`Slave diary' assignment at California school draws concern from parents

Jet, May 27, 2002

The eighth-graders at Hillview Middle School in Palmdale, CA, were given a unique assignment. They had to imagine what it was like to live as African-American slaves and detail their experiences in a journal.

It was an attempt by history teacher Lynda McGuire to bring realism to her class. But for some parents, it's just too much realism.

"To see them acting it out, it bothers [my daughter] and it bothers me too," Gladys Daniel, a Black parent, told the Daily News of Los Angeles. "... Some things I feel they shouldn't do ... It makes you angry that this happened to your people."

But Hillview officials stand behind the slave journals and the class discussions on race, which have been part of the curriculum for nearly six years. The situation prompted a recent investigation of the school, located about 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles, by the Antelope Valley Human Relations Task Force. School officials met with the task force last month, and the overall sentiment was that, while some adjustments may be needed, the intentions of the school and the teacher were genuine.

"There are unpleasant things in the study of history," said Hillview Principal Sherry McPherson, the newspaper reported. "Do we avoid them or teach them? You need to teach history sensitively, but I also feel students need to understand it."