A
homework assignment that was supposed to be given to fourth grade students at
an elementary school in New York
What is alarming about this
controversy, are the teachers who believed it was okay to give students’
homework of an insensitive nature. The
report stated that a teacher new to the building was given the assignment from
a veteran teacher to give to her class.
The new teacher asked a student-teacher to make copies of the assignment
so the assignment could be given to the students. If it had not been for a student teacher’s
refusal to make copies of the assignment because the student-teacher felt the
assignment was insensitive, the controversy could have been worse. Fortunately, the assignment did not make it
home and students and their families were spared from participation in this
calamitous act of insensitivity.
Although there are claims the math
questions were a product of a social studies assignment on slavery by another
fourth grade class taught by the veteran teacher, one has to question why the
teacher would consider using these questions in the math assignment and call
the assignment Slavery Word Problems.
In what is supposed to be an era of
political correctness, sensitivity and tolerance, there appears to be less
political correctness, less sensitivity, and less tolerance coming from our
schools. What is puzzling is these acts
of insensitivity and intolerance are increasingly coming from teachers.
Knowing the offending teachers are a
veteran teacher and a teacher new to the building, one could speculate the
offending teachers should have known the assignment was offensive and
inappropriate. Furthermore, the report
did not state if either of the offending teachers expressed remorse is
troubling and leads one to believe this was an intentional act. Lastly, for this incident to occur during
Black History Month is equally disturbing.
To stem this increasing
insensitivity and intolerance among teachers, districts should mandate periodic
sensitivity training as part of teacher ongoing professional development. Additionally, school administrators should
become more diligent with the monitoring of lesson plans and assignments to
prevent incidents such as this from happening.
An incident such as this is preventable.
Finally, as part of their disciplinary action and penitence, the teachers
should formally apologize to the whole school and be placed on some type of
disciplinary probation. I do not believe
the teachers should be fired or transferred, unless this is not an isolated
incident.
If school leaders do not act on behalf
of children to eliminate the rise of insensitivity and intolerance among
teachers, our children may give up on education. Our country cannot afford to continue to lose
another generation to underachievement and low expectations because a
preventable problem was not corrected.
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