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A school assignment asked for 3 benefits of slavery. This kid gave the only good answer.

The school assignment was intended to spark debate and discussion—but isn't that part of the problem?

Trameka Brown-Berry/Facebook

A school assignment asked for 3 "good" reasons for slavery.

Back in 2018, a fourth grader's school assignment was so shocking that it took the Internet by storm. Every news outlet from ABC7 to HuffPost to CNNreported on the incident, in which a homework assignment asked students to list three "good" reasons for slavery. Yeah, you read that right.

The assignment was given to fourth graders at Our Redeemer Lutheran School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and also asked for three "bad" reasons for slavery. The absurd and offensive assignment was brought to the public's attention when one fourth grader's mom shared a photo of the homework sheet on Facebook, asking, 'Does anyone else find my 4th grader's homework offensive? 😡"

Now, it's not uncommon for parents to puzzle over their kids' homework. Sometimes, it's just been too long since they've done long division for them to be of any help. Or teaching methods have just changed too dramatically since they were in school. And other times, kids bring home something truly inexplicable.

For mom Trameka Brown-Berry, looking over her 4th-grade son Jerome's homework made her jaw hit the floor.

The school assignment was intended to spark debate and discussion—but isn't that part of the problem? The shockingly offensive assignment deserved to be thrown in the trash. But young Jerome dutifully filled it out anyway and his response was pretty much perfect:

In the section reserved for "good reasons," Jerome wrote, "I feel there is no good reason for slavery that's why I did not write."

We're a country founded on freedom of speech and debating ideas, which often leads us into situations where "both sides" are represented. But it can only go so far. There's no meaningful dialogue to be had about the perceived merits of stripping human beings of their basic living rights. No one is required to make an effort to "understand the other side" when the other side is bigoted and hateful.

In a follow-up post, Brown-Berry writes that the school has since apologized for the assignment and committed to offering better diversity and sensitivity training for its teachers.


facebook, homework assignment, mom, fourth grader, slaveryTrameka's follow-up post.Via Upworthy.

But what's done is done, and the incident illuminates the remarkable racial inequalities that still exist in our country. After all, Brown-Berry said to WCTI ABC News12, "You wouldn't ask someone to list three good reasons for rape or three good reasons for the Holocaust."

At the very end of the assignment, Jerome brought it home with a bang: "I am proud to be black because we are strong and brave..."

black pride, black and proud, gif, school, homework, history GIF by Hello AllGiphy

Good for Jerome for shutting down the thoughtless assignment with strength and amazing eloquence, and for being brave enough tell the truth: there are no good reasons for history's most heinous acts. The sooner the world acknowledges that, the sooner we can heal and restore.

This article originally appeared seven years ago. It has been updated.

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Mom shares how her first grader's homework on the second day of school broke his spirit

"It's breaking their spirit and it robs them of what little fun and family time they have when they come home after a long day of school."

Photo credit: Cassi Nelson/Facebook

How much homework is too much homework?

Debates about homework are nothing new, but the ability of parents to find support for homework woes from thousands of other parents is a fairly recent phenomenon. A mom named Cassi Nelson shared a post about her first grader's homework and it quickly went viral. Nelson shared that her son had come home from his second day of school with four pages of homework, which she showed him tearfully working on at their kitchen counter.

"He already doesn’t get home from school until 4pm," she wrote. "Then he had to sit still for another hour plus to complete more work. I had to clear out the kitchen so he could focus. His little legs kept bouncing up and down, he was bursting with so much energy just wanting to go play. Then he broke my heart when he looked up at me with his big teary doe eyes and asked…. 'Mommy when you were little did you get distracted a lot too?!' Yes sweet baby, mommy sure did too! I don’t know how ppl expect little children to sit at school all day long and then ALSO come home to sit and do MORE work too…."

Nelson tells Upworthy that she was "shocked" that kindergarteners and first graders have homework, much less the amount they were expected to do. "We didn't have homework like this when we were in these younger grades."

