Please take a look at my son's homework

[ohio_liberal]

My son is in kindergarten. Every night he brings home a paper to read, then he has to write a sentence from the story. I was completely shocked when I saw it.

The images are crappy, sorry. If you can't see it, this is a drawing of an African-American father with his son turned over his knee and hand drawn back as if to smack him on the butt for going in the kitchen against his wishes. The cartoon bubble says, "How can Dad tell I was in there?"




Here's the full page:


So...do you find the imagery as disturbing as I do or am I out of line?

[whistle]

1. Are these papers from a public school?

[ohio_liberal]

3. Yes n/t

[Democrats_win]

14. Changing times: we got the "Weekly Reader" with our crackers.

You all remember, right, when the president was elected by the people.

[murray hill farm]

2. That is really terrible!

Where does your son go to school?

[ohio_liberal]

8. My son is in public school

Martins Ferry School District, Ohio.

http://mfcsd.k12.oh.us/

[imenja]

4. Are you serious?

He has homework of a parent striking his child? And they've depicted that family as African-American no less? I can't read much of the text, but from what I can tell it's outrageous on all fronts. What pedagogic value is this supposed to have. I would complain immediately.

[ultraist]

37. I agree

I'd use scholary citations to back up your argument. There is a lot of reputable research to support these claims:

1. Promoting the use of physical force undermines "character education" (lots of research on spanking/parenting skills in the field of child pyschology)

2. Using African American images in this way is biased (research negative imagery of African Americans).

[BrklynLiberal]

5. Yes, I find it very disturbing too. I have never seen a school book that

showed a parent spanking a child.

[fob]

6. By any chance your son isn't 35 and this is 30 years old, is it?

If not, and it's 2005 vintage, I don't know what to say. What exactly is the "lesson" the entire page is trying to instill?

[ohio_liberal]

11. The print on the paper

says
Science Research Associates, Inc.
1987 Edition.

on edit:

My son is six years old.

[fob]

49. Ah, the golden shower years of the raygoon administration, NOW it

makes sense.

[lakemonster11]

57. Well, I was in kindergarten in 1987,

and I never saw anything like that.

[MissB]

7. Of course I find it disturbing

But I'd never bend a child over my knee and whack him/her.

If this is a public school, you could take your complaint (via a simple letter) to the teacher.

If it is a private school, I doubt you have much recourse.

The pictures look quite outdated.

[imenja]

15. she certainly can complain even if the school is private

parents at private school's pay tuition. Their disapproval means loss of revenue for the school.

[Igel]

9. Is your problem the spanking, the race, or the naivete of the kid? n/t

[ohio_liberal]

13. The spanking

The race didn't particularly matter to me.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

26. You don't spank your children at all?

[ohio_liberal]

30. No, not at all

I grew up with parents that did not spank and I don't feel the need to do it. It hurts worse if I take their PS2's and computers away as punishment ;)

[ultraist]

40. The negative imagery is very relevant

There has been a lot of research on this and it has been well established, that negative imagery of African Americans is extremely powerful in perpetuating racism.

Here's just one article, I found it in about two seconds.

http://www.santarosa.edu/~jkellymo/raceandrepres.html

VI. Race and Representation in American Art: Non-white ethnicities as Subjects
"There are no gray areas in the content of stereotypes." 33 

In the same way that the power to name can be seen as the power to control, so it is that whoever controls visual imagery (representation) wields a weapon which can profoundly influence individual and group self-definition and confidence. The "dominant culture" generally controls social and cultural imagery. This situation has existed throughout much of human history. Cultural perceptions can create hazards to access for various groups, but the real damage lies in the way in which individuals or groups internalize negative representation. While there are few images made by non-white ethnicities in American art history books, there are a number of images of non-white ethnicities. African-Americans and American Indians were subjects in the prints and paintings of a number of American artists, while Asians and Latinos hardly appear at all. In this next section, a brief survey of some of these images considers the non-white ethnicity as subject.

In Race Matters, 43 scholar, theologian and activist Dr. Cornel West discusses aspects of white supremacist patriarchal systems and their strategy of denial in areas of ethnic, class and gender bias. Referring to the history of negative representation of African-Americans West writes:

White supremacist ideology is based first and foremost on the degradation of black bodies in order to control them. One of the best ways to instill fear in people is to terrorize them. Yet this fear is best sustained by convincing them that their bodies are ugly,their intellect is inherently underdeveloped, their culture less civilized and their future warrants less concern than that of other people. 35.
In "The Face and Voice of Blackness", an introductory essay in Facing History, The Black Image in American Art 1710-1940, 36 Henry Louis Gates Jr.,( Henry Louis Gates Jr. archive @ wust.edu Henry Louis Gates Jr. @ pathfinder.com Henry Louis Gates Jr. @ black-collegian.com) confronts America's "failure to capture the full range of the African American personality" 37

