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Wednesday, December 11, 2019

'Set your price for a slave': History teacher placed on leave for 'culturally insensitive' assignment

An elementary school teacher in Missouri has been placed on leave after asking students to “set your price for a slave” on an assignment.

The fifth-grade teacher, who has not been named, teaches social studies at Blades Elementary School in St. Louis, according to KTVI. The question was given during an assignment based on prices for commodities in colonial America.

“You own a plantation or farm and therefore need more workers. You begin to get involved in the slave trade industry and have slaves work on your farm. Your product to trade is slaves,” the assignment reads. “These could be worth a lot.”

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

WTF!! WTH was wrong with that assignment?? How are kids supposed to learn?

I hope he sues and wins.

Anonymous said...

Why is it that only blacks have protections in this country? Why are they the protected race and absolutely nothing can be said about them but they can say the N word and make racist comments about whites?

Anonymous said...


Actually, this looks like a very good way to engage the students to think this through.

It is set in colonial America.. my ancestors arrived in the early/mid 1600s and had to get the ground they were given into production pretty quickly. No chain saws, no bulldozers, and not much help. Very hard work. So how do you get that done?
Then somebody shows up and offers to sell you some 'help'. And in that day and time, African black people were considered sub-human (by authoritative sources, so you can't really judge the colonists by today's standards).

So what was that help worth to the colonial settler that had maybe 500 acres to get into production or lose?

An interesting (and pertinent) question.

Anonymous said...

You can say it to. Matter of fact nothing happens. Don’t get hung up on the negative stuff. All is ok.

Anonymous said...

We are ALL Slaves > For the Govt !! FACT

You are shure as Hell NOT Free !!! They want you to think
you are !!!

We are Taxed to death until Death to keep us Poor &
defenseless !!!

& just to think > Dems want to make it worse & take away
All you now have !!! like Russia / China

Anonymous said...

Set a price for AOC !!! LOL Not worth much !!!

Anonymous said...

Oh this is wrong but the DC teacher that had the kids do the math problem about firing your gun at the police and how many bullets you have left is fine. What a screwed up country.