LAKEWOOD, Colo. – Several parents are in arms with a lesson in Black History Month that is said to have been treated inappropriately.
The lesson, in a talented and talented 8th grade social studies course at Creighton Middle School, focused on slavery.
“It made me sick,” said one student. “There was a lump in my stomach.”
The student, who asked to be named Kaye, said the instructor told the class that the lesson was a serious matter. But Kaye said some students didn’t take him seriously.
“One was joking that slaves can’t get up to go to the bathroom and have to urinate on themselves,” during their forced voyage across the Atlantic, Kaye explained.
“She said it was great and then it was corrected in the chat,” she said, adding that the student continued to say “give them a TV and they’ll be fine.”
“It was very inappropriate,” Kaye said.
Kaye said the instructor allowed the students to joke about it and laughed at herself occasionally.
“Under no circumstances is it okay to make jokes or laugh when you talk about slavery,” Kaye said.
Kaye and a classmate, both students of color, wrote a note to the teacher, expressing concern.
They described how he made the students lie on the floor to simulate the crossing of the Atlantic and then made them clean the cotton so that they could empathize with what the slaves went through.
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“That ‘sugar-covered’ is a very serious and terrible event in American history,” Kaye said.
“He used the phrase ‘my little cotton pickers,’ it’s time to stop what you’re doing and continue with the lesson,” Kaye added.
“The lesson was treated tactlessly,” said Kaye’s mother, Amanda. “My daughter said it was disgusting.”
Amanda said there is a lot of diversity at Creighton Middle School, “but the talented and talented program is less diverse.”
She shared her daughter’s letter with a close friend, Rebecca Dutcher, who is like an aunt to Kaye.
“I was horrified, but I didn’t know what to do about it,” Dutcher said.
She believes that the instructor should have treated the lesson of slavery as seriously as the one dealing with the Holocaust.
“I can’t see a teacher simulating train cars or saying ‘my little caravans’ referring to a concentration camp,” she said.
Dutcher shared Kaye’s note with an African-American friend who posted it on Facebook, where he drew responses along district lines.
“It makes me wonder if he led that lesson by a person of color,” said his friend, Danette Hollowell. “The more I thought about it, the more I got upset because [two girls] they behaved more mature than the teacher. ”
The teacher responded to a note from Kaye and his girlfriend, saying that “he is very sorry that this was painful for your feelings, because it was NEVER my intention.”
She added that she reads from Stamped from the beginning and White fragility to make sure you try to build your empathy as a white person by using his privilege to help those of color.
She also said that she corrected the offensive behavior of the students, saying that “this should not be funny”, several times and asked if the girls did not hear her.
“Sometimes we only hear what we want to hear, but again, if I offended you, I’m deeply sorry,” she wrote.
Kaye said the instructor “chose” what to answer.
She said the teacher did not address the comment “my little cotton pickers.”
She apologized for the way she made us feel and not for her behavior, “Kaye said.
Denver7 contacted Jeffco Public Schools for comments on the student’s concerns, but has not yet received a response.
Kaye said she wants the teacher to change the way she conducts the lesson so the other students don’t have to experience what she and her friend did.
Dutcher said, “If anyone draws your attention, in my opinion, the correct answer would be … figure out how to correct this.”