because they could all see that you cannot undo pain and suffering of the past by compensating people who were not even born. Better, on the other hand, to spend equivalent dollars working to achieve a nation that is more than color blind but one that actually celebrates and treasures its diversity. Going hand in had with this must be an equivalent evolution in historical instruction whereby seeds of subjugation are not planted into the fertile minds of the very young. Maybe slavery is a topic for high schoolers, maybe that is still too young. Certainly there will be many who argue that by not teaching about it at all or waiting too long you are simply sanitizing history, and that would not be a good solution. The objective should be, however, to ensure that history doesn't repeat itself by inadvertently creating another generation of subjugators or by putting 4th graders through mock slave auctions.