MODERN DAY SLAVERY

I was shocked when black students told me that slavery was boring and irrelevant.  They dismissed the lesson by saying the only reason I was teaching it was because I was black.   I overheard one student tell the other, "My social studies teacher skipped over that slavery thing. We went straight to WWII."  Other black students told me the Jews suffered more during the Holocaust and that Africans "were already enslaving one another."  As they conducted their research, students learned that Africans were forced to enslave one another.  They also learned that Africa has the least number of slaves.  At the beginning of the unit, many students acted as if some people were more worthy of compassion than others.  By the end of the unit, they learned that anyone who suffers is worthy of compassion.


Here are a few websites I used to create my lessons on slavery.


Colonial Williamsburg's jigsaw lesson gives students a chance to collaborate by discussing the slave laws.


http://www.history.org/history/teaching/enewsletter/volume5/images/jigsaw_activity.pdf


PBS has a site entitled "Slavery and the Making of America." Kids can hear the voices of former slaves as they tell about their lives and how they survived.


www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery


My students did not believe me when I said there are more slaves in the world today than during the 1600s. After conducting independent research, one boy told me he would never eat chocolate again.  When I asked why, he told me about the enslaved children who can't even taste the chocolate they produce.  I encouraged him to research chocolate companies; all companies are not getting their chocolate from forced labor. 


National Geographic has an excellent website on modern day slavery around the world. Students can choose the country they want to research by clicking on the link. There are plenty of stastics, videos, and slave narratives.


21st-Century Slaves @ National Geographic Magazine


"Slavery in my World?" by the Teachers of Peace provides an excellent handout for independent research. Students use higher order thinking strategies to research slavery around the world and they learn to cite their references using MLA format.


http://www.wilmington.edu/prcteachers/documents/ModernSlaveryUnit.pdf