Could You List the Positive Aspects of Slavery? A Teacher Asked 8th-Graders to Do So

[mountain grammy]

Students at a Texas charter school recently received a homework assignment that asked them to list both the “positive aspects” and the “negative aspects” of slavery.

Eighth-grade students at Great Hearts Monte Vista Charter School in San Antonio were given a worksheet titled, “The Life of Slaves: A Balanced View.” A mother posted the worksheet to social media with the only appropriate answer:

Link to tweet

/photo/1

more at link including the statement from the school superintendent

https://www.theroot.com/could-you-list-the-positive-aspects-of-slavery-a-tea-1825430656


Speechless.

[oberliner]

1. School responds to assignment asking students to list 'positives' of slavery

Great Hearts Texas Superintendent Aaron Kindel addressed the issue in a statement on Thursday. He said the assignment was only used at the school's Monte Vista North campus and it "was very inappropriate and entirely inconsistent" with the school's "philosophy and culture."

"To be clear, there is no debate about slavery. It is immoral and a crime against humanity," Kindel wrote in the statement. "It was a clear mistake and we sincerely apologize for the insensitive nature of this offense."

Kindel said the teacher was placed on leave while "all the facts" surrounding the issue were assessed. The textbook for the course, "Prentice Hall Classics: A History of the United States," was removed from use and will be audited.

http://www.wesh.com/article/school-responds-to-assignment-asking-students-to-list-positives-of-slavery/19870312

[ProudLib72]

2. Thank you Michael Harriot!

The teacher of the class said she was only teaching from a textbook: Prentice Hall Classics: A History of the United States, but after an outcry from parents, the book was removed while the school district conducts an investigation. I looked in Great Heart’s school manual and “investigation” is defined as:

A bullshit tactic used to stall people until their low attention spans force them to forget why they are angry.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! This is applicable to every damned "investigation" the idiots say they are going to do: police, school boards, managers at Starbucks, etc.

[mountain grammy]

4. Yes, that got me too.

[ProfessorGAC]

21. At First, I Missed The By-Line

But, in reading it, I just knew that was Harriot! He's really good!

[tnlurker]

3. I want to know

What the text book says is the answer to the positive side? They must have some examples for conversation. I wonder who the small minded writer of that textbook is?

How did this get past a review board? Was it the right wing Texas school board?

[jaysunb]

5. Charter school. Surprised ? n/t

[Major Nikon]

6. History is being reworked in Texas

Students are now taught the Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery, but states’ rights. If fact, they weren’t slaves at all, but simply “workers”.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. That revisionism -- that the Civil War was about states' rights, not slavery, has been going on

for a very long time.

I was in junior high when the Civil War Centennial happened, and I recall being told in my Social Studies class that we were wrong about slavery being the cause of the War. Nope, it was states' rights. And I lived in northern New York State, which tells you that Southern apologists had managed by then to take over the dialogue about the war.

[Major Nikon]

16. Yeah, about the time of the Civil Rights Movement

So kinda funny how something that wasn't in dispute for 100 years suddenly was at that exact point in time. Meanwhile anyone who bothers to read the articles of secession the traitorous states used to state their reasons can plainly see slavery was pretty much the only issue and unambiguously the primary one. Furthermore the "states' rights" excuse was exactly the opposite reason. One of the other stated reasons for secession was the practice of northern states to declare slaves free once they were in their jurisdiction. In other words, the South fought the Civil War in opposition to the northern states' rights.

[rpannier]

17. Probably ask Glen Beck

Doesn't he promote some (ahem) history book that spins parts of slavery as a positive

[tulipsandroses]

7. I just can't, Does that teacher have rocks for a brain?

So the publisher publishes this disgusting trash and then you don't have any critical thinking skills to realize that this is bullcrap?
You further pass it on to innocent young minds that depend on you ???

[sharedvalues]

12. I bet the teacher watches Fox

Or listens to right wing propaganda radio.

[edhopper]

8. Hey, Randy Newman wrote a song about

how good it was

&app=desktop

[rusty quoin]

9. A better scenario, science fiction, not history would be:

Aliens from another planet came down and violently took 3/4 of your family and friends.

