Thread by @gilbertlisak

Thread. How bad is most K-12 teaching about #slavery? In 2010 I attended a conference session on "best practices." Tweeting their slides now

Before I get started, let me say this presentation was given by Ts with a Teaching American History grant for $1M. Was extremely disturbing

First, they consistently asked students to identify with enslavers. Check out this writing prompt - does not ask for moral engagement

Exercises like this - framed as primary source engagement - asked students to dehumanize enslaved people by quantifying their monetary value

There was a startling lack of humanity in their proposed activities. Seriously, look at the answer key for this question. I can't even...

This was by far the worst - suggesting that enslaved people "deserved" abuse, failing to consider emotional impact of image (or its history)

But even their initial framing was problematic. Suggested tobacco "caused" slavery, had exercises explaining to Ss how labor-intensive it is

I wish I could say this was unusual, but check out @thatcaseyquin's reporting on *another* TAH grant group in SC thinkprogress.org/this-is-how-th…

An example from the above article - this sort of thing is, sadly, all too common

So it's not surprising that "slavery math problems"-type stories show up every few months. Here, a slide from my elementary methods class

So I would tell my teacher candidates, you have to start with what might at first seem too obvious. Frame it for your students

And I emphasized to them the reasons this matters for social studies teachers interested in authentic, deep, discipline-specific pedagogy