Racism: a teachable moment

**hadassahchana**[$] · #1 10-02-2007, 03:52 PM

There's a video on CNN this morning about an elementary school in Louisiana where supposedly a noose was placed around a child's neck during a lesson about racism. This article gives details of the incidents.

When I first read the headline which contained the words "noose around her neck" I was flipping. After I read a few articles, though, I'm starting to wonder if this was really such a bad idea? The gist of it is, some kindergardeners and 1st graders asked about the march in support of the Jena 6, and their teachers recognized an opportunity to teach them about racism and the symbols of racism in the south. So, the children were given chains and shackles and the one little girl had a noose round her neck- her grandmother was holding her up while this took place.

I'm really creeped out at the thought of doing that, but I'm also not convinced this was the terrible horrible act the president of Grambling State University made it out to be. The school is run by the university, and he's suspended teachers over the incident. What do you guys think?

realtraveller · #2 10-02-2007, 05:01 PM

You don't stick a child's hand in a fire to show him that it's hot and you don't put a child in a noose to teach that nooses are symbols of lynchings.

Did they have six kids beat up on another kid to teach that that kind of behavior is inexcusable?

**jgibson2**[$] · #3 10-02-2007, 05:36 PM

I found the picture. The child is clearly standing on something and the rope is over a tree branch. While the child is safe in the picture, I would be terrified that the kids would imitate this. FIRST graders, FCOL. I can maybe see it with older students standing on the ground, but not first graders. They don't have a solid understanding of the permanence of death at that age, so I'm not sure they really learned much from the demonstration anyway.

**drmomentum**[$] · #4 10-02-2007, 06:55 PM

What could possibly go wrong?

**hadassahchana**[$] · #5 10-02-2007, 07:59 PM

Kathy, you don't have to teach a child about hot by burning him, but that is more of an immediate danger which kids learn quickly. On the other hand, threats they either are no longer exposed to or wouldn't understand without some sort of personal connection to it are harder to teach. Example: although the Horsemen were all taught about the Holocaust in small bits, #2 finally 'got it' after seeing a number tattooed on the wrist of an elderly woman in our synagogue. Explaining all about the fear and the tactics used to humiliate and intimidate didn't make an impression - seeing a string of little blue numbers when her sleeve accidentally fell away and watching her burst into tears and run from the room did.

I agree with Judy- 1st graders really don't understand the danger of tying a noose, and that would scare me. However, many of the news sources I read today seem to be making a much bigger deal out of it, but not from a danger POV, more of being supposedly worried that the children will be emotionally scarred for life, and I don't buy that at all.

**jgibson2**[$] · #6 10-02-2007, 07:59 PM

Quote:

What could possibly go wrong?

The kids could learn why lynching is a bad thing. No problem.

Cindy,
I'm with you on the "scarred for life BS" Clueless - the first graders and the media.

**drmomentum**[$] · #7 10-02-2007, 08:12 PM

You look deeper into a story and suddenly you have a different impression of it than you did when you saw the media coverage the first time.

This is the story of the media lately.

realtraveller · #8 10-02-2007, 08:43 PM

Kindergarten age children frighten easily so teachers have to be careful what experiences they use for teaching. One of the few experiences I remember from kindergarten was our trip to the city jail. It was a small town, one cell, no prisoners, but it scared me! Just seeing the dark gray cell.

These kids could have nightmares over this. They are really too young for a 'lesson' like this.

**lynnzop**[$] · #9 10-02-2007, 09:39 PM

What Judy said.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #10 10-02-2007, 10:06 PM

Quote:

realtraveller said

Kindergarten age children frighten easily so teachers have to be careful what experiences they use for teaching. One of the few experiences I remember from kindergarten was our trip to the city jail. It was a small town, one cell, no prisoners, but it scared me! Just seeing the dark gray cell.

Reportedly, that's how Alfred Hitchcock turned out the way he did - locked in jail for a brief time as a young child.

magenta321 · #11 10-02-2007, 11:02 PM

I grew up with a lot of the "different but the same" message all around me. My generation grew up with this message, and really didn't have a problem accepting it the way previous generations did.

