Teacher Entangled in Slavery Binding Lesson

In White Plains, New York a white teacher has apologized for attempting to teach about the horrors of slavery by binding the hands and feet of two black girls. One of the girls had volunteered for the misguided experiment, one had not. Truth is stranger and, at times like this, dumber than fiction. According to WCBS:

Christine Shand says it was a terrible experience for her daughter, Gaby, descended, like most Jamaicans, from slaves.

"She burst into tears, she was crying and she was horrified," Shand told CBS 2. ..

In a social studies class at Haverstraw Middle School, teacher Eileen Bernstein chose Gaby and another girl for a demonstration of conditions on ships that carried slaves out of Africa. One African-American student raised her hand to volunteer for the demonstration. Gaby did not volunteer, but was chosen anyway.

"She taped their hands together, taped their feet together, and she had them crawl under the desk as if they were on a slave ship," her mother told CBS 2.

Mrs. Shand said Gaby was traumatized. She questions the teacher's judgment.

"There are other ways to demonstrate slavery. There's movies, you don't actually have to grab two kids and like put shackles on them," she said.

"She taped their hands together, taped their feet together, and she had them crawl under the desk as if they were on a slave ship," her mother told CBS 2.

Mrs. Shand said Gaby was traumatized. She questions the teacher's judgment.

"There are other ways to demonstrate slavery. There's movies, you don't actually have to grab two kids and like put shackles on them," she said.

I am a passionate advocate for dynamic, well informed and effective educational experiences. But when a child is degraded in the classroom, it doesn't help the student learn, it shuts them down.

"There are other ways to demonstrate slavery," Christine Shand said Friday. "It doesn't matter the color of the kids, it's just not right to tie them up. My daughter is still upset, still embarrassed. She didn't go to school today."

Wilbur Aldridge, director of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the history demonstration, first reported in The Journal News, "went wrong when she started to do that binding."

"I don't care what color, no one should be put in the position of having their hands and feet bound," he said. Associated Press

I well remember what it was like when slavery was 'taught' back in the day. The teacher would utter the word 'slave' and all the heads of my white classmates would whip around and stare at me. Even the teacher would keep looking at me. Who knows why?

Maybe it was that they were feeling some kind of "sympathy," maybe it was just curiosity about my reaction to this information. I will never know. But being so isolated made me feel angry and alienated me from my classmates. It passed quickly, but decades later I still remember feeling rocked. For a less self-assured student, that kind of experience could derail their ability to feel safe at school for a long time.

Perhaps I would feel a little more empathy for this teacher if Bernstein understood why what she did was wrong and if she sought to understand why the young girl now feels humiliated. But, according to press reports Bernstein apologized for causing Shand's pain but not for the ill conceived lesson:

Aldridge said he feared that the teacher still "didn't get it" after their meeting. He said the teacher apologized "because Gabrielle was upset, not because she admitted she did something wrong." Source

How can you be an effective teacher if you are not willing to learn?

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