A NSW High School Is Being Called Out For Asking Students To Defend Slavery For An Assignment
"My peer, her siblings and myself, who all are of African descent felt greatly disrespected, demeaned and disregarded by the nature of this assessment."
Lake Macquarie State High School is under fire for allegedly issuing an HSIE assignment in which students were asked to “argue for the continuation of the slave trade,” as a stimulus.
In an Instagram post by Maria Alier calling out the assessment, Alier writes, “I was recently informed by a peer of an incident of racism at Lake Macquarie State High, in which her siblings and their classmates were given a History assessment in which they were subsequently asked to present an argument for the defence of the Slave Trade.” The assignment was supposedly part of a unit on American political movements.
In their post, Alier includes a copy of the HSEI assessment brief. The two-part question allegedly asks students to imagine: “You are a Minister to the President of the United States. 1) Minister for Economy: Your report will argue for the continuation of the slave trade. 2) Minister for Human Rights: Your report wants to stop the Slave Trade.”
The brief goes on to give the students the option of either exposing conditions endured by slaves during this time, or outlining “the positive contributions the slaves make to the economies of Africa, England and the United States.” It also gives students explicit criteria that their report must include research on the “advantages to each country through the trade of slaves.”
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As Alier writes in their original post, “My peer, her siblings and myself, who all are of African descent felt greatly disrespected, demeaned and disregarded by the nature of this assessment”.
Nowhere in any curriculum in NSW are students asked, or expected to argue as oppressors of marginalised groups. Understanding historical context for large scale atrocities is vital. However, no one should ever be asked to argue in favour of such circumstances in order to learn about them. As Alier points out, the alleged assignment does not align with the Department of Education’s Anti-Racism or Multicultural Education policies. Both policies require schools to “counter racism and discrimination”.
Lake Macquarie High School passed on a statement to Junkee from an Education Department spokesperson.
“The Department has been made aware of an allegation of inappropriate content appearing in an assessment task at Lake Macquarie High School and is currently investigating the incident,” the statement reads. ”The Department has had an Anti-Racism Policy in place for 30 years. It promotes respect for people from all cultural, linguistic and religious backgrounds and rejects all forms of racism in schools and department
offices.”