Posted on 07/24/2002 6:47:24 AM PDT by robowombat
Parents want apology for too-real slavery lesson Ellen Sorokin THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published 7/21/2002
Parents in a California suburb have filed a complaint against a local public school system after a middle school teacher tied up her students with masking tape during a history lesson on slavery.
The parents' attorneys claim the eighth-grade teacher, whose name was not released, bound her students' hands with masking tape and duct-taped each of the students to the floor as part of an exercise to show students how slaves felt as they were transported to America on slave ships.
Also, the parents claim neither the teacher nor any other school officials notified them such an exercise would take place. One student who participated in the exercise has been emotionally traumatized, the attorneys say.
"While it's important to teach students about the horrific evils of slavery, it's completely inappropriate to physically restrain students and potentially compromise their physical safety or emotional well-being," said Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, a nonprofit legal defense organization representing several parents in the complaint.
"It's just not safe. What would have happened if there was some kind of emergency like an earthquake, some kind of attack, or worse yet another Columbine?" Mr. Dacus argued. "Such actions could be fatal." The incident took place late last month during a history class at Lincoln Middle School, which operates in the Alameda Unified School District. About 880 students were enrolled at Lincoln last school year.
School administrators, including Assistant Superintendent Ardella Dailey, did not return a telephone call seeking comment yesterday. Staff members said Miss Dailey was attending a convention out of town.
Attorneys at Pacific Justice took on the case this month after one of the parents called to complain that the school did not seek parental consent before the exercise took place.
California law requires schools to obtain parental consent prior to any activities. It also prohibits teachers from encouraging students to participate in activities that could cause emotional distress or harm. Mr. Dacus said the school has agreed to notify parents in the future and give objecting parents the right to opt their children out of the exercise. But, Mr. Dacus said, the school has not apologized to the parents whose children have already been subjected to the activity.
"This just shows that the school district has a lot to learn about parental notification," Mr. Dacus said. "The average parent would very clearly understand that this kind of act requires parental consent."
Copyright © 2002 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
The parents of these kids should bind this teacher's hands with masking tape and duct-tape her , not to the floor, but the roof of a car, maybe. Perhaps the front of a train.
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Big shocker!
There's never any mention of the fact that half to two-thirds of the Europeans who came to this continent between the mid-1500s and 1750 came here as indentured servants, which is a form of slavery.
There's never any mention of the fact that slavery was a world-wide institution at the time, not the invention of Evil White Males.
There's never anything said about the Black Africans who actually took their fellow Africans prisoner and sold them into bondage to Arab slave traders, thus enabling the slave trade in the first place.
There's also very little mention of the thousands of white Americans who sacrificed their lives in a war of brother against brother to put an end to slavery in America.
Oh, and by the way, if you ever expect your kids to learn anything about the History of American Indians besides how badly they were treated by the whites, you are going to have to do a lot of research yourself, because they'll never hear about the atrocities committed by the aboriginal tribes at school.
It would be interesting, for example, to see a course teaching the kiddies about the virtual extinction of the Erie Indians of northern Ohio by the Iriquois Confederation in the 1600s. Especially the reports of the Jesuits who viewed Erie Indian prisoners being ceremonially burned by the Iriquois some 30 years after the rest of the tribe was wiped out. Imagine; they raised Erie captives to adulthood just to torture them to death.
Not exactly the stuff of today's educational experience, eh?
Which of course, none of this minimizes the tragedy of slavery. It just kinda points out the flaws of Political Correctness.
Parents who still have their kids in public schools need to have a copy of the Hatch Amendment Letter on file with the school.
Oh, really?
Did parents give their consent to have their children force-fed Muslim lessons and to participate in "activities," such as being given Muslim names?
What a crock.
Masking tape and duct tape, in the 1700's?
Another testimony to American ingenuity.
You do have a good idea.
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