A Connecticut school district angered parents after a slavery re-enactment gets a little too realistic and "crosses the line."
WFSB.com reports Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy took their students to Nature's Classroom in Massachusetts, an educational programs for young minds. When parents asked their children what they learned during the class trip, they were surprised by what their young ones told them.
"I ask that you imagine these phrases being yelled at our 12-year-old child and their friends," parent Sandra Baker said at a Hartford School Board meeting. "'Bring those (n-word) to the house over there. (N-word) if you can read, there's a problem. Dumb, dark-skinned (n-word). How dare you look at me?'"
Baker was adamant at the meeting that the language the class trip subjected her child to was abusive.
"The fact that they used the 'n' word. I mean, how dare you say that to my child and call it an educational experience. How dare you say that to any child." Baker told WFSB.com.
Baker and her husband, James, filed complaints to the school district and school board. James recounted more details about their daughter's experience.
"'The instructor told me if I were to run, they would whip me until I bled on the floor and then either cut my Achilles so I couldn't run again, or hang me,'" he told the school board.
According to the Hartford Courant, the program Director John G. Santos said there were thousands of schoolchildren has attended Nature's Classroom, and the Underground Railroad exercise is one of 500 activities available.
"[The slavery re-enactment is an] activity that has validity, it's an historical event, it's a simulation," Santos told the newspaper. "[Although Nature's Classroom is focused on ecology,] 'ecology includes humankind and we're working on behalf, and with the schools, that have four major subjects, history being one of them, the social sciences another.'"
Santos told the Courant his program would never "endorse the use of the N-word," but acknowledged it was possible a staff member could do "stupid things."
