What Was This Teacher Thinking?
A history teacher in Georgia let high school students wear Ku Klux Klan outfits for a final project. Seriously.
-Faye Brennan
Was Catherine Ariemma high when she allowed four of her high school students to come to their campus dressed like members of the Ku Klux Klan to film their final project? Apparently, because we can’t think of any other explanation for why on earth a teacher would think this was a good idea.
Ariemma teaches U.S. history and film education at Lumpkin County High School, which is outside of Atlanta, Georgia and is 90 percent white. Last Thursday, she let a group of five students film their final project for her class on school grounds. The film was depicting the history of racism in America, and the students made their own Ku Klux Klan outfits, pointy hoods and all. While one student filmed, the other four donned the outfits around campus to make their project.
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Of course, the few black students on campus were horrified. They didn’t know why fellow students were wearing the KKK hoods. One student told Atlanta’s WSB-TV, “I got mad and stood up and I tried to go handle it.” Soon, parents were complaining to the school.
“It was poor judgment on my part in allowing them to film at school,” Ariemma told the Associate Press this week. Um, ya think? She’s now on administrative leave and could lose her job over the incident.
Lumpkin County School Superintendent Dewey Moye is, of course, extremely embarrassed over the incident. “This stuff happened in history. Do you ignore it? No,” he said. “But you certainly don’t walk the hallway in the garb.” (Huffington Post)
Tell us: What do you think about Catherine Ariemma’s decision to let students wear KKK hoods on campus? Should she be fired?