New Jersey parents are sounding off over a fifth grade class assignment to create slave auction posters.
Parents raised concerns on social media after they saw the project this week while attending teacher conferences at South Mountain Elementary School in South Orange, New Jersey. Posters that illustrated “wanted” slaves were displayed on the school walls, according to South Orange Patch.
“In a curriculum that lacks representation for students of color, it breaks my heart that these will be the images that young black and brown kids see of people with their skin color,” parent Jamil Karriem wrote Tuesday on Facebook.“It is completely lost on me how this project could be an effective way to teach any student in any age group about American history.”
But in a letter, the South Orange-Maplewood Superintendent John Ramos, defended the school project, saying the assignment served to give students a more comprehensive understanding of Colonial America.
“One of the anti-bias experts highlighted the fact that schools all over our country often skip over the more painful aspects of American History, and that we need to do a better job of acknowledging the uglier parts of our past, so that children learn the full story,” Ramos said in the letter.
The posters have since been taken down, and Ramos apologized to the parents who were disturbed by the images, NJ.com reported.
“We completely understand how disturbing these images are, and why parents were upset. This was exacerbated by the fact that the displays did not include an explanation of the assignment or its learning objectives,” he said.