Black Lives Matter Experiment in Hale Class

I'm hearing about a History class at Hale that had what would seem to be an uncomfortable exercise under the banner of Black Lives Matter.  I'm trying to gather info because, on the surface, this sounds like poor judgment.

If you are a Hale parent with a student in History, let me know if you've heard about this.

sss.westbrook@gmail.com

Comments

Anonymous said…
Go for it Melissa. Rouse the Rabble.

God forbid there was anything that might make anyone uncomfortable. I mean, what if the class talked about the police beating a man for jay-walking?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chris-hickman-asheville-north-carolina-officer-arrested-allegedly-beating-man-jaywalking/

Or even worse, the systematic exclusion of students of color from Advanced Learning.

Rabble
3/9/18, 8:29 AM
Anonymous said…
It bears repeating that the Center Schools' class was reinstated by Banda on the condition that they eliminate "the Courageous Conversations approach, saying it is appropriate for adults but not for students." Shauna Heath responded: “It is just the manner in which they are taught that needs to be inclusive of all children and not intimidating.”

"Controversial class on race to resume - with changes"
Seattle Times, Lynda V. Mapes, 3/8/13

lessons learned
3/9/18, 8:43 AM
Melissa Westbrook said…
Rabble, I’m hearing that it primarily the students of color who are uncomfortable. That makes it worth finding out about.
3/9/18, 8:45 AM
Anonymous said…
Note to liberals, the blacks want you out of their business.

FGS stop
3/9/18, 12:19 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
FGS, what do you base that statement on.
3/9/18, 1:34 PM
Anonymous said…
@Rabble- So interesting you make assumptions on what kids are being made uncomfortable.
K
3/9/18, 3:10 PM
Seattle Citizen said…
"the blacks," FGS?!

Note to "conservatives," if that you be: most people understand that groups of people aren't monoliths. That sort of language went out with calling them "the help."
3/9/18, 3:31 PM
Anonymous said…
Still waiting to hear about this "experiment" and what it entailed.

As far as assuming it's whites who are offended, this blog has an extensive track record of airing the grievances of whites and the parents of HCC students who are mostly white.

If Melissa knows who was offended why is she being so coy?

What is going on here?

CVS
3/9/18, 4:47 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
CVS, did you not read the post? I don't know the entire story and am trying to find out about it.

As well, your assumption -according to my source - is wrong. It's the kids of color who are uncomfortable.

So either you can't read or you came here to make this about me. It's not.
3/9/18, 5:08 PM
Anonymous said…
It is about you,or more exactly, your reporting style. You've apparently made an attempt to write a New York Daily News headline, but IMO it is inappropriate to do so in the context of an SPS high school and Hale in particular.

If there's an issue and you got a "tip", why are you soliciting gossip?

student
3/9/18, 7:12 PM
Anonymous said…
You know what? This isn't the only example of SPS mishandling Black History Month/Black Lives Matter/etc. I was appalled at the random, pointless, and totally out of context materials/"lesson plans" my middle schooler had to endure in February in the name of Black History month, and was personally embarrassed that the district couldn't put together a more cogent, thoughtful plan for marking the occasion. When the district mandates that overworked, under-trained teachers run completely untethered and confusing "activities" for their students in the name of equity and diversity, nobody wins. The black students feel tokenized. The white students come to see Black History Month as a joke. There is so much historical and cultural richness to mine here. Why can't we get this right?

Flummoxed
3/9/18, 7:33 PM
Anonymous said…
Why should there be a black history month? What about native history month? What about Asian history month? The constant bitching and pandering has turn the whole thing into a huge joke.

