Eileen Bernstein, a Social Studies middle school teacher, did the unthinkable. She bound the hands and feet of two black girls, then made them crawl under desks representing slave ships. Well, you know what happened once that bit of information got out. Outrage, especially by Christine Shand, one of the girl’s mother and the local NAACP chapter. I can’t say I blame them one bit. The outrage, however, is justifiable in the case of Gabrielle Shand, 13, who did not volunteer for the exercise, while the other girl did. How humiliating. I don’t care who volunteered and who didn’t. The scourge of slavery is still a painful subject for blacks in this country. Why did she have to enact it? Couldn’t the point be made without humiliating these kids?
Eileen Bernstein, social studies teacher at the Haverstraw Middle School in Rockland County, and the school’s principal and superintendent have apologized to the girl and her mother, but Shand believes they are upset about her daughter’s reaction, not with the lesson itself. Bernstein, who is white, said that she had done the lesson before, Shand said.
“Are you telling me when you do a section on the Holocaust, it’s okay to simulate an oven and have a grandchild of someone who was a survivor just get in the oven?” asked Wilbur Aldridge, head of the local NAACP chapter. “That makes so sense.” Source: NY Daily News
It is a very delicate matter and there must be sensitivity training for teachers who have to deal with this subject matter, especially when it is enacted in school. There has to be another way to deliver the lessons effectively. Well, I can’t say the sky has fallen as a result of this dust-up, but I will say again, that sensitivity must be exercised in the delivery of such subject matter and to those teachers who enact slavery with black kids, get with the program, we don’t need to humiliate anyone to talk about slavery. Try showing a film next and I guarantee there will be no fallout.
Filed under: Christine Shand, Eileen Bernstein, Enactment, Gabrielle Shand, Haverstraw Middle School, slavery
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