Classical Values :: Lie down and learn about suffering!

January 28, 2006

Lie down and learn about suffering!

Aurelia Blake is a teacher who does more than merely teach.

A story in today's Inquirer features a photo (not available online) of middle school children lying next to each other head to head and shoulder to shoulder in a "reenactment" of a slave ship. Underneath the picture is the following caption:

Mario Cosey keeps eyes wide open as he and schoolmates reenact the confining conditions of a slave ship. About 320 students in grades 7 through 12 took part in the exercise at McKinney Middle School in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Aurelia Blake, the teacher who headed the project, taped down the dimensions of a slave ship on the gym floor and packed the students within the lines to help them understand how slaves were transported to the Americas.

Ms. Blake also seems to enjoy packing students in buses and taking them to Washington to protest the war.

In the massed crowd of more than 100,000 people — some observers estimated 150,000, even 200,000 — were 42 teenagers from Yellow Springs, students at Yellow Springs High School and McKinney Middle School. They ranged in age from 13 to 18.

They were awesome. Wearing bright yellow “no war” headbands and displaying bright yellow signs and banners, accompanied by giant walking puppets 15 feet tall, the Yellow Springs kids drew special attention — praise, applause and gratitude — for their vivid commitment to the cause of peace. “Yellow Springs High School, Ohio,” their signs and banners proclaimed. “STOP THE WAR.”

One of the signs offered a corrective lesson to President Bush: “Act Like It’s A Globe, Not An Empire!”

In a poignant reference to the 9/11 Twin Towers tragedy, a black-edged sign declared: “Our Grief Is Not A Cry for War.”

I'd say this teacher has gone beyond the call of duty. Well, in fairness to her, she didn't really organize; her students did. Ms. Blake only helped conceive. And bring to fruition:

Ashlee Cooper and Matt Wallace, also a senior, organized the peace rally trip as their senior project at Yellow Springs High School. Aurelia Blake, Matt’s mother and a teacher at the school, helped conceive the project and bring it to fruition.

They chartered two busses, one for students and the other for adults from the community.

This teacher knows how to organize, that's for sure. Anyone who can turn students into activists knows how to inspire people. A skill probably acquired during her many years spent as an Air Force officer. It must have been boring having to answer questions about "little green men," and I don't blame her for deciding to teach instead. Well, she also serves as a local human rights commissioner, helped organize the Not one damn dime movement, and even guested on the Bill O'Reilly Show.

While I have to admire her leadership and organizational skills, my problem with Ms. Blake is that I think her teaching style is heavyhanded, and borders on out and out indoctrination. Were I a taxpaying parent in Yellow Springs, Ohio, I might not like the idea of my child being made to lie on the floor to reenact stuff that was done hundreds of years ago -- by and to people long dead.

What is the context? Is it merely to educate? How does making people lie down on the floor do that in any way? Slaves were whipped, sold at auction, and even castrated. Should these things also be reenacted? Why? To "teach" students that slavery was wrong?

There's something about making a kid do stuff like that which crosses a certain line, and I'm not sure why. It just strikes me as invasive of the students' personal dignity and going beyond education. It's as if they're deliberately playing with children's emotions.

I notice that one of Ms. Blake's courses teaches American Slavery and the Holocaust side by side, the central idea being that the two are moral equivalents:

....introduce students to the history of American Slavery and the Holocaust, two profound atrocities in the history of Western culture, through reading literary text.

I agree that slavery and the Holocaust were profound atrocities, but is it really fair to call them Western culture? And if they are moral equivalents, why shouldn't the Holocaust be reenacted too? There's no reason why the dimensions of gas chambers or killing pits couldn't also be taped on the gym floor, with students made to pretend to die like Hitler's victims, but I suspect that the school wouldn't have allowed that. Again, I'm not sure why.

Maybe I'm wrong.

But I suppose it would be too much to demand a reenactment of Stalin's or Mao's gulags. Or Cambodia's Killing Fields.

posted by Eric on 01.28.06 at 07:54 AM

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Comments

Eric;

Yellow Springs -- home of Anitoch College -- is the capital of left-wing wackoism in Ohio. I do not exaggerate. Every bit as virulent as Berkeley. The tax-paying parents of the town probably not only approve of Blake's curriculum, they probably urged it on the board of education.

Mark Alger · January 28, 2006 05:52 PM

I am a very right-wing person transplanted American living in the West Bank - yes I am an Obstacle to Peace(TM)- but I DON'T think the slave ship activity was off base. It was a very good way to dramatize historical realities. And before you start going on about students' personal dignity - check out their Sex-Ed class and its activities, please...

