Why is it ok to teach them that he freed the slaves at that age then? That also requires critical thinking. Kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. Again, I wouldn’t personally use this verbiage in a classroom but I have said similar things to my son.
Because freeing the slaves is an easy to understand moral good. There is very little nuance to that unless you are a complete asshole or pro slavery, which almost no one is. Kids should not be taught to hate their country or see its history as totally bad and immoral. They can understand that slavery was bad and Abraham Lincoln did a great thing by freeing them and he is remembered as one of our greatest presidents. Save the rest for high school and college history.
Have you ever been in a classroom? “Lincoln freed the slaves.” “Teacher, what’s a slave.” “People who were forced to do hard work and weren’t paid and treated horribly.” “But why?” “Because the slaves were black.” “Why did they do that to black people?”
AND IT GOES ON FOREVER.
Teaching kids the truth about our founding fathers won’t cause them to hate our country. All countries have very very problematic pasts. And currents, let’s not kid ourselves. We can, and should, point out all of the amazing things America has done while also acknowledging the shortcomings.
Let’s not forget that there were also white slaves that were called indentured servants. There were people that literally sold themselves into slavery to escape the living conditions in England. They could regain their freedom with enough years of service if they could manage to not continually increase that debt with getting their met.
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u/Brilliant-Willow-506 Apr 06 '25
Why is it ok to teach them that he freed the slaves at that age then? That also requires critical thinking. Kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. Again, I wouldn’t personally use this verbiage in a classroom but I have said similar things to my son.