Of course, she wasn’t fired, and the fact that she’ll have a possible opportunity to attempt this again makes the punishment even more appalling.
Patricia Cummings, a social studies teacher from the Bronx, has been accused of forcing her black students to lie on the floor as she stepped on the back of one during a supposed lesson on slavery, per the New York Daily News.
“While the investigation has not been completed, these are deeply disturbing allegations, and the alleged behavior has no place in our schools or in society,” said Education Department spokeswoman Toya Holness.Cummings, who makes $68,934 a year, pulled the stunt in several seventh-grade classes as part of a lesson on the Middle Passage, in which Africans Kings and Queens were kidnapped and brought to America as part of the slave trade.
MS 118 Principal Giulia Cox declined to comment.
“She had students lie on the floor,” one told the Daily News. “She was measuring the length and width to show how little space slaves had in the ship. It was strange.”After one of the black girls on the floor stated that she felt fine, Cummings put her foot on her back and said, “See how it feels to be a slave?”
Cummings was only removed from the school after the Daily News started their inquiry.
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