Just stop
3/9/18, 8:48 PM
Andie said…
You can't just teach black history for a few days in February in history class. The same way that you can't just teach about women during March. Students and teachers and human beings are black all the time or women all the time (or both). It really shouldn't be like, we'll just teach general learning all the time, which won't include any black people or women, etc. and then on the special occasion of Black History Month or Women's Day or Month we'll take a break from the white guys and teach more. Mother's aren't only important on Mother's Day. "Ethnic Studies" is a great idea, but ideally it should be mixed into every subject throughout the year. We should be using text books that include more than just mostly white men. And if for some reason we're not, we should do like those pop-up videos MTV used to do, we should be interrupting our regularly scheduled programming to provide information about the rest of humanity that got "accidentally" left out of the curricular materials.
3/9/18, 10:33 PM
Turquoise said…
White people seem to miss the reality that the history of America is white history. The history of blacks in America is completely different.

Whites came here to escape persecution and find new opportunities. Blacks were brought here against their will and subjected to horrific cruelties both during and after slavery.

Women likewise have an entirely different history from the white men of America.

How can those histories possibly be studied without Women's Studies or African American or Native American Studies?



3/9/18, 11:12 PM
Anonymous said…
Stop lying. Students are bombarded with non white history. It obvious you haven't been paying attention for the last 10 years.

Boo
3/9/18, 11:43 PM
Anonymous said…
There no blacks living in the US wbo were brought here against their will. You must be confusing blacks for dreamers.

Boo
3/9/18, 11:46 PM
Anonymous said…
Boo is espousing the sound bites common to white nationalist trolls. In the face of this blatant barrage it is important for school districts to redouble their efforts to educate students globally. I have direct experience in the SPS curriculum 'for the past 10 years' as a parent and, in contrast to Boo's lying memes, my student has not had heavy coverage of 'non white history' as it is insultingly described by the troll. However, I have seen white nationalist websites exhorting their misguided followers to infiltrate teaching corps and other groups to insinuate their "viewpoints". This may have already happened in Spokane, where an 11 year old student who is a member of the Klamath tribe was assigned to comment on his "feelings" regarding the "slaughter" of white settlers by indigenous tribes. And consider the Florida teacher who ran a white nationalist podcast in her spare time. One shudders to think what she managed to insinuate into her classroom prior to being discovered and fired. The fact is, we have a very well-documented racist in the white house presently. While it would be a stretch to say that he is running the country, his presence has encouraged uncivil discourse and overt lying to subvert reality in the minds of manipulatable individuals. In this atmosphere we have a huge responsibility to our children to provide a grounded, global, fact-based education to provide children with intrinsic defenses against manipulation.

Vigilance
3/10/18, 9:54 AM
Anonymous said…
I second Flummoxed comments. Black History month has become an excuse for history teachers to experiment with education process, as far as I have seen with poor & disastrous results. This isn't just Black History, but probably the easiest example of good intentions gone awry. I've been dreadfully unimpressed with the modern middle school history curriculum. English teachers don't seem to have the same problems trying to recreate the wheel.

SPS parent of 3
3/10/18, 10:35 AM
Anonymous said…
The school district should reinstate the complete Center School curricula on conversations about race. Shauna Heath should not have gutted it to avoid controversy. Any student who doesn’t want to take the class should be able to take something else. Others could learn about race in a historical context. It would probably be more interesting than the history classes I slept through.

S parent
3/10/18, 2:52 PM
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
3/10/18, 6:54 PM
Anonymous said…
When are you going back to Europe, boo?

They miss you.

Chief Sealth
3/10/18, 11:55 PM
Anonymous said…
Always telling regarding who MW decides to delete and who is allowed to stay.

Steve Bannon
3/11/18, 12:52 AM
Anonymous said…
Give Melissa a break. This is a volunteer blog and she's not checking for horrid comments 24/7. People who post need to take some responsibility for what they say and the rest of us need to take a deep breath, call some posts horrid and move on.

Momof2
3/11/18, 8:31 AM
Anonymous said…
No, I'm not going to Europe for the following reasons;

1. My family is not from Europe.
2. I'm not complaining about this country.
3. I'm not trying to demonize classes of Americans for events that happened 100 + years ago.

Boo
3/11/18, 2:44 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
Boo, you have gone over the line in one comment that has been deleted. You are entitled to opinions but racist ones are not welcome here.

