Want to learn about slavery? Put down the history books, forget about teachers and just step into the life of 14-year-old slave Lucy King as she tries to escape from a Kentucky plantation. Sounds like a good idea, doesnโt it? Well, no, itโs not. And parents in a Phoenix school district are outraged.
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The Phoenix Elementary School District apparently has no idea how the โMission US: Flight to Freedomโ video game, funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Humanities, made it to the districtโs classrooms, but district parents are not pleased that something they feel trivializes slavery was used as a learning tool.
โI found out about it last week, when my son told me what happens in the game,โ DeโLon Brooks, whose seventh-grader attends Emerson Elementary, told the Arizona Republic. โI was just like, โNo. Not at all. Thatโs not going to work.โ
โAs a parent and as someone who grew up under civil rights [movement] members, I couldnโt allow my son to be subjected to that without my permission,โ Brooks added.
The simulation game was launched in 2012, and although it isnโt the first slavery video game, itโs the first to have been made with public funding.
District spokeswoman Sara Bresnahan said that so far, out of the 13 schools in the district, she knows of only one seventh-grade class that has used it. Since finding out about the game, the school has blocked streaming access to it.
The makers of โMission USโ say the game โimmerses players in rich, historical settingsโ and โempowers them to make choices that illuminate how ordinary people experienced the past.โ
Thereโs nothing like having a choice in your own adventure slavery game. Please press 1 if you want to stay a slave, or press 2 if you want to escape!
Read more at AZ Central.
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