Sun Prairie Families Sue School Over 'How To Punish A Slave' Lesson

[TexasTowelie]

Two families are suing the Sun Prairie School District and Patrick Marsh Middle School over an assignment earlier this year that asked sixth graders how they would punish a slave.

Students received a worksheet in February that gave a scenario out of ancient Mesopotamia that imagined an enslaved person had "disrespected his master by telling him, 'You are not my master!'" The assignment asked students: "How will you punish this slave?"

The school district apologized in an email to parents, and the teachers who assigned that worksheet — which came from a third-party website that was not a part of the district's curriculum — were allowed to resign and were placed on paid leave for the rest of this school year.

"When a group of teachers band together and institute an assignment asking sixth graders to take the place of a slave owner and asking them how should we punish this slave, that doesn't go away with just, 'We're sorry, and we're going to investigate,'" said attorney B'Ivory Lamarr, who is representing the families. "It doesn't work that way."

Read more: https://www.wpr.org/sun-prairie-families-sue-school-over-how-punish-slave-lesson

[samnsara]

1. holy moley what the F were they thinking?

[SergeStorms]

2. So the offending teachers are "punished"....

by being put on paid leave for the rest of the school year. What next? Gift certificates for Spas and restaurants?
What a shameful thing for those teachers to do.

[Lonestarblue]

3. The lack of sensitivity by these teachers is astonishing.

It’s difficult to teach about slavery in this country, but that assignment was just plain wrong. We need a national model curriculum for teaching this unfortunate and revolting part of our country’s history rather than having teachers download miscellaneous stuff from the Internet. Most history textbooks whitewash slavery while perhaps not glorifying but spending far too much time on the battles and the people of the Civil War and Southern excuses for maintaining the abominable practice of slavery. Spending more time helping children learn about and understand the economics of slavery, which really is based on feudal models of land owners (the wealthy) and serfs (the poor essentially tied to the land owner and that land), would better prepare them for analyzing history.

Using examples of slavery from ancient times just exacerbates the problem by making slavery seem acceptable because it was not just the US that allowed it. It’s even in the Bible, so it must be okay!

[diverdownjt]

4. Let's teach them in a way that is NOT a how to manual.

[Claire Oh Nette]

6. Mesopotamia

The OP stated the students were studying Mesopotamia.

Yes, we need to do a better job teaching about Chattel slavery as it applies to America, and how American Slavery differed from indentured servitude or slavery as practiced in ancient civilizations.

Teaching students about Mesopotamian slavery isn't the problem. Writing from a historical person's perspective isn't the problem. This was a poor choice for that strategy--better to use it in an unit on Immigration at the end of the 19th century, or from Lewis or Clark to the folks back home.

That said, what a stupid assignment.

[Jon King]

5. So who are they suing?

The teacher is gone so why sue? School districts get their money from the property taxes of everyone in that area. So the lawyer feels everyone should pay even though the dimwit who did it no longer works there?