[adriand]

It's become vogue to talk about social media in this manner but the problem is much more generalized. Sensationalist news from mainstream/traditional media outlets does exactly the same thing. And the sensitivity around issues of race, gender, sexuality, and so on, is destroying our ability to engage in civil discourse with one another - not just on social media, but even in our classrooms.

Here's an example of what I mean. A couple of days ago I was in a waiting room somewhere and as a result ended up watching a few TV news headlines. Some teacher in Wisconsin assigned her fourth-graders some homework that asked them to provide "3 'good' reasons for slavery and 3 bad reasons", which sparked a predictable uproar:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/school-homework-good-reas...

Unsurprisingly, no one was willing to go on the record to try and defend or even explain the assignment. It's toxic. And yet, I don't think it's racist to try and parse the teacher's intention here (or just ask for a comment from them!) The teacher put "good" in quotes, which is a good clue, and I can certainly come up with "good" (in quotes) reasons for slavery (e.g. cotton-picking is highly labour intensive and there was tremendous demand for raw cotton by the rapidly industrializing cotton industry in England).

That's a far cry from an assignment that says, "provide a persuasive moral basis for the goodness of slavery". But apparently we can't have conversations like this in our society any more, because there's no room for nuance.

As a nerd, like many of you, I like having intellectual conversations with plenty of nuance, in which one gives the people around you plenty of leeway and the benefit of the doubt ("hmm, that sounds a bit racist, but I respect this person - let me ask a question to see what they mean"). It seems to me that the places in which we can have those conversations are increasingly limited. It definitely isn't social media. It's not the workplace. Apparently, it might not be academia, either, although I haven't been in school for a long time and can't speak from personal experience (stories like the one I just shared, though, seem to back up this impression).

We're left with smart, intellectual, nuanced people having hushed conversations in coffee shops or pubs where no one can overhear them, because we're all afraid of how our words might be twisted, misinterpreted, and ganged up on. It's a real shame.

[smcl]

I know where you're trying to go with this and your heart is in the right place, but the example is awful and does not help in the slightest. I have a feeling that I'm gonna get "ugh, replies like yours are exactly the problem, smcl!" but to me asking children to come up with some good side of slavery is up there with trying to find the good side of the holocaust. Whether "good" or "bad" is in quotes doesn't really change that it's a stupendously bad way to approach the subject.

It might be an intellectually stimulating conversation for some, but if it's a conversation only occurring in hushed tones in coffee shops or in private then I think that's probably for the best.

[prepend]

I think depending on the exercise trying to explore the “good” side of the holocaust would be useful too.

The purpose is not to try to list why the holocaust is good, it isn’t obviously, but I can think of at least two exercises where this is useful for a fourth grade class. 1) to use an extreme example, likely the worst in the world’s history, to make it hard or impossible to find positives is harder to think. 2) to try to better understand the terrible situation and monsters that led to the holocaust. Empathizing with psychopaths is important for society to not repeat issues. So trying to find “good” issues may help understand why such evil was perpetrated.

Of course the framing is extremely important and can’t be understood by OP’s post and likely not by ththe tv headline. But my frustration is that people immediately not only judge, but make their judgements widely known, without an understanding deep enough to judge.

Of course, the assignment could have been a horrible facade over racism. I don’t know. I went to middle school in the south and we had a lot of class work trying to excuse slavery on the side. But just based on the headline, I don’t know. And having a headline of “might be racist” is a waste of time. If I could trust media to investigate and only report if it is racism, then that would be great. But as is, I cannot, and it’s much more likely the purpose is to generate views and ad revenue even though there is no story there.

Thus making us all dumber.

[smcl]

OK enough people are replying this way that I'm wondering if this is maybe an American-English vs British-English thing. When you say "find a good reason for <thing-Y>" ... do you mean "Why does <person-X> justify doing <thing-Y>"? If so then we're all talking at cross purposes and misunderstanding each other - but I'd really suggest phrasing because BOY that original version sounds so bad.

We are in agreement re the media angle. This is clearly "Teacher asks dumb question" not "Teacher brainwashing kids with racist propaganda" and is in no way (inter)national news.

[lazerpants]

It's a lazy use of language, but yes, "Why does <person-X> justify doing <thing-Y>" is the same as "good reason" in some colloquial uses of US English. Furthermore, in US English, just like in British English, there are plenty of class and education factors that influence how someone would phrase the statement in question.

Most educated coastal folks would not use "3 good reasons" in this case, but at least in my experience, in less educated communities in the South it is more likely to be phrased that way. I implicitly assumed that the teacher did not mean "good" pertaining to slavery, but that may be because I grew up in an environment with different colloquialisms than others. Frankly, if I were a sleep deprived teacher just trying to get something done, I could easily see myself making the same mistake and then seriously regretting that it warped my intention.

This is particularly interesting because I think that the use of language in this case actually reinforces the intent people read into the situation. With some people confused as to how this is "racist" because of a different reading of the language in addition to a different moral interpretation around the assignment.

[prepend]

This is a good way of looking at it linguistically. I’m really only familiar with en_us so I can’t speak about U.K. versions.

But when I see good in quotations that usually means that it’s not actually good, but someone says it is. So I don’t know if the context is exactly “why does person x think it’s good” but it seems close and let’s you respond and think about something without actually agreeing it is truly good or the instructor recognizing it is good.

