Idiot Teacher Asked 4th-Graders to Give 3 Good Reasons for Slavery

[ollie10]

39. Maybe there are....do you have any better ideas?

Let me start by admitting that a long time ago I taught high school US History.

This was my least favorite subject when I was in high school. Mainly because alll that was "taught" was names and dates that we dutifully forgot about a day afterwards. That was until my senior year when my eyes were opened by a different kind of social studies teacher. He got us all stirred up. We argued politics, world events, all kinds of stuff. And, for the first time, it became vitally interesting to me. It wasn't all about names and dates, it was about understanding the world around us. Cool. I sure had missed a lot before that.

Long story short, when I taught history, I tried to teach it in a way that stimulated kids to think. I assigned essays. I gave essay tests. I got the kids into discussions. One of the tactics I used was playing devil's advocate. If the class was mostly conservatives I would argue the liberal voice. If they were liberal, I was Mr conservative. I wasn't trying to convert anyone. I was trying to get them to develop reasons for their beliefs, think logically, and stuff like that.

Well, what I would like to say is that if you just give kids thoughts they already have, or are familiar with....yu aren't going to stimulate thought so much. I was always trying to think of things I knew they would disagree with and I gave them a pretty hard time.

As to the assignment that is the topic today, maybe she could have used another topic....but I think there is value in presenting topics that students totally disagree with and encourage them to make logical arguments pro or con..... In this particular case, I think it likely that this is what the teacher was trying to do....rather than trying to indoctrinate them with anything. Actually, the way to PREVENT kids from being indoctrinated is by encouraging critical thinking.

Besides, this exercise may have strengthened the student's views AGAINST slavery. Without developing the arguments, maybe not so much. And maybe there is a follow-through to other similar issues like racism. A student who is simply taught racism is bad, well of course it is bad....but wouldn't it be better for a student to have thought things out and understood WHY racism (or slavery) is bad instead of simply being lectured about it?

Finally, I thank God every day I am not teaching today, with all the crap with standardized tests and rote memory.