You are standing there in the aftermath. Name the pros and cons for what just happened.

[world wide wally]

10. Texas gets the biggest say in what textbooks are used all across the country

because they buy so many of them. I always had a problem with them. They are rewriting history and science strictly based on Texas politics.

[sharedvalues]

11. GOP teacher? Watches Fox?

Or listens to right wing propaganda radio? I’ll bet someone a dozen donuts.

Because GOP propaganda outlets push these ideas, for example that black people should stop talking about slavery. And they push ideas about racism to divide America and get votes for GOP billionaires.

[Kirk Lover]

14. It's not just about history...it's also about the here and now since slavery is still going on.

The only positives from slave life is in the life of the slave owner. This is common sense and this person should not be teaching.

[loyalsister]

23. On that note

An exercise listing "slave owners arguments in favor of maintaining an economic system that permits brutal and unjust treatment of fellow citizens" might actually have been instructive since they would are jarringly familiar.

[Cracklin Charlie]

15. Can I list a positive impact of slavery?

America has black people!

Where would we be without the contributions of the slaves, and their descendants, on our society?

George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman, Michelle Obama, Billie Holiday, the Tuskegee Airmen...the list goes on to this day.

The idea of slavery is abhorrent to me; but, my selfish side wants all these people in My American history!

[Ms. Toad]

18. This is the second (at least) time a similar assignment has been posted to DU

The responses from DU advocating that the assignment was appropriate were enlightening, to say the least.

Last time it was assigned to 4th grade students.

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100210085524

[TheBlackAdder]

19. It grew the Baptist, Methodist & Presbyterian Churches, who promoted Southern Paternalism.

.

The minsiters of those southern churches became very wealthy people, most owning slaves themselves.

They would move down from the north and marry into slaveholding households, get land, slaves, money, and congregations. They mostly taught that slaveholders were doing God's work, as they were allowing slaves the ability to become Christians. When the slave uprisings occurred, the churches held two services, a Whites Only service, bestowing the benefits of slavery and a slave service, telling them that if they are good to their masters and work, while lfe will be difficult, they will gain eternal salvation in the afterlife. These ministers took whatever small wealth the slaves had, as their congregations doubled in size.

.

[progressoid]

20. And then we have, "Ten conservatives who have praised slavery"

1. Pat Buchanan. In his essay “A Brief for Whitey,” Buchanan suggested that slavery was a net positive, saying that,“America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.”

2. & 3. Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. Bob Vander Plaats, the leader of the arch-conservative Family Leader, a religious organization that opposes same-sex marriage, got GOP presidential candidates Bachmann and Santorum to sign his pledge asserting that life for African-Americans was better during the era of slavery: “A child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”

4. Art Robinson. Robinson was a publisher and a GOP candidate for congress in Oregon. One of the books he published included this evaluation of life under slavery: “The negroes on a well-ordered estate, under kind masters, were probably a happier class of people than the laborers upon any estate in Europe.”

5. Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson. Peterson is a conservative preacher who articulated this bit of gratitude: “Thank God for slavery, because if not, the blacks who are here would have been stuck in Africa.”

...https://www.salon.com/2012/10/12/ten_conservatives_who_have_praised_slavery/

[FarCenter]

22. There must have been many positive aspects - slavery lasted for several thousand years

It probably began around 10,000 years ago in the Middle East with agriculture, which involves a lot of hard, dreary work when done with hand tools. It is easier to make others do the work, than do it yourself.

Once civilization, i.e the building of cities, began, there was a lot of other dreary work constructing city walls, aqueducts, canals, ports, etc. that people wouldn't do unless compelled. But it was agriculture that enabled cities, since hunting/gathering produced too few calories per square mile to support more than villages.

Manufacturing and industrialization made slavery obsolete, since it was inefficient to have to feed, clothe, and house slaves during periods when work wasn't available. It was more efficient to hire people by the hour and then lay them off when not needed. The capital no longer tied up in slaves could also be devoted to the more valuable buildings and machinery.