A group of Texas educators has proposed to the Texas State Board of Education that slavery should be taught as “involuntary relocation” during second-grade social studies classes.
The group of nine educators, which includes a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, is one of several groups advising the state education board to make curriculum changes as part of a once-a-decade process that updates what children learn in the state’s nearly 8,900 public schools, according to the Seattle Times.
Interestingly, the board is considering curriculum changes one year after Texas passed a law to eliminate topics from schools that make students “feel discomfort.”
CTV News Canada reported that Board member Aicha Davis, a Democrat who represents Dallas and Fort Worth, raised concerns during a June 15 meeting that the term wasn’t a fair representation of the slave trade.
The board sent the draft back for revision, urging the educator group to “carefully examine the language used to describe events.”
“I can’t say what their intention was, but that’s not going to be acceptable,” Davis told The Texas Tribune on Thursday.
Part of the proposed draft standards obtained by the Texas Tribune says students should “compare journeys to America, including voluntary Irish immigration and involuntary relocation of African people during colonial times.”
The group proposing the second-grade curriculum revisions was given a copy of Senate Bill 3, Texas’ law that dictates how slavery and issues of race are taught in Texas.
The law states that slavery can’t be taught as part of the true founding of the United States and that slavery was nothing more than a deviation from American values.
This certainly isn’t the first time that Texas textbooks have tried to sugar-coat what was certainly not a pleasant relocation. Maybe the advisory group finds the facts of slavery too distasteful for young minds to cope with.
In 2015, a student noticed wording in a textbook that referred to slaves who were brought to America as ” workers.” The book’s publisher apologized and promised to increase the number of textbook reviewers it uses.
It amounts to the fact that lawmakers have been passing legislation in Texas and other states to dictate how race and slavery should be taught in schools and conservative groups are pouring large amounts of money into school board races.
Our country celebrated Juneteenth 11 days ago, a holiday that began in Galveston, Texas when members of the Union Army, led by General Gordon Granger arrived to inform enslaved African Americans of their freedom after the Civil War had ended.
I originally was just going to write this story as “just the facts,” but the more I wrote and the longer I had time to think about what was transpiring in the Lone Star state, the more disgusted I became.
Slavery – simply put – is a part of the history of our nation. It was not pretty, nice or any other sweet words you want to use. White land owners bought human beings, and worked them, sometimes to death in tobacco and cotton fields.
Many historians consider slavery in the South as the one thing that divided this country and resulted in the Civil War. Juneteenth was Black American’s freedom day, but it has been a long time in coming. So I beg lawmakers to not in any way make slavery less than it was.
