LAKEWOOD, Colorado. – Several parents are in arms about a lesson in the month of black history that they say was handled inappropriately.
The lesson, in a talented and talented eighth-grade social studies class at Creighton Middle School, focused on slavery.
“It made me nauseous,” one student said. “There was a knot in my stomach.”
That student, who asked to be named Kaye, said the instructor told his class that the lesson was a serious matter. But Kaye said some students didn’t take it seriously.
“One was joking that slaves couldn’t get up to go to the bathroom and had to pee on themselves,” during their forced voyage across the Atlantic, Kaye explained.
“He said it was great and then it was corrected in the chat,” he said, adding that the student kept saying, “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 sometimes laughed at herself.
“In no situation is it okay to make jokes or laugh when it comes to slavery,” Kaye said.
Kaye and a classmate, both students of color, wrote a note to the teacher expressing their concerns.
They described how he had students on the ground to simulate crossing the Atlantic and then had them clean the cotton so they could empathize with what the slaves were going through.
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“This‘ sugar-coated ’is a very serious and horrible event in American history,” Kaye said.
“He used the phrase‘ my little cotton buddies, ’it’s time to stop what you’re doing and continue with the lesson,” Kaye added.
“The lesson was handled tactlessly,” Kaye’s mother, Amanda, said. “My daughter said it was disgusting.”
Amanda said there is a lot of diversity at Creighton Middle School, “but the gifted and talented program is less diverse.”
He shared his daughter’s letter with a close friend, Rebecca Dutcher, who is like Kaye’s aunt.
“I was horrified, but I didn’t know what to do with it,” Dutcher said.
She believes the instructor should have treated the lesson of slavery with the same seriousness as the one dealing with the Holocaust.
“I can’t see a teacher doing a simulation of train wagons or saying‘ my little campers ’in reference to a concentration camp,” he said.
Dutcher shared Kaye’s note with an African-American friend who posted it on Facebook, where he got answers through district lines.
“It makes me wonder if he led this lesson for a person of color,” said friend Danette Hollowell. “The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me, because [two girls] they acted more mature than the teacher “.
The teacher responded to the note from Kaye and her friend, saying that “I felt deeply that this was detrimental to your feelings, as it was NEVER my intention.”
He added that he reads from Sealed from the beginning i White fragility to make sure he tries to take advantage of his empathy as a white person by using his privilege to help those of color.
She also said she corrected students’ offensive behavior, saying “this wasn’t supposed to be fun” several times and asked if the girls didn’t hear her.
“Sometimes we just listen to what we want to hear, but again, if I’ve offended you, I’m sorry,” he wrote.
Kaye said the instructor “chose” what to answer.
He said the teacher did not respond to the comment “my little cotton swabs.”
He apologized for how he made us feel and not for his behavior, “Kaye said.
Denver7 contacted Jeffco Public Schools to comment 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 other students don’t have to experience what she and her friend did.
Dutcher said, “If someone brings this to your attention, in my opinion, the correct answer would be … let’s figure out how to fix it.”