And I DON'T think it is anything by accurate to call slavery and holocaust "profound atrocities in the history of Western culture". The quote you've given us in no way indicates that this is the sum total of Western culture - but the promulgators of both slavery and the holocaust were Westerners, they justified their acts based on strains of Western thought, and their actions have left an impact on Western culture. So?

But I DO think it was way off base to recruit kids for political activity. That clearly crosses the red line of indoctrination, and kids are likely to feel intimidated by the teacher and her authority.

Ben-David · January 29, 2006 04:35 AM

I wonder if this course includes that slavery had been a fact for most of recorded history, in most cultures. That most african slaves involved in the atlantic slave trade where taken and sold by other Africans. Or that it was the West, specifically the Royal Navy, that stopped the slave trade and it was the West that also stopped slavery itself across most of the world. Somehow I doubt it.

chris · January 29, 2006 05:56 AM

Ben-David, while it's not what I was talking about, if "Sex-Ed class and its activities" include having students lie on the floor and engage in role playing activities, I'm just as much against that. I just don't see dramatization as conducive to anything except manipulating emotion -- which is anything but education (except, maybe, in a Psychology class).

Is the fact of slaves being packed into ships so complicated that students are unable to learn it without having to reenact it? I don't think so, and I think the fact that it's been singled out for such dramatization is intended to do little more than instill wholly undeserved guilt. (And resentment.) In the context of "whiteness theory" (discussed below) the white children are culturally guilty, and whether that's the ostensible message of the exercise, I think that is what they will feel. Guilt! Likewise, I think black children will tend to feel resentment.

I don't think this is justified or fair, or of much educational value. (Long term, I suppose a cynic might argue that it's good to sow the seeds for a cultural backlash, because the kids will eventually grow up and many of them will realize they've been manipulated. But that's not an argument in favor!)

Eric Scheie · January 29, 2006 08:12 AM

This was definitely worth a link.

Darren · January 29, 2006 02:06 PM

That is atrocious. Having children reenact slave ships is brutal and cruel. It's child abuse.

You do not make children go through things like this. If she put them in brick stoves so they could reenact the Holocaust would you feel the same?

What about making little skyscraper models and have Johnny make paper airplanes to simulate 9/11? We could make little toy swords and blind fold a few children so they could get up close and personal with the terrorists beheading their captives.

I'm shocked and horrified that anyone could think that this was acceptable. It's beyond contempt. It's horrific. These are children for fuck's sakes. You don't screw with their heads like this, forcing them to partake in these kinds of activities. This teacher should be jailed.

Grand Stand · January 30, 2006 01:09 AM

i am a student of Ms. Blake, and i am here to inform you of this fact: yes, she is a very demanding teacher, but her veiws do not muddy the learning enviroment. She has been an astounding educator for 15 years and i admire her military work. Moreover, you cannot begin to grasp how eye opening it is to experience, for only 30min on a dry, clea and warm gym floor, what these people experenced for weeks on end, torn from their family and culture. You may be under the impression that Yellow Springs is a normal rural Ohio town. This is untrue, we are infact an almost 100% democrat popuation and are a towm rife with open mindedness peace and love. We welcome compassion and are not slow to return it. I am respectful of your opinion, but feel that it may have been more prudent to investigate further before simply cutting and pasting. Ms Blake calls that plagerism, and she just might zero-out your paper

Jake · February 1, 2006 07:29 PM

Jake, thanks for shedding light on your educational experiences with Ms. Blake, and on the social dynamics of your town. I'm not quite sure about your definition of plagiarism, though. I have to disagree with your teacher there, because "cutting and pasting" from a newspaper article in order to comment on it is not plagiarism as long as the source is identified and no attempt is made to misattribute the material.

Eric Scheie · February 1, 2006 08:50 PM

indeed. I do however disagree with your views, but repect your ability to voice your opinion. if you wish to contact Ms. Blake for any professional reason or to shed more light on the slavery and holocaust units, feel free to call YSHS public schools at 937-767-7224.

Anonymous · February 2, 2006 10:50 AM

Jake · February 2, 2006 10:51 AM

Thanks, but this is just a blog, and I'm not set up to do podcast interviews at this time. Anyone is free to leave comments. If Ms. Blake disagrees with anything I said (or believes she has been misquoted), she can leave a comment as you have.

My disagreement is with her method of teaching by having children lie on the floor, which strikes me as a form of humiliation more appropriate to punishment than education. I don't believe children should be punished or humiliated or made to feel guilty for things they did not do.

Many unpleasant things have been done to many people in history; what purpose is served by having children reenact the role of the victims?

Eric Scheie · February 2, 2006 01:20 PM