A step backwards for equality

Over the last couple of weeks we've been in the midst of a unit on the election where students have learned about choosing a running mate, taking an opinion poll, and what the heck the Electoral College is. Later this week the students will be researching and writing up reports about both of the presidential candidates. To begin this today we read two short articles about McCain and Obama. When students were finished I asked them to answer six questions about the men based on what we read together. One of the questions was "What was Barack Obama's occupation before going into politics?" We had read about how he had gone to Harvard Law School and eventually ended up as a civil rights lawyer back in Chicago. Well as I was grading them this afternoon one boy's response caught me off guard. I should preface this by saying that this boy is so ADHD that he makes Robin Williams look like a corpse. I shouldn't be surprised by his answer since most of his day is spent eating the erasers off of pencils and grabbing his crotch. So what was Obama's job prior to politics? "Barak Obuma was a slave." Somewhere Harriet Tubman is rolling over in her grave.