The large number and variety of racist images in American culture attest to a particularly American preoccupation with marginalizing black Americans by flooding the culture with an-Other Negro, a Negro who conformed to the deepest social fears and fantasies of the larger society...each black person would have to dig him or herself out from under the codified racist debris of centuries of representations of blackness as absence, as nothingness, as deformity and depravity. 38

[aden_nak]

10. Well, if I'd been illustrating it, I would have shown the parent yelling.

Instead of spanking. That being said, if this is a question of whether it's inappropriate from a racial standpoint. . . would you think that if the family in the strip was white? And would you be pleased if all of the characters in all of the illustrations are white? Or is it the responsibility of the designer to only portray minority characters in positive situations?

I'm not trying to be smarmy, here, just asking questions.

[ohio_liberal]

18. The race doesn't particularly matter to me

The pic of spanking is what really bothered me.

[aden_nak]

25. Ah, okay. In that case, I agree with you.

I wasn't clear on what the issue was (and I don't think I was the only one). As for the spanking, yeah, I would not have put that in at all. Perhaps someone thought it was the easiest way to signal obvious disapproval. Like I said, I'd have shown an angry parent, perhaps pointing their arm off-frame, and the child being surprised.

[ohio_liberal]

34. Sorry, I should've clarified

I probably shouldn't have mentioned the race of the characters at all but I wanted to be sure to describe the photo accurately. I am sometimes hyper-sensitive about race but that's another story entirely.

[ultraist]

42. Have you read any works by Cornell West or anything on neg imagery?

Have you read anything on the history of and current use of negative imagery of African Americans?

There was a fantastic Spike Lee movie about negative imagery of blacks as well. I saw it years ago in college.

This issue is well founded and accepted by reputable scholars to be extremely important.

[Igel]

50. I can see why; I don't want to spank my kid when

he's older.

My wife would probably attack me if I did, she's a big advocate of reasoning and talking to kids. I agree. But I can certainly see situations in which I'd smack him good and hard. Maybe more for me than for him, but some things I want him to not do before he can understand why he shouldn't do them.

I just hope those situations never occur.

[ohio_liberal]

55. I grew up with parents that didn't spank

But I've certainly been around people who spanked their kids. It just doesn't work for me. I don't mean to sound anti-punishment. Kids certainly do deserve the occasional (sometimes frequent, even) punishment. I've got kids ranging from 3 to 19 and I think I've been through every imaginable stupid thing that kids can do. But I can't think of any reason that I personally would ever lay hands on them in a hurtful way. It's always been enough to either show them how deeply disappointed I am in a behavior or to just simply take away the things they love the most for a while, until they get the idea that whatever they did isn't cool.

[Igel]

58. Maybe that'll work.

For now, it's a game of keeping stuff away from him, him away from stuff, and making glowering faces and sounds whenever he gets close to two things.

1) The computer on/off button.
It glows. Therefore he must push it.

2) My guitars. They're wood, they're interesting looking, and they make sounds. What's not for a kid to love?

[Tsiyu]

65. It's your job to make a safe, secure childhood for him

not his job to stay away from your stuff when all of his impulses tell him to touch things.

Sorry, but this is a pet peeve of mine. Children are neurologically programmed to do certain things at certain times. Asking a toddler not to touch a roomful of bright things is like putting a one-year-old at the top of a flight of stairs and asking him not to fall down them.

You either remove the dangers from the room, or the child from the room. As a child grows, impulse control increases and you can have timeouts, etc. for this behavior. But smacking babies and preschoolers teaches them that violence ( another's pain) solves problems and also that things are more important than they are. Things are NOT more important than your child.

My guitars survived my kids just fine. The guitars and husbands were a different story....

My freaking humble opinion as the mother of seven.

[skylarmae]

19. your words and pic of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

are wonderful! It's a great picture of him...

[aden_nak]

32. Songs of the Doomed is one of my favorites.

That's the jacket cover from the book. And thanks. My brain is still a little mashed over the whole deal.

[imenja]

24. these are not separate issues

Children are bombarded with racist images in our media. Racism is taught, and it looks like the school is doing their part in that. The cartoon shows a clear association with violence and race. That is indeed disturbing.
It's a poor way to depict parent and conflict resolution, and it gives the face of that pathology a black one.

[aden_nak]

31. But aren't we assuming a racial suggestion here?

Is the hypothesis that the artist said, "Hmmm, this picture is of a parent spanking a child, better make it a black family!" or is this just a case of a poor match up? And it takes me back to my earlier question of whether this would be more acceptable if it were a white family in the illustration, and whether "inclusion" needs to come packaged with "insulation".

