Posted on 04/09/2011 8:26:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
NORFOLK
The principal of Sewells Point Elementary School has apologized to parents for a teacher's classroom exercise last week that cast her black and mixed-race fourth-graders as available for sale.
The apology came after the teacher separated the students from their white classmates and auctioned them, division spokeswoman Elizabeth Thiel Mather said. The exercise was part of an April 1 class on the Civil War.
In an April 6 letter sent to parents of students in the class, Principal Mary B. Wrushen wrote: "I recently became aware of a history lesson that was presented to the students in Ms. Jessica Boyle's fourth grade class. Although her actions were well intended to meet the instructional objectives, the activity presented was inappropriate for the students.
"The lesson could have been thought through more carefully, as to not offend her students or put them in an uncomfortable situation," Wrushen wrote.
Wrushen said the exercise was not supported by the school or division. "I will follow up with the classroom teacher to ensure nothing like this ever occurs again," the letter said. "In addition, the guidance counselor is available to discuss any concerns your child may still have concerning this classroom lesson."
Wrushen declined to comment Friday. Boyle, who has been with the division since 2005, did not return a call to the school. She has taught at Sewells Point for three years, and before that was at Dreamkeepers Academy, according to the division website.
Mather said the division was responding to the incident with "appropriate personnel action." She did not give details.
Wrushen became aware of the auction exercise after receiving complaints from two parents, and spoke to the class about the incident, Mather said.
"This lesson was not part of the approved curriculum," Mather said.
Chris Lee, whose daughter is in Boyle's class, was among parents picking up their children Friday at the school on Hampton Boulevard near Norfolk Naval Station. He said he'd heard no details about the exercise, though he received Wrushen's letter.
"My wife and I were trying to figure out what the letter was about, because we heard nothing about it, we just saw the letter," he said.
Told by a reporter about the auction, Lee said, "That sounds inappropriate to me. Wow. That's interesting - that's something I have to digest." He said he would ask his daughter to tell him about the incident.
The school has 590 students.
Contacted Friday by The Virginian-Pilot, School Board Chairman Kirk Houston said he had not known about the auction.
"That's very disturbing to me, extremely disturbing to me," he said. "Mock slave auctions involving children are absolutely unacceptable in a classroom. At this point this is a personnel matter, and the School Board will monitor its outcome."
Peggy Scott, treasurer of the Norfolk Council PTA, also first heard about the incident from The Pilot.
"I'm sitting here with my mouth hanging open," Scott said. "There are some things you don't do."
In a statement Friday, Superintendent Richard Bentley said: "The school district does not condone this type of lesson in any way. It was wrong. It was outside the boundaries of the curriculum and appropriate instructional practices."
Last year, a Jacox Elementary teacher who anointed students with "holy oil" in the classroom resigned after a parent complained about the teacher's religious actions. The division determined the teacher violated the school system's instructional curriculum as well as policies and laws related to the separation of church and state.
Also last year, two teachers at Norcom High School were placed on leave for using materials in the classroom that were endorsed by an anarchist group and an organization that backs legalized marijuana. Both received letters of reprimand for not receiving permission to use the materials in class and returned to their jobs.
An elementary guidance counselor who distributed 80 to 100 human fetus figurines to students last year at Oakwood Elementary resigned after being put on leave. The school's principal was removed from her post and reassigned elsewhere as an assistant principal.
It sounds as though the dumb biatch can’t get over the slavery thing. She needs to get a life, a job more appropriate to her intelligence level and maybe try to move on. Slavery in America has been over for a long time.
February is Black History Month and Mrs Boyle, the teacher, meant this as an April Fools Day prank. The Irish have no shame. < /sarcasm>
A teacher decided to auction off black students...wouldn’t that be the definition of A Bad Idea?
Unless you're trying to brainwash kids into thinking: "I'm a victim. I'm a victim. I've been personally victimized by slavery and racism."
Excellent point.
So history should be ignored? Denied? Whitewashed?
For the life of me I don’t see what was wrong with the lesson.
It reminds me of the hysteria surrounding the former Mayor of D.C. saying he was going to be niggardly with the spending in the district.
How Slavery Really Ended in America
Apparently there are a few here at FreeRepublic that missed that memo...
More appropriate "current events" re-enactments could include the following:
- Have the boys wear turbans and beat the girls not wearing head scarves
- Have teachers steal half the kids' lunch money and give it to the DNC
- Force the smartest kids in the room to give their gold stars to the lazy ones
- find out which kids have the wealthiest parents, and make the other kids tease them as "greedy and evil"
- Have the kids sing songs lauding Barack Hussein Obama, Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!
No.
But really? This is the best they could come up with to teach this?
If the teacher had decided to use the white kids instead of the black and brown kids to be sold, this teacher would have been given the Teacher of the Year award for ‘innovation in teaching.’
But for some it has left in its path an earth, scorched and debauched, with soil poisoned by the salt of slavery and only the enslavement of the white devil can purify the stain.
While this probably wasn’t the best way to teach the subject to 4th graders, I’m a bit surprised at some of the comments on this thread as they sound so very much like the libs spouting in the comments section of the VAPilot. I read there every day and have a pretty good idea of the local liberals as I have often engaged many of them in the comment section.
I was telling this fellow at work about an old west saloon called St Elmo.
Wyatt Erp, Doc Holliday and the rest frequented the place.
Anywho.. I took my kid in there as a history lesson.
The proprietor pointed to a sign that said “unattended children will be sold into slavery”
The words just left my mouth when I realized he was black and that he may have been offended.
I was embarrassed and angry that I should feel that way.
My own people were enslaved. Why should I feel guilty to even utter the word?
It reminds me of the hysteria surrounding the former Mayor of D.C. saying he was going to be niggardly with the spending in the district.
Especially since niggardly means being stingy
Well, remember this, only Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Calypso Louie Farrakhan, are allowed to separate the races.
For anyone else, it is a No No.
Whoa!! Didn’t even a small warning bell go off in her head?
I disagree.Role playing in lessons can really make it more real and the lesson sticks.The thing is she needed to contact all of the parents fiirst and inform them of what she had planned and why then get permision slips.Then with the participating children she needed to use a lottery system for what each was going to play.Whether slave holder or abolishiist, slave or freeman.There were many options she could’ve used.She just went about it all the wrong way.
And I can understand that. However, wouldn’t a little role playing about the slavery of communism be a little more appropriate as well as timely these days? Unfortunately, most of the clowns teaching in our schools these days wouldn’t want to see that lesson plan out there floating around, IMHO.
The next time the teachers does this she needs to remember that there were thousands of black slave OWNERS in this country. There were even some black men who were slave breeders. They sold their own children into slavery.
She needs to also remember that it was blacks who sold other blacks into slavery in Africa. How else did the slaves get into slavery? The sailors on the ships were not going into the jungle to get them.
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