Slavery Lesson

AP reported today that a white middle school teacher in White Plains, NY, attempted to teach her class a lesson on slavery by binding the hands and feet of two black students and making them crawl under a table. Wow. Her ignorance of this sensitive and relevant issue is alarming and amazing at the same time. Alarming because she distressed the children in her class as a person in a position of trust--I can assure you, none of her students will forget that lesson. Amazing because even after going through elementary, middle, high school AND college, she somehow missed the seriousness of the white vs. black issue. Her crime, if you can call it that, is tantamount to burning my child's hand to teach him how someone might feel burned at the stake; or perhaps making my child stand naked in public to show them how the holocaust victims felt before they were tortured to death. What is going on with teachers? How can we allow uneducated individuals through our education system and place our precious children in their care? Can anything be done? One thought--is it so terrible to make those who will teach our babies 1) take a psychological test, and 2) take a cultural sensitivity test prior to receiving their teaching certificate? I think our little ones are worth it.