An example may be “describe how anchovies are ‘delicious’” although of course anchovies tasting horrible is in no way close to slavery. But might show how you ask the question by actually biasing that anchovies suck but you’re going to say they are delicious for the sake of thought.

If anything putting good in quotes signals that slavery is not good and biased the discussion. For most topics I think that will yield worse results, but slavery is fine to bias students against. I don’t really care if people keep open minds about slavery.

[baud147258]

I think the problem is more how the question is poorly asked. I think one could find economical, political or logistical reasons for the existence of slavery, but that does not change how evil slavery is.

It might be interesting to have an idea of how people could have rationalized slavery as something good and see if the same rationalisation do not persist in our society. But to do so, you have to be able do discuss it, without having the discussion shut down as racist.

Edit: basically what prepend said, since it's much better.

[smcl]

OK but "Why was the Confederacy pro-slavery?" or "How did the Nazis justify their actions?" are different questions than "give 3 ‘good’ reasons for slavery and 3 bad reasons" which was the example given.

I'm not sure the answers to these questions are as stimulating as people think though. I suspect the real reason behind the question given in the example was that the teacher was oversimplifying the language of the question for his/her students to the point where all nuance was lost ... which suggests they're maybe not ready for it.

[adriand]

> I suspect the real reason behind the question given in the example was that the teacher was oversimplifying the language of the question for his/her students to the point where all nuance was lost ... which suggests they're maybe not ready for it.

This is a good observation and you may well be right, although, I've been surprised by what kids are "ready for" in the past. For example, my son was in grade four last year, and his teacher started reading them The Diary of Ann Frank. My immediate reaction to this news was that I didn't think they were ready to learn about the Holocaust, but I did some research and discovered that, in fact, introducing them at that age isn't a bad decision and can be done well.

In any case, I think that your reaction to my comment actually proves my point. I'm not going to say "ugh, replies like yours are exactly the problem, smcl!" because replies like yours are not. You did not, for example, call me a racist. You engaged with me respectfully, I did the same with you, and now we're having an actual conversation. That's because HN is one of the few places where I think productive conversations like this still happen. By and large, we make a conscious effort to engage with one another respectfully, and to be open-minded and open to persuasion.

Even things like accepting that when someone voices an opinion, it's just that, an opinion. It may not always be entirely thought-out. Far better to react to poorly thought-out opinions (of which I have many, I'm sure) with "here's where you're wrong" in a respectful, persuasive way, than what we see playing out in society at large.

[smcl]

Oh totally, I'm continously surprised by what kids are capable of and they're generally smarter they're given credit for. I just thought that if it's not possible to phrase a question or concept because a kid does not have the vocabulary required to understand it or then it's probably not worth it.

Then again maybe I'm wrong and that's why I'm not a teacher :-)

[baud147258]

> OK but "Why was the Confederacy pro-slavery?" or "How did the Nazis justify their actions?" are different questions than "give 3 ‘good’ reasons for slavery and 3 bad reasons" which was the example given.

You are right, that's why I said that the question was poorly asked.

> the teacher was oversimplifying the language of the question for his/her students to the point where all nuance was lost ... which suggests they're maybe not ready for it.

Again you're right, since I'm not from the US, I forgot that the fourth grade is for 10 years-old.

[smcl]

> You are right, that's why I said that the question was poorly asked.

Yikes - not sure how I misread or misunderstood that

[baud147258]

No problem! ;)

[billfruit]

I do agree that 4th grade is too young for such a topic, but perhaps precisely your reaction is what the parent commenter was speaking about. He made a meaningful observation, yet people were quick to jump on a passing example entirely of incidental importance to the point.

[prepend]

Actually, I think 3rd and 4th grade is a perfect time for these types of “easy” moral analyses.

If the goal is to teach kids to think, then you want excerises building critical thinking. Even kindergarten is a good time to start critical thinking on hard topics “Why do you think the police shot those people with a hose?” I remember coming up when taking my 1st grader to the MLK museum.

If the goal is indoctrinate kids until it’s “safe” to understand why things are evil and wrong like slavery, then by all means wait until later. I’m not sure what the right age is.

[smcl]

I disagree that my reaction was exactly what the parent commenter was speaking about. If I said "you must be racist or pro-slavery if you even want to consider talking about this" then it would have been. But literally the first thing I said was that I understand the point, and that his heart was in the right place. The example works against his point - because it's so obviously a bad idea, isn't really worth defending and just confuses things further.

[throwanem]

Fourth grade probably is too early for Lincoln-Douglas, sure. This by you makes it verboten?

[smcl]

Please don't act like "some conversations are maybe not appropriate everywhere" is some radical new suggestion, or is in any way like banning free speech.

[watwut]

I would really like to know what exactly is "good" vs good here. And whether the four graders know to distinguish them. It truly is the kind of homework I would not be happy if my child get. Not until they are big enough to real full accounts of former slaves so they fully understand what it is they nuancely argue for here. The nuance here is achieved by ignoring bloody reality of slavery.

"It economically benefits me" is a "good" reason for slavery? Would we analyze it the same for hired assassin for gang? The latter kills less people. Is "good" in your meaning "egoistical"?

I don't see much space for nuance here and can imagine just about million topics with true moral grey in them.