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Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Modern School: Teen Harassed by School for Comparing Schools to Slavery

Modern School: Teen Harassed by School for Comparing Schools to Slavery:

Teen Harassed by School for Comparing Schools to Slavery


In a scathing indictment of public education, Jada Williams, a 13-year old eighth grader at School #3 in Rochester, New York, asserted that today's education system, like slavery, keeps children of color from meaningful learning. According to Good Education, Williams essayreferred to a quote by Frederick Douglass, who said that his slave master, Mr. Auld, told his wife, "If you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there will be no keeping him. It will forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master."

Williams said real learning is precluded by overcrowded and poorly managed classrooms, yielding the same results as Mr. Auld's ban. She went on to point out that her teachers—the majority of whom are white in this white minority district—have the power to determine what