You obviously came from somewhere (unless you are Native American which means you are part of a class of people who REALLY have been abused by those who settled this country).

You are complaining about this country and its efforts to come to grips with what effects - to this day - that slavery have had on black people. You want to believe - somehow, despite no historical evidence - that the day the war ended, all racism ended. All the effects of slavery like breaking up of families, inability to be educated, inability to buy land - just went away like that? They did not.

I just visited Charleston, S.C. and it's a tough thing to balance the people today with their past generations. WSDWG brilliantly said - elsewhere - that he is not responsible for what happened in the past BUT he is responsible for its effects AND his own actions today.

I don't believe in reparations because 1) I don't think it could ever happen and 2) what would be appropriate? What I think we need is a national discussion and reconciliation like they did in South Africa. It's hard to move on when everyone acts like there are no effects today.

I think what we need in this country
3/11/18, 3:58 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
(sorry), is less identity politics and more being Americans.
3/11/18, 3:59 PM
Anonymous said…
I don't see any impediments preventing blacks from achieving like other people of color have and come to think of it everywhere I look I see successful black people. They are in every vocation and in every corporate setting in America. If Americans were racist I doubt you would see countless black millionaires and black politicians. I assure you that Mr. Obama would have never become president if whites did not vote for him. If the republican party was racist there wouldn't be millions of black republicans.

I find it strange that I only encounter white people and millionaire black athletes playing the race card, perhaps it's a different story in private?

I would argue that Latinos were enslaved in a modern sense for the last 60 + years working in the US agro industry.

So lets create the United Latino Collage fund, the National Association for the advancement of Latinos etc, just to be fair.

Boo

3/11/18, 8:07 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
Boo, you seem to see what you want to see. You’ve made your opinion known; move on.
3/12/18, 12:34 AM
Anonymous said…
@Boo - Obama also had a white mother, and a black father who was Kenyan, educated & middle-upper class. His history is not identical to many/majority black Americans in this country, with slavery and poverty in their ancestry. In our country, class history plays a large part in obtaining economic success. It often takes many generations to do well economically to reach the middle class. Simultaneously industries have changed and it has also become harder requiring more and longer higher education. Generational wealth & educational privileges get passed along for people of all races. There are also many poor whites affected by their class histories, and changing economy. However, people of color and blacks tend to be disproportionately poor due to their class histories and the added effects of racism.
PT
3/12/18, 10:05 AM
Seattle Citizen said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
3/12/18, 10:10 AM
Anonymous said…
Im non black and was brought here without choice. There's not a single person alive that has ever met a black person who was sold to a white american as an African slave, so please drop the constant demonization of classes or individuals for the sins of west africans, Spaniards, south Americans and Americans for events 150 years ago.

Boo
3/12/18, 10:03 PM
Seattle Citizen said…
What a bizarre philosophy you hold to, Boo.
Almost as if you want to deny that racism exists or something.

But do tell: do tell us how, like millions of the ancestors of African Americans, you were brought here against your will packed (with 600 others) into the hold of a leaking, rank ship, chained to the bilge. How DID you survive the trip, Boo?
3/13/18, 8:37 AM
Anonymous said…
I respect your position but I dont agree with it. You should respect other people wishes to be judged on there merits only. Im moving on until the next race baiting subject comes up.

Boo
3/13/18, 12:08 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
Boo, you have made your position clear and we don't need to hear it again and again.

Because every discussion that involves race - to you - is race baiting (an ugly term)so it's of no use to include you because you don't want to have a discussion.

Moving on indeed.
3/13/18, 2:01 PM
Anonymous said…
Still waiting for some info on the "Experiment".

All we've heard is that it maybe offended students of color?

TV
3/13/18, 2:15 PM
Melissa Westbrook said…
I'm ending the discussion here. I did not hear from any students on the issue so I'm thinking it was one student.

TV, if you read what I wrote, the word was "uncomfortable" not "offended." Big difference.

3/13/18, 4:01 PM
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