Madison teacher on leave due to lesson that asked students to take on role as enslaved people
The Madison School District has placed a middle school teacher on leave after students and their parents called into question a lesson that involved children playing roles as enslaved people and slave owners.
Jefferson Middle School eighth-grade teacher Cynthia Ball planned a “colonial tea party” as part of a unit on the Revolutionary War that included putting students in roles of historical figures, including those who owned slaves as well as enslaved people.
Ball instructed students to pick names of characters at random for the parts they would play. Once they chose the role, they would be required to memorize lines and act as the person they randomly selected during the tea party, after they researched the figure.