Texas Middle School Assignment Draws Backlash for Asking Students to Draw Themselves as Slaves

A Texas middle school is facing backlash from parents after an assignment asked students to draw themselves as slaves.

Four Points Middle School, located in Austin, Texas, is facing fierce questioning from parents after seventh grade students were given an assignment asking them to draw themselves as slaves, KVUE reports.

“There’s nothing about slavery that I would want any child, regardless of color, to have to relive,” Tonya Jennings, the mother of one of the students, said, adding that she was shocked when she saw the assignment. “I turn it, and then, of course, my eye is drawn to the title, ‘Making Sense with the Senses.’ And then I read the four points. And I stopped after reading, ‘Draw a picture of yourself as a slave.’ I just stopped right there.”

Jennings added that the assignment, which was focused on the Civil War and made no other mention of slavery, asked students to describe what they would see, hear, feel, smell, and taste if they were a slave.

A Leander ISD spokesperson released a statement regarding the assignment, stating that, “When teaching sensitive content, we strive to deliver lessons with care and context to our students. The tragic impacts of slavery are well documented and relevant to our state and nation’s history. The state curriculum for seventh-grade history expects students to explain reasons for Texas’ involvement in the Civil War, including states’ rights, slavery, sectionalism and tariffs. The state also asks students to be able to identify points of view from the historical context surrounding an event and the frame of reference that influenced the participants.”

This isn’t the first time that a lesson on slavery has come under fire. A Bronx middle school teacher faced backlash after students and other staff members alleged that she singled out black students during a lesson on slavery in her seventh grade social studies classes. The teacher had reportedly been giving a lesson on the Middle Passage, the journey by sea in which enslaved Africans were kidnapped and brought to America, when she chose three of her black students to take part in the lesson. She then instructed the students to lay on the floor and proceeded to step on their backs.

While the Bronx middle school teacher was allowed to return to school and reassigned to a position away from children, Tonya Jennings says that she will be meeting with school leaders this week to discuss the assignment.