Parent Appalled Over Essay Asking 8th Graders If They’d Rather Be Slaves Or Factory Workers « CBS Detroit

Parent Appalled Over Essay Asking 8th Graders If They’d Rather Be Slaves Or Factory Workers « CBS Detroit: “As far as I’m concerned, they are diametrically opposing circumstances. You have on one end, a slave that is not free, who has no free will. And on the other end, you have a factory worker and although it was in the Industrial Revolution, they still had a free choice and they had a choice to walk away if they wanted to.”



"the essay was based on a Michigan Content Expectation, in which 8th grade students were asked to be able to explain the differences in the lives of free blacks — including those who escaped from slavery — with the lives of free whites and enslaved people."



"“The majority of the class felt that they would rather be a slave than to be a factory worker. And she was just extremely confused by that, knowing what slaves went through, she couldn’t understand why anyone would choose that,” James said. “The rationale by those students to choose slaves was that they had free housing, they had free food and they had free protection. But the argument that she and I put forth was that those things were not free.”"