[ultraist]

43. imenja is correct about racist imagery. PLEASE educate yourself

Have you ever read even one academic article on this subject?

[aden_nak]

48. Look, I agree that it is a genuine issue.

And I am familiar with it. All I am saying is that intention and effect are important factors that need to be discussed, and I think it's important to keep them in mind. The real question, I guess, is whether we are shooting for equality or fairness, since they're often not the same goal in the freakshow social shatter culture of America.

[ohio_liberal]

46. I think you are right...

I might have only subconsciously seen the racial imagery myself (I did after all mention in the original post that the father-image was African-American).

Anyway, I just handed it to my foster son (he's 19, been with me since he was 12, and happens to be African-American) and I asked for his thoughts on it. His first words were, "Why do they all have to be black?"

[ultraist]

60. Your son made an insightful remark.

Black males are often portrayed as violent. Rarely do we see Black males in a positive light. I think you did pick up on this because you mentioned it in your OP.

Snip from Yale course article:
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1996/3/96.03.05.x.html

The use of racial stereotyping is destructive to American society on two fronts. First it connotes to the majority population of America that the negative actions of a few minorities sum up the collective values of the whole minority community. For example, in urban America to be a mugger is synonymous with being African American or Hispanic. As a result of media images, the immediate image we accept as norm is that of whites being mugged by blacks and Hispanics. While of course, black and Hispanic men have mugged whites, to have this be a dominant image goes against many national and local crime statistics. Discussing racial imaging in the book Questioning the Media, Ash Corea explains “stereotypes seek to portray African-Americans as a “problem” in an otherwise harmonious country.”(4)
Stam and Shohat explain “the mark of the plural” in Unthinking Eurocentrisim. They explain how “the mark of the plural” projects colonized people as all the same, any negative behavior by any member of the oppressed community is instantly generalized as typical, as pointing to a perpetual backsliding toward some negative essence. Representations thus become allegorical.”(5) They further explain how stereotyping “of other communities participate in a continuum of prejudicial social policy and actual violence against disempowered people placing the very body of the accused in jeopardy.”(6) The nationwide manhunt for the fictitious black killer of Susan Smith’s children supports their assertion.

[imenja]

54. such ideas are rarely intentional

They are instead assumed. I am certain the artist did not deliberately set out to create a racist lesson, but as a member of a racist society, he/ she did so nonetheless. It need not be intentional to be destructive. The child has no idea what was in the artists mind when he/she created the book, or why the school system adopted it. The child instead looks at the pictures, reads what words he or she can, and learns to associate blackness with pathology and violence. Is that really how we want to teach our children?

[Igel]

51. Doesn't it depend on the context?

If all white folks are depicted in a good way, and black folk in a bad way, sure, it's racist.

But if each chapter is color coded, so to speak, and there's no particular association between violence and race, I'm not sure kindergartners would get the connection. Note the "if". (I tend to be agnostic on lots and lots of topics.)

[imenja]

53. this is a Kindergarten book

The question is, what is the purpose of this lesson? What is it supposed to teach? I see nothing positive, only negative.

[Bluebear]

12. Disturbing for any race to be depicted like this!

What is this, 1950? Textbooks are pro-corporal punishment?

[Bethany Rockafella]

16. A lot of kids back in the day got a spanking that way.

At least it's on the butt.

[BOHICA06]

17. Maybe overly sensitive .... or over thinking -

simple lesson here....you just don't cross the old man, regardless of race, creed, national origin, or political affiliation!

Good lesson to learn early!

[atommom]

20. I have a son in K too, and I'd complain if the teacher sent home

something like that. I wonder how old that comic is?

[Toucano]

21. They're using materials that are rather old.

I think that might explain it.

I think it's inappropriate today, but it may not have been 30 years ago when it looks like that was drawn. I could be wrong, of course. Dad's turtle neck and hairstyle suggest to me that it's out of date.

Corporal punishment was more common in the past.

I don't think you're out of line, and I'm sorry they're using this. It might be a good chance to explain to your son that some parents spank their children. Maybe it will help him have compassion for his classmates. I remember having no idea that other children's lives were so different from my own until I started going to sleep-overs.

[MARALE]

22. There is so much that is wrong with that homework.

What is a kindergartener doing having homework anyway? It is very disturbing, whether it is an African-American or not. I would write a note to send to the teacher and tell her that the imagary is disturbing to you and your child. I would not want my child to see a parent hitting a child for any reason.