Expert opinion and research is somewhat mixed on the homework front, but there isn't any conclusive evidence that homework is universally beneficial for students and too much homework can actually be harmful. As a standard, the National Education Association (NEA) and the National Parent Teacher Association (NPTA) support a limit on homework of “10 minutes of homework per grade level."

With that as a guide, a first grader shouldn't have more than 10 minutes of homework on any given school day, but it's not unusual for young kids to have two or three times the recommended limit of homework. That can be stressful for both kids and parents, cutting into valuable family time and limiting kids' time to decompress, play and freely engage in imaginative activity.

As Nelson concluded, "It’s breaking their spirit and it robs them of what little fun and family time they have when they come home after a long day of school."

Most parents and even most teachers in the comments agreed with her that four pages of homework is too much for a first grader, especially on only the second day of school:

"Poor little man. Children below a certain grade should not be given homework! Small children have a hard time sitting still for a long period of time yet alone expected to sit and do hours of homework, for what??? They are SMALL CHILDREN! Let them snack, play, laugh and all the other fun things when they get home. You are only a child once, they don't need that taken away from them. Let them embrace their inner creativity, imagination, recipes, etc."

"This breaks my spirit. Our schools are huge scams. You're exactly right Cassi. Homework is ridiculous. Kids til the age of 10 primarily learn through real life situations and play scenarios."

"I hate that for him! My little one has ADHD and doing homework after sitting in class all day is very stressful to him and makes him hate school. They are in school for 7 hours they shouldn’t have homework. That definitely takes away any kind of family time and that’s why kids never spend time with parents anymore because they have all this homework to do after being gone all day.I feel that if it can’t be done in the 7 hours they have the kids then it should wait until the next school day."

"I don’t make them do homework at home when they are that little. It’s not fair!They are at school allllll day! And it’s already sooooo much for their little bodies and brains! I’ve never had a teacher upset about it either.. and even if I did oh well!"

"That breaks my heart. 4 pages is absolutely ridiculous for young kids. My daughter is going into 2nd grade next month, the 2 years in school it was always 1 page of homework sometimes back and front if it was math. And to read."

This article originally appeared in August "I was in this boat with my son…conversation with the principal and teachers helped dramatically!! It’s too much and we have to advocate for them."

Nelson was blown away by the response to her post, which has been shared on Facebook over 89,000 times. "I NEVER thought me sharing my thoughts openly about how my heart hurt watching my little guy struggle would connect to so many others worldwide going through the same thing," she says.

Many parents shared that excessive homework is one of the reasons they decided to homeschool their children, which Nelson took to heart. The week after sharing her viral homework post, she shared that they had had their first day of homeschooling. It was "A HUGE SUCCESS!!!!" she wrote, with her son getting far more work done in a far shorter amount of time, sitting for classes for just 1 hour and 45 minutes total.

Nelson tells Upworthy she was totally intimidated to try homeschooling. "I seriously thought there was no way," she says. "But I knew I had to set my fear aside and just take the leap for my kids. I told myself I'd figure it out one way or another. And here we are three days in and it's been the easiest and best choice I've ever made."

Homeschooling is not going to the right solution for every family, however, so the question of homework remains an important issue for kids, parents, teachers and schools to work out.


This article originally appeared last year.

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Man tears up at his wedding sharing emotional vows to his new 7-year-old son

Already showing up as a wonderful dad 🥲


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Not a dry eye in the house

When two people marry, they bring not only each other into their lives, but also any children from previous relationships. It’s been a growing wedding trend for grooms to also give vows to these children, offering them unconditional love, support, protection and ultimately pledging to be a parental figure in their lives.

Recently a groom named Eldridge Buchanan gave some special vows to his new seven-year-old-son Kayden during his wedding to Asia Green Buchanan.

