One AP History teacher in Georgia seems to have failed the class she was teaching. Catherine Ariemma must have known that her students — dressed to the nines in Ku Klux Kan outfits for a reenactment — might cause a stir:
I told them, ‘I don’t want you to walk through the building by yourselves because I don’t want people to get the wrong idea,” Ariemma said. “I failed to think about that there was a lunch track in the cafeteria when they went by.
“Then I heard some students start giggling.”
But what followed was no laughing matter as one student almost became violent, Lumpkin County High School officials held meetings with local law enforcement and even an activist reverend from a town 50 miles away was called in to quell anger among the parents of black students.
In the end, the superintendent of the school district said Ariemma — who has spent the past six years at LCHS and was named its 2009 STAR teacher — used “extremely poor judgment.”
Ariemma has been placed on paid leave but still defends her film project, as well as its content:
This project was about racism in U.S. history,” Ariemma said. “Not just racism against African Americans, but racism as a whole.”
She said including the Ku Klux Klan was an essential piece.
“You cannot discuss racism without discussing the Klan,” she said. “To do so would be to condone their actions.”
She admitted that she may have made a mistake by letting the students film the Klan reenactment on campus.
“I feel terrible that I have students who feel threatened because of something from my class,” Ariemma told the AJC. “In hindsight, I wouldn’t have had them film that part at school.”
While she could still lose her job over the incident, Ariemma said she said the experience was a “teaching moment” for everyone. It’s a sentiment that many involved in the misunderstanding seem to agree, including the Rev. Markel Hutchinson, who said, “it seems to me that in many places around the country, we’re not divided as much as (we are) disconnected.”
Full story: Teacher stands by lesson but would keep ‘Klan’ off campus next time | ajc.com