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BY CHRISTINA M. WOODS
The Wichita Eagle
WICHITA - The story below replaces a shorter version that was first posted on Kansas.com Tuesday. The story comments at the end are carried over from that shorter version.
An Andover family has contacted the Wichita Branch NAACP about a board game created by a Andover seventh-grader that centered on the Ku Klux Klan.
Dante and Terica Davis, who are African-American and who filed the complaint, <span style="font-style: italic">said they're not against students learning about the KKK.</span>
<span style="font-weight: bold">The offense,</span> Terica Davis said, stems from the student's board game captions. <span style="font-style: italic">One read:</span> <span style="font-weight: bold">"You forget to clean your white robe so you can't go to the lynching. You are punished. Move back two spaces."</span>
<span style="font-style: italic">"It was never a 'black' or 'white' thing," Terica Davis said. "It's about decency."</span>
Davis, who has a child in the seventh-grade class, took photographs of the game at a recent school open house.
Andover Middle School administrators said a language arts teacher was trying to put a fun spin on history research by having students create board games.
Andover district Superintendent Mark Evans and the school's principal, Brett White, investigated the matter Tuesday and spoke on behalf of the teacher who created the assignment.
"Her message to the kids was this was a terrible time," White said of the teacher, whose lesson included a novel about racism in the 1930s. "These things are unspeakable. It was amazing, the kids' reactions."
But Kevin Myles with the Wichita branch NAACP said the school <span style="font-weight: bold">failed to explain why the game was inappropriate or the history behind why it would be considered inappropriate.</span>
"This is a middle school," Myles said. "We're talking about a 12- or 13-year-old who created the game.
"The problem is not the student. The problem and the responsibility lies squarely with the school."
Myles posted Davis' photos on his blog Tuesday, and said he plans to meet with school officials on the matter.
"<span style="font-weight: bold">They reinforced those notions by displaying it as though this were something that should be appreciated by the public</span>," Myles said of the game.
Evans and White said they will reach out to the Davis family.
"We want people to understand the history of the world and the history of the country even with the blemishes that history has," Evans said. "We don't want student activities to be viewed as hurtful."
White, the principal, said he talked with the teacher about her "changing the world for the better" unit, which included students reading "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry," a novel about an African-American family experiencing oppression and racism in Mississippi during the 1930s.
The student was not trying to be offensive with the game, White said.
He said the student showed him fact cards, which were also a part of the game, that included questions about when the Klan was formed and why it used burning crosses.
"This was really heavy in his mind," White said of the student. "He wanted the game to depict what he learned about in his research."
White said he explained to the student why his game couldn't be played as planned Tuesday.
Davis said the game's display at the open house and the possibility for students to play it shows a lack of cultural awareness or sensitivity at the school, where the student population is less than 2 percent black.
"I blame ignorance," Davis said.
<span style="font-weight: bold">She did not complain about another student's board game on the KKK, which White said was not seen as offensive.</span>
Evans, the superintendent, said the school will continue to teach historical lessons, "but we will be cautious of how we create activities, certainly, as part of conversations in the future."
<span style="font-weight: bold">and den dere is dis version</span>:
<span style="font-weight: bold">Kansas Kids Learn to Play KKK</span>
A white seventh grader in Kansas is being punished because of his teacher's inability to fully explain the horrors of Jim Crow and the deadly history of the domestic terrorist group known as the Ku Klux Klan.
An Andover, Kan., family has contacted the Wichita Branch NAACP about a board game created by a Andover seventh grader that centered on the Ku Klux Klan. Dante and Terica Davis, who are African American and who filed the complaint, said they're not against students learning about the KKK.
The offense, Terica Davis said, stems from the student's board game captions. One read: "You forget to clean your white robe so you can't go to the lynching. You are punished. Move back two spaces."
"It was never a black or white thing," Terica Davis said. "It's about decency."
Davis, who has a child in the seventh-grade class, took photographs of the game at a recent school open house.
Source - The Wichita Eagle
The seventh grader in question was sandbagged by our quasi politically correct environment in which we discuss racism in the broadest terms, using phrases like "it was a terrible time" or "unspeakable acts took place" without delineating the actual savagery that existed to enforce Jim Crow. The student couldn't have known any better given the intent of his teacher:
Andover Middle School administrators said a language arts teacher was trying to put a fun spin on history research by having students create board games.
There is absolutely no fun spin to be put on brutality and torture. Although it's admirable to inspire young people to create nontraditional teaching materials to learn about our nation's history, this teacher was clearly not successful in conveying what life was like in the days of rampant lynchings, when African American men, women and children were murdered because of the color of their skin.
Teach history and teach the full measure of our history as a nation. These painful chapters, however, are not meant to have a fun spin.