angiebaby
Mountain Mama
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2007
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If the principal handles it, I see no reason to get the district admins involved. The goal is to have the daughter not have to participate in this particular script, right? Is the goal to get people fired? I'm sorry, but I don't think that's right. People make poor judgment calls at work all the time. If you say you never have, I'm sorry, but that dog don't hunt.
I had (what I thought was) a great lesson one time. Hell, I still think it's a great lesson. The kids learned about Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin. Then I was able to procure some raw cotton and the kids got to hand clean it, or at least attempt to. Those seeds really don't want to come out of the cotton. It showed how time consuming the hand cleaning was and, I played old hymnal-type songs (nothing too religious) while the kids were doing it. So they got to experience the challenging work it was for people, listen to music from the time period, it was an enjoyable day. The kids LOVED it.
One kid jumps in the car after school with his mom who asks, "What did you do at school today?" Kid replies, "I got to pick cotton!" Mom loses her shit. You can guess what tone of skin she had, I suppose. She calls me and proceeds to chew my ass, to which I was totally taken off guard, trying to explain the purpose of the lesson. She sets up a meeting with the principal and me, both mom and dad are there. Once I explained I was not trying to give them the "slave experience" and that we had read excerpts and watched some of the movie "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and students had read documents recorded by former slaves about their treatment (and learned that different owners treated their slaves differently, based on primary sources of slaves) and I was absolutely NOT glossing over the horrors of slavery, they calmed down. Slavery is a big part of the era, but so is economics, and using a machine to clean the cotton, meant that they could put those slaves out in the field and grow more cotton and get even more wealth and land.
Anyway, I'm really happy those parents just went to the principal and not to the district office. However, no other students of mine were able to have the same experience
I had (what I thought was) a great lesson one time. Hell, I still think it's a great lesson. The kids learned about Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin. Then I was able to procure some raw cotton and the kids got to hand clean it, or at least attempt to. Those seeds really don't want to come out of the cotton. It showed how time consuming the hand cleaning was and, I played old hymnal-type songs (nothing too religious) while the kids were doing it. So they got to experience the challenging work it was for people, listen to music from the time period, it was an enjoyable day. The kids LOVED it.
One kid jumps in the car after school with his mom who asks, "What did you do at school today?" Kid replies, "I got to pick cotton!" Mom loses her shit. You can guess what tone of skin she had, I suppose. She calls me and proceeds to chew my ass, to which I was totally taken off guard, trying to explain the purpose of the lesson. She sets up a meeting with the principal and me, both mom and dad are there. Once I explained I was not trying to give them the "slave experience" and that we had read excerpts and watched some of the movie "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and students had read documents recorded by former slaves about their treatment (and learned that different owners treated their slaves differently, based on primary sources of slaves) and I was absolutely NOT glossing over the horrors of slavery, they calmed down. Slavery is a big part of the era, but so is economics, and using a machine to clean the cotton, meant that they could put those slaves out in the field and grow more cotton and get even more wealth and land.
Anyway, I'm really happy those parents just went to the principal and not to the district office. However, no other students of mine were able to have the same experience