BRENTWOOD, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee school district has issued an apology for a social studies assignment that asked students to pretend to be slave-owners and brainstorm expectations for their slaves.
The Tennessean reported Thursday that Williamson County Schools and Sunset Middle School apologized for the assignment, saying it was inappropriate. The homework also assigned other tasks including the creation of a political cartoon depicting immigrant labor in the U.S. and writing a public service announcement about the hazards of living in urban areas.
The two teachers who assigned the homework also apologized, saying in a statement that the assignment has been pulled and won’t be graded.
The Tennessee Department of Education says the middle school is 70 percent white.
What are y’alls a thoughts on my sisters HW?? pic.twitter.com/HLp1NJdJtg
— Danny Boy (@danholfountain) February 28, 2019
Written by good people like Meadows, who would never consider themselves racist, and would be highly offended if someone called them that…
Unlike the example with Northam’s wife and cotton, here students are being asked to personally identify with the bad guys. I think that is a problem, and the broader sense of the project even more so. (Imagine that you are an Inquisitioner. What is the best way to crush the thumbs of your victims? Is it better to rape them before they get tortured, and get all yucky, or afterwards, when they are more compliant? Discuss among yourselves and document your reasoning. Extra points if your approach takes advantage of tools and materials already on hand, and avoids a lot of new expenditures.)
There might be a corner of academia where studying the thought processes and learned behaviors of slaveowners is appropriate and worthwhile, where something might legitimately be gained from such study. It’s way, way outside of freakin’ middle school.
Perhaps middle school is too young for the assignment. But the assignment coupled with one to imagine being a slave can really get on to wrestle with what these are about rather than just settle for a facile reaction
Maybe this is Tennessee’s version of getting your students to think outside the box. Maybe you could jump a couple centuries forward to look more at the present.