Taunts, tears follow race lesson
Education expert says instructor had good intentions but method `misguided'
By J.M. KALIL
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Stacey Gough picks up her 9-year-old daughter Amber at Manch Elementary School
on Thursday afternoon. The mother is perturbed about a librarian's decision to
separate students according to their race as part of a Black History Month
exercise.
Parents say an elementary school instructor's outlandish technique for teaching
children about segregation has fostered fear and confusion among students
rather than a fundamental understanding of racism.
Officials at Manch Elementary School have launched an investigation into the
unusual Black History Month lesson, which involved separating children by skin
color and giving preferential treatment to black students.
Clark County School District officials declined Thursday to discuss in detail
exactly what unfolded in Lora A. Mazzulla's library sessions with students this
week at the school near Craig Road and Nellis Boulevard. But officials
confirmed they asked Mazzulla to cease the teaching method Wednesday after
receiving calls from three parents.
"It was not appropriate. We would not want children to be upset after going
through a lesson that is supposed to teach them a principle," said Marsha
Irvin, the district's northeast region superintendent. "I think there could
have been a different way to teach the lesson."
One perturbed parent gave a detailed account of what her crying 9-year-old
child told her after school Tuesday, saying Mazzulla began class by seating
black children at one set of tables and everyone else across the room.
"All the African-American children were given board games to play, and everyone
else had to put their heads at the table, and they weren't to look up or
speak," said Stacey Gough, whose daughter Amber is a third-grader at Manch.
"She told them that she believes in everything that Martin Luther King (Jr.)
had to say and she wanted the white children to know what it was like to be
black back then."
Mazzulla then allowed the black children to taunt their white classmates, Gough
said her daughter told her.
"The black children were making fun of the white children, and saying things
like, 'You deserve this for what your ancestors did to us,' and the teacher was
letting them," Gough said.
School District officials could not confirm that Mazzulla allowed taunting, but
generally acknowledged the rest of Gough's account.
Principal Pat Garcia said she is taking parents' allegations of impropriety
seriously, but is still in the initial stages of an investigation and has not
been able to confirm all the facts of the case or get Mazzulla's account of
exactly what happened.
"We absolutely are looking into it," Garcia said of Mazzulla's curriculum.
"We've had a couple of parents who have voiced concerns."
Mazzulla, who is white, was hired by the district in September 2000. As a
librarian, she has a bachelor's degree and holds the same state licensing
credentials as classroom teachers.
A nationally recognized elementary education expert said Thursday that it
appears Mazzulla had good intentions but went about them in a misguided manner.
Gary Orfield, professor of education and social policy at Harvard University's
Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Mass., said classroom simulations
and role-playing are common and powerfully effective teaching methods.
But during his years studying race issues in U.S. schools, he was unfamiliar
with any other instance in which teachers employed Mazzulla's method of
separating children by race to teach about racial segregation.
"Usually, they take the blue-eyed kids and treat them differently from the
brown-eyed kids," said Orfield, director of the Harvard Project on School
Desegregation and co-director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project.
Orfield said teachers in the United States generally try to ignore race because
they are not adequately trained in how to approach what remains an explosive
issue some four decades after the heights of the civil rights era.
"With all the emphasis on math and reading tests, we skim over training our
teachers on how to teach important parts of our society, such as race," Orfield
said. "Everything about race is so supersensitive, so you really have to frame
this type of instruction the right way, and teachers generally aren't
prepared."
Garcia said this is Mazzulla's second year at the school near Nellis Air Force
Base, but said she was prevented by state law from discussing much else about
the librarian or the allegations lodged against her.
"The major thing is that it's going to be a personnel issue," the principal
said.
Meanwhile, Gough said her daughter remains upset because it has provoked
ongoing taunting at the school between children of different races.
The worst part of the incident, Gough said, is that her daughter has developed
a skewed vision of what the color of someone's skin signifies.
"She never saw another child for being part of another race until yesterday,"
Gough said Wednesday. "Now she's afraid that the black kids hate her for
something she doesn't know anything about."
Orfield, the Harvard professor, said it is common for children of such an age
to fail to recognize racial differences.
"Kids don't develop racial consciousness until fourth or fifth grade usually,"
he said.
Orfield, the Harvard professor, said it would be a mistake to punish Mazzulla.
"Let's not sanction the teacher for trying. Let's give her new skills for
trying to do this in a better way," he said.
Irvin, the region superintendent, said the district's equity and diversity
office supplies teachers with age-appropriate materials to assist teachers in
instructing racial sensitivity in a responsible way.
"When you're teaching sensitive information, you really have to lay the
foundation and make sure the students are prepared," Irvin said.
She encouraged parents to contact the school's principal if they have questions
or concerns about the lesson.
Still, Gough remains both angry and puzzled. "What was the point of that
lesson? My daughter keeps asking me, 'What did we do to the black people?' ...
This didn't teach the kids anything."
Mazzulla did not return a phone message left with her husband.
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| User: "Woodswun" |
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| Title: Re: Teacher allows berating of 3rd grade white students |
07 Feb 2004 01:33:27 PM |
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In article <20040207111251.22644.00001520@mb-m18.aol.com>, (TonyZ2001) wrote:
Taunts, tears follow race lesson
Education expert says instructor had good intentions but method `misguided'
By J.M. KALIL
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Stacey Gough picks up her 9-year-old daughter Amber at Manch Elementary School
on Thursday afternoon. The mother is perturbed about a librarian's decision to
separate students according to their race as part of a Black History Month
exercise.
What a maroon. She probably heard about this "exercise" in an educational
psychology class and decided to apply it to a bunch of little kids. This is
something that was occasionally taught to teachers in workshops while
desegragation was going on (and it was blue eyes versus brown eyes in an
all-caucasian group), and has never been presented as anything remotely
suitable for the school setting.
Parents say an elementary school instructor's outlandish technique for teaching
children about segregation has fostered fear and confusion among students
rather than a fundamental understanding of racism.
Obviously, she could pass the classes to get her teaching credentials, but she
is not qualified to teach because she hasn't got a lick of common sense. Lots
of teachers out there like that, unfortunately.
Woods
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| User: "Saint Isidore of Laytonville" |
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| Title: Re: Teacher allows berating of 3rd grade white students |
07 Feb 2004 01:14:25 PM |
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She shouldn't do that! Such 3rd grade berating can often result in rioting.
The Psychedelick Pope
Saint Isidore of Laytonville
^Ö^ Patron Saint of the Internet ^Ö^
°°^Ö^ °°
http://apple2.org.za/gswv/me
AOXOMOXOA and ENESSA QUA ONNICA
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