You can't teach about slavery by bringing a cotton plant to class?

[exboyfil]

Our world has gone truly insane. This is the kind of crap that gets demagogues like Trump elected.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/san-francisco-teacher-under-fire-160732856.html

A Creative Arts parent, Rebecca Archer, who is Black and Jewish, was concerned about the lesson for her mixed-race children. She expressed fears that the lesson, which put the raw cotton in the children’s hands, could “evoke so many deeply hurtful things about this country.”

“There are people who think this lesson plan promotes empathy; I’ve heard that and understand that,” said Archer. “There are a lot of people who don’t understand why it’s hurtful or offensive.”

Another parent told The Chronicle they felt the teacher was being treated in a way that she called “unbearably cruel.” The parent, who chose to remain anonymous, said that her child considers the teacher one of his favorites.

“I think it’s insane they would treat a teacher like this and basically discard a teacher that has been so inspiring and dedicated,” said the parent, who requested anonymity to protect her child. “It feels like it was a lesson in sensitivity and empathy. That’s why my mind is so blown, and I can’t stop being angry about it.”

[LeftInTX]

1. Article is all over the place!

I would think it would be a helpful lesson

I don't know much about cotton plants. I doubt that any other student would either.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. What does bringing a cotton boll to class teach about slavery?

[exboyfil]

5. The tactile feel of it

It is sharp and grating and at the end of the day your fingers would be bleeding from being forced to pick it.

I think it communicates that point very well. Also Social Studies is often taught by showing examples of the time. Let's say if you wanted to show how difficult it was to dress like a "lady" in Victorian England, bringing the dress, corsett, and undergarments would be another example.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. So kids need to be hurt to understand being hurt?

I'm not saying it's a bad lesson. I'm trying to discern what bringing the boll in adds, and if pain is what is needed to understand the concept of slavery.

[EndlessWire]

17. Yes

When my mother was a little girl, she had to pick cotton. The only thing she ever said about the experience was that picking cotton really hurts your fingers.

I vote in favor of showing people reality, and creating appreciation for those who do the more distasteful tasks of humanity.

[AleksS]

6. I imagine its a way to show kids the difference between

the cotton balls they have in their bathroom drawers at home, and the cotton from the plant which has sharp and abrasive parts. It would show kids that picking cotton was not anything at all like pulling gentle cotton balls from flowers, but was painful process.

Most kids would have never seen cotton in its natural state, and would have no idea what picking actual cotton was like. Most kids touchpoint would be the cotton balls, and that's not at all an accurate representation of cotton's natural state (it doesn't help that the sharp parts of the cotton flower, referred to as the cotton bOll, sounds confusingly like cotton bAll from the medicine cabinet!

"To pick the cotton, a worker would pull the white, fluffy lint from the boll, trying to not cut his hands on the sharp ends of the boll. The average cotton plant is less than three feet high, so many workers had to stoop to pick the cotton. As they picked, they would place the lint in burlap sacks carried on their backs. So, not only would the worker have to pick the cotton, he would have to drag the bag along with him as well. In a typical day, a good worker could pick 300 pounds of cotton or more, meaning that, in any given day, a typical picker would carry a substantial amount of weight, even if he emptied his sack several times. Here’s a great video of an interviewer with a farmer who picked cotton by hand:

"

From: https://timespelunking.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/hell-on-earth-what-it-was-like-to-pick-cotton/

[elleng]

8. The difficulty in harvesting cotton, I would think,

therefore the hard lives of those who DO the harvesting.

and then the huge benefits of mechanization of the process. A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. Wikipedia

[Solly Mack]

10. And how does it promote empathy?

Seems the suggestion is it was just so hard before the invention of the cotton gin and ever so much easier after its invention - for the slaves. (That's teaching empathy? Damn.)

Because, you know, those slaves caught a break (or something). (Damn)

Which neglects the facts - there was nothing that made life for the slave easier - they were slaves. Freedom brought relief, not the freaking cotton gin.

and

the invention of the cotton gin increased the number of slaves imported and sold because even the not-so-wealthy cotton farmers could produce more cotton, thereby needing more slaves, and slavery expanded into non-slave states (at the time) due to increase in, and start-up of, cotton production in those states.

An increase in the number of people exported and sold as slaves is not a good thing. It is not a measure for teaching empathy.

Yes, pulling the cotton fibers from the cotton seed by hand is hard work - but the cotton gin in no way made life easier for the slaves.

To pretend the slaves somehow had it better because of the cotton gin is to pretend that one tiny, insignificant invention (as it relates to the realities of being a slave) changed the lives of slaves for the better - it didn't.

It made the lives of the slave owners better - by making them wealthier, so they could buy and sell more slaves.


Students getting the idea that the invention of the cotton gin somehow improved the life of a slave is not something that should be taught, suggested, or even hinted at, because it's just plain bullshit.

So, no, bringing a cotton boll to school in hopes of showing children how hard it was on slaves to separate the fiber from the seed by hand prior to the invention of the cotton gin does NOT teach empathy.

It boosted the economy of the slave-owning states and created greater wealth for slave owners, but it did not improve anything for the slaves.

It was a piss poor lesson and the very fact that anyone thinks it was a lesson in empathy proves that.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

11. Thank you for this post.

Exactly right, all the way through.

[LeftInTX]

15. The yahoo article states she brought actual shrubs. The plants themselves have sharp edges

These issues would persist and get worse after the cotton gin invention.

[Solly Mack]

16. And still not a lesson in empathy.

Vis a vis the invention of the cotton gin on the lives of slaves.

[alphafemale]

18. They might learn there are thorns in it.

And how you have to be careful when picking.

And an idea of how hard it would be to pick 125 lbs in one day.

And the next. And the next and the next.

[Journeyman]

3. Imagine what they would have done had she brought sugar cane to the classroom, or rice . . .

[haele]

4. My white mother in law and her sisters picked cotton when she was a child.

She did it to help support the family, picking for a local grower in an area of Alabama that didn't typically attract migrant workers until Pecan season. They only had to do that for a few years until the family got back to financial stability post Depression, but she says she still has nightmares about it.
It would teach a lot of kids how hard work was without technology, and why it was so brutal on the enslaved.

Haele

[WhiteTara]

9. my grandmother and mother

picked cotton when my mom was a child. She hated it.

[maxsolomon]

12. glad I'm not a teacher.

my history class would turn every parent's hair white.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. This article is starting to make me think that we teach slavery all wrong.

The conditions of an enslaved person's life were indeed terrible. But that's not why slavery is wrong. Slavery is wrong because owning another person is wrong, even if you treat that person well.

[Solly Mack]

14. We do. For too many, it is taught with a host of mitigating rationalizations

intended (and meant) to soften the reality of slavery and its aftermath.