Regarding a recent Forum News Service article (Grand Forks Herald, May 10: “Students reenacting Floyd’s arrest was ‘teachable moment,’ North Dakota principal says.”)
The death of George Floyd was a tragedy and needs to be talked about, but should it be talked about in a classroom of elementary students? Wahpeton School District administrators said that this was an impromptu activity that happened randomly during class one day. The teacher had the students reenact the detaining of George Floyd. The children were in elementary school and the members of the community started to question whether this was OK for such young children to take part in.
I feel like they are a little too young to be reenacting this tragic event. There’s another part of me that says, “But wait, if we don’t teach students about the problem we have in racism, it will continue to get worse.”
A reason why might include the effect of ignorance. If we don’t teach the children of our society not to be racist, we need to include these types of examples to show that this was an act of hate and that it wasn’t right in any way. To add, I still feel like these kids were a little too young and we should wait to educate them about these types of things. I feel like seventh grade or any age around that age group would be a perfect age to teach children about these types of problems in our society.
I feel like these kids are a little too young to be reenacting this event, but we need to have this type of education available to students. Obviously in a more constructed, organized way, but there needs to be some type of system that teaches to not be racist, prejudiced, sexist or to not hate for no reason. If we put more effort into this I feel like we could make society and our country a better, happier place.
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Danny Ellingson, Grand Forks Central High School
