Has This Teacher Been Paying Attention At All?

Teacher Placed on Leave for Holding Mock Slave Auction

‘These teaching methods are not to be used,’ superintendent in Massachusetts says

“Holding a mock slave auction is unacceptable,” a school district superintendent in central Massachusetts said in a letter to parents after a fifth-grade teacher was placed on leave. Superintendent Gregory Martineau said the teacher at Margaret Neary Elementary School in Southborough held “an impromptu mock slave auction” during a history lesson in January, WCVB reports. “The educator asked two children sitting in front of the room, who were of color, to stand, and the educator and class discussed physical attributes” including teeth and strength, Martineau wrote.

“Simulations or role plays when teaching about historical atrocities or trauma are not appropriate, and these teaching methods are not to be used,” the superintendent wrote. He said that in a second incident months later, “the educator used the ‘N-word,'” while discussing a text that had been read aloud, Martineau said. “It was later brought to the District’s attention that the ‘N-word’ does not appear in the book.” He said the book had been recommended by one of the teacher’s colleagues but wasn’t part of the core fifth-grade curriculum.