The touching moment, captured and shared to Instagram by the wedding’s photographer and videographer Daka David and A Love Experience, shows Buchanan stands in front of little Kayden, as tears begin flowing.

"I want you to know, Kayden, that we're going [to] have fun. We're definitely going to do homework," Buchanan says. "But I want you to know that with everything in my body, Kayden, I'm going to pour into you to make sure that you grow up to be a young Black king that you are."

As he continues, his voice gets more choked up.

"I'm gonna teach you how to be a leader. I'm gonna teach you how to be a man of integrity, a man of respect, a man that values himself. And most importantly, I'ma show you every single day what it looks like for a man to love a woman and to love his family and to lead his family so that when you grow up, you will know exactly what that looks like and you'll know exactly what that feels like. So I vow to you from this day forward that I'm gonna love you, I'm gonna teach you, I'm gonna guide you and I'm gonna pour into you because you are a king. And you're my king. I love you, man."

Watch it all unfold below. You might wanna grab a tissue:

In an interview with “Good Morning America,” Buchanan revelad that the entire exchange was a spur-of-the-moment idea, one that came to him mere minutes before he walked down the aisle.

“It was just kind of a heartfelt moment, a reiteration of things that we talk about on a daily basis,” Buchanan told GMA. “I just really wanted him to know in that special moment not only was I going to give a vow to his mom, but I was giving a vow to him as well—as my son.”

The sincerity of the impromptu speech was felt by nearly 46,000 viewers online, many of who commented on how beautiful it was to see, and how important that kind of influence will be to Kayden as he grows up.

“Words every boy needs to hear from a father,”one person wrote.

Another added, “he is going to watch this video when he's older and finally understand everything he said to him.”

Indeed Buchanan seems more than ready to step into his role as a father. And it’s wonderful to see. Congratulations to the entire family.

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Second-grade teacher shares unique homework policy and it has parents sighing with relief

Homework shouldn't be an additional stress.

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Back-to-school time has many parents rejoicing.

No more paying for expensive summer camp, yippee!

The one thing we don't love about this glorious time of year, though? Yup, you guessed it: homework.

And that's a bummer, because a lot of students these days are getting more and more homework — far more than the recommended amount, which is about 10 minutes per grade level.

That's led parents all over the country and world to write about how unpleasant it is to see their little ones stressing out over piles and piles of math problems, pulling late nights, and missing out on time that could be spent reading, playing outside, or hanging with the family.

Plus, we parents sometimes have to help answer questions about subjects we haven't studied in decades, which hurts our brains.

But one second-grade teacher from Texas wants to try something new with homework: not giving any.

Brandy Young kicked off the new school year with a note for her kids to pass on to their parents. When it made its way to social media, it quickly went viral:

The note reads:

"Dear Parents,After much research this summer, I am trying something new. Homework will only consist of work that your student did not finish during the school day. There will be no formally assigned homework this year. Research has been unable to prove that homework improves student performance. Rather, I ask that you spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside, and get your child to bed early.Thanks, Mrs. Brandy Young"

Her note struck a powerful chord with parents everywhere.

So far, it's been shared nearly 70,000 times by moms and dads who are tired of playing "homework police" or just want a little more quality time with their kids at night.

Brandy Young is right: The research on the effectiveness of homework is a mixed bag, especially for kids as young as second grade.

That's not to say developing good study habits isn't important, especially as students graduate to much more difficult subjects like advanced math. Because it is!

But imagination, social skills, family bonding, and even just getting enough sleep are also important. It's nice to see a teacher who recognizes that a lot of different things go in to making a well-rounded kid.

Students "work hard all day. When they go home they have other things they need to learn there," Young told CBS News. "I'm trying to develop their whole person."

Educating our kids is a seriously important job, and there are a lot of different ways to get that job done right.

But it's not hard to see why people are getting excited about Young's approach: More reading and playtime for our kids and fewer brain-busting long division problems for us to help with.

That's a win-win.


This article originally appeared on 08.23.16

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