I still remember learning about the Underground Railroad, the Holocaust, etc. and not really "getting it." I thought that everyone always thought like I did, cause it was the only message I ever heard. It seemed like a story from another planet to me. I think I got that people were "mean" but I don't think I understood that families were ripped apart, fear was high, and there was a lot of loss, all because of discrimination.

I'm not sure that these kids are ready to "get" discrimination. I'm certainly not about to say this is a great lesson for this age group. But I don't think it's as terrible as the media is making it out to be.

I can clearly remember an assembly before a blind child was integrated into our classroom where we once again heard the "different but the same" message, and where we got to try on glasses that made us "blind" too. They helped to show that blind people see some, but their vision is obscured. It helped us all to realize that we were standing in the blind kid's glasses, but, we were the same people we always were.

Of course, by the time I was in college, "different but the same" as well as this lesson were completely shot down by my professors. So was the lesson plan where the teacher seperated the class into the blue eyed and brown eyed kids, and alternately discriminated against the two groups. I thought all of those lessons were important, but, who am I?

I think this lesson was a bit misguided (IMHO), but, I get what the teachers were trying to do. They were trying to personalize the experience for the students so they can imagine the pain that others have felt. I think their hearts were in the right place.

**Prepoia**[$] · #12 10-02-2007, 11:29 PM

Children of this age are too concrete. They "get" the noose but not the idea or concept behind it. This scares me and there are other teachable methods to introduce the ideals. Introduce, because as Margaret says, it took a long time to understand the concepts. We and they as adults "get" it but children won't and don't. They may mouth back what we say but understanding and internalizing global idealism isn't possible.

**hadassahchana**[$] · #13 10-03-2007, 01:21 AM

I think I see what you mean, Sandy. One thing I do wonder about is the possibility of accidentally giving the wrong message- i.e. us vs. them instead of 'racism is bad'. On the other hand, these kids are hearing all about the nooses in the trees at that high school in Jena. How would you explain that and give them enough context to really understand why folks are all so upset by a bunch of ropes hanging in trees? I'm not belittling the response in Jena- I certainly do understand how terrifying it must have been to see that in a schoolyard. But, to little kids, it must be hard to accurately convey the real horror of this.

frazzledspice · #14 10-03-2007, 03:29 AM

I think that the teacher could have gotten his/her point across without being so graphic.

The National Historic Site in our town has regular "hanging reenactments," because it is the site of the courthouse of "the hanging judge."

I have made it a point never to visit during reenactment days, and I wish they wouldn't hold them.

**drmomentum**[$] · #15 10-03-2007, 05:25 PM

Quote:

Prepoia said

Children of this age are too concrete. They "get" the noose but not the idea or concept behind it.

Sandy hit the nail on the head. It's not tough to teach horror. Nearly everyone can be frightened. Racism itself is based in fear. But what we call "racism" is not the concrete noose.

Additionally, what bugs me about this activity is embodied by this quotation:

Quote:

The lesson for kindergarten and first-grade students at Alma J. Brown Elementary was racism, with teachers explaining the symbolism of a noose and allowing children to carry shackles and chains, also symbols of oppression, The Gramblinite reported. The students also held a march for equality at the school. Some carried signs supporting the Jena teens.

So, it was important to convey the noose and chains as symbols of racism. Not just teach that, but internalize those symbols.

I would ask why it is important to perpetuate those associations. I understand teaching about racism, but this is something more. This is an indoctrination into something different.

-JP

**hadassahchana**[$] · #16 10-04-2007, 11:39 PM

I think you've solved for me what is so disturbing about this. I was really trying to see it more from the teavcher's POV there, but the thought of pinning on a yellow star onto one of my boys' shirts just makes me nauseated and shaky. That example doesn't just upset me, it's a physical reaction to something awful, and I have been trying really hard to understand the example in Louisiana but I can't get it.

**drmomentum**[$] · #17 10-05-2007, 04:11 PM

Right - it's like saying "it's important for you to know what a yellow star means."

And to experience a bit of the trauma of the association. This bothers me, because it's not the yellow star itself that is the problem. The problem is more abstract, and concretizing it in that way is probably the opposite message from an ideal lesson.