I’m one of them, only I was in the 90s. 8th grade teacher, who I won’t name. He dressed in black face to teach us about George Washington Carver. It must have lasted at least two weeks.

Actually, one memory I have of our fifth grade teacher (who I won’t name) is when she came one Halloween as a zombie. She had this great face makeup on, and when we asked how she did it, I remember her going into a long, detailed description about burning cork and applying the ashes, blah blah.

Like, ten years later, I was reading something online about Al Jolson and “corking up” and immediately remembered said teacher and her odd delight in describing the technique she used to dress up. I’m still a little skeeved out by it. Part of me wants to think she felt subversive, but I don’t know. It does skeeve me out.

You can close my em tag.

Also, you can install the WP plugin WP Ajax Edit Comments to allow us commentors the privilege of editing our comments for a short time. Nudge, nudge. Hint, hint.

And hey! Y’all are on the city’s recycle option, so hopefully y’all participate and encourage E to do the same. We here at Casa de Educe go every weekend, so we should make it a group effort. Plus, I got pictures of y’all’s compost area, so don’t even think of throwing out your perishables.

I still have my recorder from 5th grade. I (or The Geek) break it out every once in while to accompany my ukulele!

“…as a moral issue…”

Proof that public schooling does have an amount of “moral”, “spiritual” teaching inherent in it, or pushed into it, as it may be. As long as the teacher(s) is/are into it, of course. But I’ve learned, our beliefs, our morals, values, and outlook on the world necessarily come through in what we say to the kids, how we say it, and what we expect out of them. It’s so hard to avoid otherwise.

“he’s in a very ethnically, racially, and religiously diverse public school,”

Hells yes, he is. Fuck. He’s in the BEST school district in our area, who you kidding?

“their white teachers showing up at school in blackface to teach black American history”

I’m one of them, only I was in the 90s. 8th grade teacher, who I won’t name. He dressed in black face to teach us about George Washington Carver. It must have lasted at least two weeks.

“E’s teachers invited the kids to dress up as black leaders”

And OMG what are the implications of this?? I couldn’t even fathom asking my kids to do this.

“get a solid, science-based, state-mandated lesson on the environment in the public school”

I’m still weird about leaving the water running.

And hey, indeed.

Great post, Lauren.