A teacher at Blades Elementary School in Oakville, Missouri is on administrative leave after she gave her fifth-grade class an assignment to “set a price for a slave”. A parent found the assignment in her son’s school folder and as disturbed by the assignment.
The objective that the social studies teacher gave her students, including her biracial son, was to pretend that they work in the slave trade.
One of the questions read:
“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.
Set your price for a slave. _____________ These could be worth a lot.”
In a letter sent to families at the school, the principal of the elementary school, Jeremy Booker, came to the teacher’s defense saying,
“As part of both the Missouri Learning Standards for fifth-grade Social Studies and the fifth-grade Mehlville School District curriculum, students were learning about having goods, needing goods and obtaining goods and how that influenced early settlement in America.”
The NCAAP hopes to meet with school officials.
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