A group of teachers in Texas suggested referring to slavery as an “involuntary relocation” to the second grade – before being rejected by the state Board of Education. The nine teachers were one of many tasked with advising the Texas council on changes to the social studies curriculum that would affect nearly 9,000 of the state’s public schools. The minutes of a June 15 meeting in Austin, which lasted more than 13 hours, said committee members were briefed on the social studies review before commenting. The committee provided the following guidance to the working group that completed the recommendations for the 8th grade of kindergarten:… For K-2, carefully consider the language used to describe events, specifically the term “involuntary relocation”. ” Aicha Davis, a Democrat representing Dallas and Fort Worth, said during the meeting that the wording was not a “fair representation” of the slave trade, according to the Texas Tribune, which reported the story for the first time. Part of the proposed curriculum, the Tribune said, was directing students to “compare trips to America, including voluntary Irish immigration and the involuntary relocation of Africans during colonialism.” The chairman of the state education council, Keven Ellis, told the Tribune that the council “with unanimous consent ordered the working group to reconsider the language”. Davis, Ellis and the Texas Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Washington Post. The working group behind the recommendation included teachers, social studies specialists, educational coaches and a university professor, according to a list on the educational organization’s website. Texas is at the center of the struggle for personal freedom In a statement posted on Twitter Thursday, the Texas Education Service responded to the reactions to the proposal. “As documented in the minutes of the meeting, the SBOE provided comments at the meeting, indicating that the working group had to change the language associated with the ‘involuntary relocation’,” he said. “Any claim that the SBOE intends to downplay the role of slavery in American history is completely untrue.” The State Board of Education enforces policies and standards for Texas public schools by setting curriculum rules, reviewing and adopting educational materials, and overseeing some funding. The council will have a final vote on the curriculum in November, according to the Tribune. The incident has caused outrage on social media. Former Austin and Houston Police Chief Art Acevento called it a “whitewashed story” and said “slavery deniers are just as dangerous as Holocaust deniers.” One user wrote: “Involuntary relocation is what happens when you lose your home in a hurricane. “Not what happened during slavery.” “Involuntary relocation” for slavery? Human slavery? Selling and buying human beings from Africa or are they of African descent? Do people understand that for millions of you, this is a family history? That for the country this represents a civil war? https://t.co/JLnS12l8p4 – Maya Wiley (@mayawiley) July 1, 2022 The Texas education system has been the subject of much recent controversy amid a cultural war over how historical and current events should be taught. Recent policies have led to the banning of books on sexual orientation, as well as those that “contain material that may make students feel uncomfortable, guilty, anxious or in any other form of psychological distress.” Texas School District Bans Dresses and Skirts to Promote ‘Workforce Skills’ Last year, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill banning K-12 public schools from teaching critical race theory – an academic framework that focuses on the idea that racism is systemic, not limited to individual prejudices. label for any discussion about race in schools. More recently, a school district in northern Texas was forced to apologize after an administrator advised teachers that if they had Holocaust books in their classrooms, they should also include reading materials with “opposite” perspectives.
