Posted on 04/30/2014 2:43:58 PM PDT by JoeProBono
REDMOND , Wash. A mother in Washington is upset after a teacher at her daughter’s middle school allegedly gave students an assignment that required them to pick cotton so that they could "see what it was like to be a slave."
Carolyn Walker called Redmond Middle School to inform them that her daughter would not be doing the assignment and later found out the teacher gave her daughter an F.
"My daughter is African American and for her to pick cotton when her grandparents were raised on a plantation to pick cotton, is not OK, it's not OK at all," Walker told KIRO 7. "It's not just about my daughter, all races should not have to participate in this. It's wrong, it's absolutely wrong."
According to the Lake Washington School District, the lesson was about “the impact that the invention of the cotton gin had on the Industrial Revolution."
Walker has scheduled a meeting with the teacher and the principal where she will request that the cotton lesson be dropped from the school’s curriculum.
Then they must have been paid farm hands because no child alive today has grandparents who were slaves on a plantation.
Lots of people have picked cotton in the country, slave, sharecropper, and dirt poor white people working for a wage. I know a few very personally.
Cotton is a huge element in American history. The invention of the cotton gin, the boll weevil story, slavery, how American cotton affected the world order regarding British cotton from India and Egypt.
This woman is willfully ignorant. If ANYONE should hold a cotton bowl in their hand and pick it out, get the seeds out, maybe get a cut on their finger from the sharp edges, it -should- be her little African American kid. Its idiotic for anyone to deliberately ignore what their forbearers endured.
But surely this “lesson” lacked realism.
Many years ago, my niece’s teacher found out I was a southerner. She (the teacher) actually wanted me to steal a twig or two of cotton.
It's a stupid assignment by a stupid teacher. Let's see a picture of the teacher.
This is called a "Lets hate whitey" assignment.
I disagree.
My son attends a fantastic private school. One lesson they do in sixth grade is go on a 4 day camp where they have a slave sale.
Students pick their role out of a hat and are an owner, a slave capturer, a slave seller, or a slave. Then act out their roles over several days.
Some slaves escape on the railroad, some are captured, etc.
When they come back, they have a much better idea of the whole concept.
The school has done it for years without complaint.
“From the “What were they Thinking?” file.”
Probably thinking kids need to know the history of the industrial revolution? Sorry they removed their revolutionary socialist sensibility glasses for a moment.
My grandparents were cotton farmers and picked loads of cotton.
I picked cotton too...(about 8 hours...that was enough for me. I got an education, lol)
I picked and chopped cotton while the blacks on welfare watched us work. My Uncles were the first in the area to use a mechanized cotton picker. My Grandmother had a hard time selling aspirin to the blacks in her little store because they were too proud to pick the cotton off the top of the pills.
...”Yes we worked for our Uncle”
and every April 16 I realize we all now working for Uncle Sam
...”Yes we worked for our Uncle”
and every April 16 I realize we all now working for Uncle Sam
Is that like the airing of grievances during Festivus?
I never had to pick those but have picked strawberries. When I was growing up, we grew our own veggies, fruit, beef, pork and chickens. I remember complaining about working in the huge gardens but those veggies sure did taste good in the winter. I remember picking plums, peaches, pears, and apples. My mom made the best jelly and jams. She also made pear relish and plum butter. Wish I had some. People need to quit beingbsondog-gone sensitive. There is something I have found on Facebook is posts by city kids who worked just as hard as we did. Some worked in the many sweet potato farms near my hometown. We had a relative who grew them and we would buy from him. Oh. We had something growing wild in our gardens and when I told my daughter, she asked if we ate the fruit. What fruit, I wanted to know. What we knew as maypops was passion fruit. Never knew that. The blooms were very pretty.
What’s next?
A field trip to south of the Mexican border...and then a quick swim across the Rio Grande to see what it’s like to be an illegal alien?
I call it the work allergy.
Yes they did the late great Tammy Wynette did.
“. A mother in Washington is upset after a teacher at her daughter’s middle school allegedly gave students an assignment that required them to pick cotton”
How did they expect the students to carry out this assignment when there are no cotton fields in the state of washington?
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