LAKEWOOD, Colo. – Several parents are armed about a Black History Month class that they say was treated inappropriately.
The class, in a gifted and talented 8th grade social studies class at Creighton Middle School, focused on slavery.
“It made me sick,” said one student. “There was a knot in my stomach.”
That student, who asked to be named Kaye, said the instructor told her class the class was serious business. But Kaye said some students weren’t taking it seriously.
“One joked that slaves couldn’t get up to go to the bathroom and pee on their own,” explained Kaye during their forced voyage across the Atlantic.
“He said that was cool and was then corrected in the chat,” she said, adding that the student went on to say, “Give them a TV and they’ll be fine.”
“That was very inappropriate,” Kaye said.
Kaye said the instructor allowed students to joke about it and that she herself laughed occasionally.
“Under no circumstances is it okay to joke or laugh when it comes to slavery,” Kaye said.
Kaye and a classmate, both colored students, wrote a note to the teacher expressing their concerns.
They related how she left students on the floor to simulate crossing the Atlantic and then had clean cotton so they could empathize with what slaves went through.
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“That ‘sugar coated’ is a very serious and horrific event in American history,” Kaye said.
“She used the phrase ‘my little cotton pickers,’ it’s time to stop what you’re doing and get on with the lesson,” Kaye added.
“The lesson was handled tactlessly,” said Kaye’s mother, Amanda. “My daughter said it was disgusting.”
Amanda said there is a lot of diversity at Creighton Middle School, “but the gifted and talented program is less diverse.”
She shared her daughter’s letter with a close friend, Rebecca Dutcher, who is like an aunt to Kaye.
“I was shocked, but I didn’t know what to do about it,” said Dutcher.
She thinks the instructor should have taken the lesson about slavery just as seriously as the lesson about the Holocaust.
“I can’t see a teacher doing a simulation of the train cars, or say ‘my little campers’ in reference to a concentration camp,” she said.
Dutcher shared Kaye’s post with an African American friend who posted it to Facebook, where it drew comments about the district lines.
“I wonder if she was taught that class by someone of color,” said the friend, Danette Hollowell. The more I thought about it, the more upset I got because the [two girls] acted more mature than the teacher. ”
The teacher replied to the note from Kaye and her friend and said she was very sorry that this was hurtful to your feelings, as it was NEVER my intention.
She added that she reads Stamped from the beginning and White fragility to make sure you try to build on her empathy as a white person by using her privilege to help people of color.
She also said she corrected the students’ abusive behavior by saying “this was not intended to be funny” multiple times and asked if the girls heard her.
“Sometimes we only hear what we want to hear, but then again, if I’ve offended you, I’m very sorry,” she wrote.
Kaye said the instructor “cherry-picked” what he had to respond to.
She said the teacher had not addressed the comment “my little cotton pickers.”
She apologized for how she made us feel and not for her behavior, ”Kaye said.
Denver7 reached out to Jeffco Public Schools for comment on the student’s concerns, but has not yet received a response.
Kaye said she wants the teacher to change the way she teaches so that other students don’t have to experience what she and her friend have done.
Englisher said, “If someone brings that to your attention, in my opinion, the correct answer would be … let’s figure out how to correct this.”