A teacher in Lumpkin County, Georgia, had her students wear Ku Klux Klan costumes while teaching about racism in the United States. (h/t brooklynbadboy at Kos)
The actions of Catherine Ariemma were met with stern disapproval by superintendent Dewey Moye Monday afternoon.
“We cannot allow that type of judgement and will not sanction it even though they were studying a part of history,” he said.
Ariemma, herself, said she made a mistake.
“Unfortunately, I made a bad call,” she said. “It would have saved some hurt and some students would not have felt threatened if I had made a different call. I’m very sorry. It was never my intention to make anyone feel uncomfortable.”
But Ariemma defends the assignment.
Ariemma said that she still stands by the assignment. In fact, when her students proposed cutting the Klan scene out of their video, she encouraged them to leave it.
“I said ‘You know what? No. You have a good topic,’” she said. “It’s unfortunate that in this county we don’t discuss racism very much. When we don’t discuss it we condone it. And so I do discuss it.
The problem is that others in the school saw the Klan-clad students in the halls and in the lunchroom and were not forewarned. Some of them became quite agitated. However, a school assignment, which included making a video, was this really a bad idea?
by Alan
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