[ohio_liberal]

28. He has homework every single day

All my kids do (even on weekends). The one in kindergarten has to do this type of reading paper every day (I am required to read it to him), and also math homework and spelling homework. The school district has designed this to take some of the load off the teacher and put it on the parents. There's a term that the district uses for this but it escapes me at the moment.

[MARALE]

66. We come from a small community

There were 12 in my daughter's class in Kindergarten. She still does not have a lot of homework in 4th grade. She is very bright though and reads way above her level. I am not against all homework, but I think that it puts too much stress on the children at such a young age. They need to play and be adventerous. They learn as much playing at that age as they do through school. It may be that the teacher spends too much time filling out paperwork for NCLB and has to send work home. I always have read to my children and they still lke to be read to, even my 16 year old will listen once in a while. A teacher told me that reading to a child is the best thing to do for that child. I agree.

[deek]

23. absurd

very disturbing!!!

[bhunt70]

27. I don't see whats really disturbing.

I was spanked a few times as a kid.

I don't plan on doing it to my child but I also don't see how it was detrimental to my well being.

what I do find offensive it the probably date that material was provided to the class. Get new material.

[aden_nak]

35. It does appear to be 20-30 years old.

[ohio_liberal]

38. Yep

The copyright at the bottom says 1987. I'm not certain where the teacher gets all of her materials. I do know that she downloads some of these nightly reading papers from the internet (there have been some from PBS). She told me at the beginning of the year that she's under guidelines by the district and the state in what she can and can't teach.

[realisticphish]

59. welcome to the ohio public school system

my mom's a teacher, and i know how insanely hard it is for them to get new material...


:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[Carmerian]

63. This material looks very familiar to me

I looked at those pictures, but instead of seeing what you were talking about, I got a small sense of surprise. I could swear I read these in the early 70's, here in Texas. I don't remember my reaction to it, though (I was just a kid then).

Though this particular work may have been copyrighted in 1987, it's likely derived from an earlier copyrighted work. The style of the artwork does put a floor on its age, though ;)

[donheld]

29. Disturbing for any race

Your son's sentence could read: "These pictures made my mom angry."

[aden_nak]

33. If I could just point out ANOTHER disturbing aspect of this assignment...

It's incredibly lame, and borders on ridiculous. Is there seriously any child, even in a Kindergarten class, that would stare at this picture for any length of time and not figure it out? The very idea of putting text on it is crazy, because any child that can read should be able to solve the mystery.

[SmokingJacket]

36. It's bad enough that a kindergartner has homework...

but stupid, inscrutable, offensive homework to boot?

A friend of mine told his daughter's 1st grade teacher that they weren't going to be doing any homework. None. If she fell behind for whatever reason, he'd help her catch up, but no homework.

I thought that was a good idea.

[bunkerbuster1]

39. I think you might be overreacting a tad.

I can understand being a little taken aback. Why not just use this opportunity to tell your child that some parents spank as punishment, and some don't?

Perhaps you could frame it by talking about what people used to do more often "in the old days."

It reminds me of a little talk I had with my 4-year-old before we screened the Beatles' "A Hard Days' Night." My kid loves their music, but had never seen them "live" before. It occurred to me that the film had quite a few scenes of the lads smoking, so I made sure she understood that back in the 60s, people didn't really know how dangerous that could be.

[ohio_liberal]

47. I kept my reactions limited to DU for now

I did tell my kids I thought it was inappropriate.

[yinkaafrica]

41. Definitely way not appopriate. No reason for it. No excuse for it.

[ultraist]

44. I agree, it sends out TWO toxic messages to children

[jdj]

45. Reminds me of Mosely-Braun calling it "No Child Left with a Behind"

that Bush pogrom "no child left behind", I mean.

[katamaran]

52. Send it to your local TV station....

The station I work for would be drooling to get ahold of something like that. Talking to the principal or school board may not get any results, but I guarantee you that a TV station would. Especially during Black History month ;-)

[Johonny]

56. And...

I don't get the big deal. I'd think we'd be happy that 100 million or so Bush put into promoting marriage has worked out. The cartoon shows an actual African American father!

[not systems]

61. Authoritarian propaganda.

The though bubble "How can Dad tell I was in there?" is meant to
instill an authoritarian world view centered on the omnipotent father.

This is what the mass psychology of fascism is about.

[jojo54]

62. Another "moral" value

This is what * and the religious right are trying to promote - "spare the rod and spoil the child"!! Sorry, but I raised 2 girls who were very disobediant at times. The spanking was very rare, simply because I don't believe it's revelance. My girls turned out just fine. And I also think the African-American thing was very prejudice.

[Skittles]

64. it is disturbing

I would make a formal complaint