Teacher Under Fire For Giving Her Students An Assignment On George Floyd That Says He Died Of A Heart Attack
A teacher at Saugerties High School located in Saugerties, New York, is under fire for an assignment she recently gave to her 9th-grade students.
In the assignment, teacher Hope Antonelli states that George Floyd died of a heart attack, which does not match the autopsy report on his death.
“You must write this paragraph in the same format as the Regent’s Examination,” the assignment begins.
“Create a bold topic/thematic sentence. Justify your claim key pieces of evidence, and also address the alternate claim.”
Hope tells her students what phrases they should be using in their writing, before continuing.
“George Floyd did not die because Chauvin’s knee was on his neck. He died from a heart attack and drug overdose.”
“However, because Chauvin used excessive force and failed to render aid, he was convicted on all three counts by a jury of his peers. (Arrest was over a counterfeit $20 bill).”
Derek Chauvin was convicted of third and second-degree murder last month after he kneeled on George Floyd’s neck for nine and a half minutes.
According to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner, George’s drug use coupled with heart disease “contributed” to his death, but it was not the cause.
George’s cause of death was ruled as a homicide, due to the compression on his neck and the way he was restrained by police officers.
Facebook; pictured above is Hope, the teacher under fire for her assignment
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
A screenshot of the assignment Hope gave her class was shared on social media by a woman named Sakinah Irizarry whose children attend the same school district that Hope teaches in.
You can view the assignment below.
Twitter; pictured above is a screenshot of the assignment Hope asked her students to complete
“Presenting students with an assignment based on lies is wrong,” Sakinah said in a follow-up Facebook post.
“Feeding them disinformation as the foundation for a critical thought experiment is the antithesis of educating.”
“This assignment was not a thought experiment on how to present either side of an argument, it was instruction in how to refute objective truth, couching a lie in the language of absolutes to support your forgone conclusion.”
“That assignment flies in the face of the concept of news literacy, and teaches young people, who naturally have strong senses of fairness and justice, to not trust their own eyes and their own hearts.”
Many people have expressed fury over Hope’s lack of factual information in the assignment and some have even called her a racist.
On the flip side of this, other people have started a petition for her to keep her job, claiming there has to be more to the story and that this is a misunderstanding.
“She is a good teacher and this assignment was taken totally out of context,” one person commented on the petition for Hope to keep her job.
It’s not clear how many students were given Hope’s assignment or if she will face discipline for her actions.
Facebook; pictured above is a post from Sakinah
More About:Human Interest
Read This Next
