« Overreaction to students playing a game »

Apparently, slavery is a hot topic right now in Gwinnett schools.  As you may recall, a few weeks ago there was a controversy over slavery-themed math questions at Beaver Ridge Elementary that resulted in the resignation of a teacher.  Now, there are reports of students at Camp Creek Elementary playing a slavery-themed game during recess.  While I am not sure that the resignation in the Beaver Ridge case was warranted given the stated intent of the teacher, I am certain that the district's reaction to kids playing a game is overreaction.

In the Beaver Ridge case, there was no doubt that the teacher exhibited a lack of judgment.  He stated that he "did not write those questions with the intent of being malicious or offensive."  That is easy to say once you are in hot water, but I find it believable because we, thankfully, live in an era where overt racial prejudice is fairly uncommon.  Nevertheless, I can at least understand why people were upset and I can understand some degree of reaction by the school system to address the matter.  Perhaps, that experience, especially being so recent, is helping to fuel the overreaction this week.

At Camp Creek, an investigation concluded that a teacher was not involved in the playground incident:

The school district looked into concerns regarding four students who participated in a playground activity. The district determined that the activity was student initiated and that allegations regarding the teacher's involvement were unfounded.

So, if the district, itself, concluded that this game was initiated by the children themselves and not organized by a teacher, why is the system wasting taxpayer dollars as well as the time of dozens of professionals by subjecting them to "diversity training", better called "political correctness training?"  If you have ever had to sit through diversity training, you know it is a mind-numbing experience that can be summed up with some old fashioned common sense - treat everyone with respect.  I realize it is not that simple, that there are cultural differences that influence how different people may see the same thing.  However, diversity training, with it's over the top scenarios, rarely achieves insight in this sense.  Even if standard diversity training achieved anything useful, why is the school system wasting time and money in this situation when the people to be "trained" - the staff at the school - had absolutely nothing to do with the game?  Given that, what is the training intended to achieve?  I expect the goal is political at the expense of both hard-working professionals that deserve more respect for their time and the taxpayers of Gwinnett County that have to fund it.