Centennial Middle School’s eighth grade history department emailed parents on March 23 about a Civil War-era project. Students were asked to “examine the effects of the civil war on different professions and individuals”.
On Tuesday, Provo City School District spokesman Caleb Price said the school had received two complaints about the project, regarding the possibility of students being assigned certain roles.
According to the original email the district provided to the Daily Herald, students were randomly assigned a fictional person to do research to determine how the significant events of that period would have affected their lives.
Some of the people deployed on the project included characters from the north and south with enslaved people, freedmen, people who escaped slavery, plantation owners, farmers, factory workers, and more.
In addition to the characters listed, the options included factory owners, soldiers, and officers, while the female characters included field nurses and women pretending to be soldiers.
“Students are encouraged to draw their own conclusions on the issues after class discussions and independent research,” the email said.
Price said the project was solely about researching various roles and daily life from that period and did not involve role play.
“The job wasn’t to play a role, it shouldn’t become one of those roles, it shouldn’t pretend you were one of those roles, it should explore and talk about that particular person’s daily life like that Life was for them at that time, “Price said.
The project then involved classroom discussions, research by students themselves, and coming together to see what life was like at that time.
If parents or students were uncomfortable with their assigned individual, the email stated that they could contact their teacher for an adjustment. At the same time, an optional alternative assignment was offered in which the students read the book “Across Five Aprils”. Price said he did not know how many students chose the optional assignment.
“It’s discussing the period from a white perspective,” Price said of the book. “While the teacher wasn’t specifically looking to provide a book from a white perspective, this is one area we can try to find a little more.” diverse options for the future. That way, the materials used in such a situation are a little more diverse. “
Price added that diversifying perspectives from this time is important. He said that while the Civil War is part of American history, it is important to be sensitive about what this means for all groups of people and not to make certain individuals feel uncomfortable or left out.
That’s something Price said that the district never wants to do.
Regarding the part of the email that mentions asking students to draw their own conclusions on the issues, Price said the project was aimed at helping students realize how damaging the Civil War era was for certain groups of people was.
“I think that was really the intention of this lesson so that the students could really see what it was like during that time, to see what happened and how the world went from there to where we are today.” Price said, “So it’s very important to understand all of this, and I think the email that specifically says to come to her own conclusions is more in the context of the intent of the job It came to their own conclusions about what a day in life was like, not necessarily whether someone was right or wrong or whether it led to this or that, it is important to understand what the intent of the task was and that the Students can learn these things from history and understand what emerged from them. “
While the project was completed before reports were released, Price said the school was in the process of changing the relatively new project. He’s not sure if this means the project will be revised, canceled, or completely changed. The school and the district will work on it in the future, according to Price.
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