A Delaware school district is answering to a lot of angry parents after a lesson for remote kindergarteners.
A number of parents of students at McIlvaine Early Childhood Center were outraged at a yoga lesson that was combined with a lesson about slavery, The Delaware News Journal reported. The 35-minute prerecorded hybrid lesson, in part, asked students to get into different yoga poses based on where they were in their explanation of how slaves were brought to the United States. The lesson was billed as part of the school's lessons for Black History Month.
Caesar Rodney School District has since spoken out to condemn the inappropriate lesson. Not only did administrators not feel it was an age-appropriate or subject-appropriate lesson, but they believe it taught children fundamentally incorrect information about slavery.
The Caesar Rodney School District is investigating the McIlvaine Early Childhood Center in Delaware after outrage regarding a recent lesson. Kindergarteners at the school watched a prerecorded hybrid learning lesson about slavery as part of the Black History Month curriculum.
One of the parents watching alongside the student took a video of the lesson, which had kindergarteners learning about the slave trade bringing Black people to United States through yoga poses. The mother was in disbelief at the inappropriate lesson.
"African people came to America on boats to become slaves," the teacher can be heard saying.
"So here's the great big country of Africa," she continues.
"They crossed the Atlantic to come over to America. So right now, I need you to get into your boat pose," she says, then demonstrating the yoga pose to students."
"Came? We were stolen," the disheartened mom is heard saying as she watches and records.
"Africans were treated very poorly, even though they farmed the land and plowed the fields to make America beautiful and help grow our food," the teacher continues.
"They worked in the fields all day. If you're at home, you can try the plow pose."
The teacher then leads the kindergarteners through breathing exercises before moving on to talk about famous Black figures, which is when the video cuts off. The video quickly spread through the school community. Parents couldn't understand how anyone thought the lesson was OK.
"It's 2021, you'd think this stuff would have ended a long time ago," Caesar Rodney School District parent Jessie Welch told The Delaware News Journal.
"But it hasn't because of ignorance. And this is an educator who's supposed to be teaching our kids."
District staff have assured parents they are investigating the lesson. In a statement, the district says the lesson was "unacceptable and not consistent with Caesar Rodney School District values."
This is far from the first incident going viral of a teacher missing the mark while trying to teach Black history. In a San Antonio school, students were asked to list the negative and positives of slavery. In Wisconsin, a teacher asked students to share ideas on how they'd punish a slave.
