When you limit a teachers ability to teach, a cops ability to police, an artists ability to be creative, a chefs ability to experiment, or a surgeons ability to practice, who REALLY loses out?? OCSN # 18

Toms River Students Defend Teacher, Hands-On Slavery Lesson

Students say Lawrence Cuneo is sensitive and compassionate; his hands-on lesson was voluntary and he never singled anyone out, they said.

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Toms River students say an accusation that a Toms River middle school teacher demeaned and kicked students during a classroom lesson on slavery is a lie, and have promised to defend the teacher at an upcoming school board meeting.

Lawrence Cuneo, who teaches eighth-grade history at Toms River Intermediate East, was accused by a student in an Instagram post of forcing students to pick cotton, to lie on the classroom floor and of kicking them in the feet during an activity in class on Friday.

Toms River Regional school district officials on Tuesday said they are investigating the incident. Cuneo, who also is mayor of Pine Beach, has been teaching in the Toms River schools for 18 years and according to multiple students has been using the activity as part of his American history teachings for many years. Read more: Student Complaint Over Slavery Lesson Investigated In Toms River

Toms River students and parents say the claim that students were kicked is false, and that descriptions of the other activities are sorely misleading. In multiple interviews, students said the lesson had a significant impact on their understanding of slavery and of what slaves faced.

Lisa Nuernberg said her child, who was in the class with the student who complained on Instagram, said the description given was not true.

Nuernberg said her child “said it was a fun learning experience. It got them up and out of their seats.”

“There was never, ever kicking or any type of violence,” Nuernberg said. “It wasn’t promoting racism of any sort.”

Sara Connolly, whose daugher is in the class, and Daniela Vidal Matos, whose son is in it, both emphasized there was no kicking, and said participation was optional. Christine Ferreira said the lesson has been taught for many years.

Treniti DeBruycker, a freshman at Toms River East who had Cuneo last year, described the activity for Patch. She said it was part of a weeklong unit on slavery that included Cuneo playing spirituals that the slaves sang “to show us the deeper meaning of them,” and lengthy discussions with lots of notes.

The classroom activity that drew the complaint was optional, she said, a point made by multiple students and parents who commented on the Patch article.

“(Cuneo) was always really open about participating,” DeBruycker said. “He said, ‘If you’re not comfortable, I’m not going to make you participate.’ “

He would ask for volunteers, and then have them lie down on the floor side by side and act as if they were on a boat, to simulate the experience of slaves in the hold of slave ships.

“He would tell us this is how they were transported (to America) and he would explain how they were treated,” she said. “He brought in freshly picked cotton that had seeds, and had us separate the seeds and sticks and debris. It had to be as clean as possible,” DeBruycker said, and Cuneo would point out if it was not.

“There was no kicking,” said Gina Caputi, a sophmore at Toms River East who had Cuneo two years ago. During the ship exercise, “He would walk around us and say something if we did something wrong. He wouldn’t yell at us, but it opened my eyes to how people were treated.”

Caputi, too, said participation in the ship exercise was optional.

“The lesson portrayed the difficulty of the time period,” said Madison Chiappetta, another Toms River East freshman who had Cuneo last year. “In no way shape or form was it poking fun at slavery or depicting it positively.”

“Sure, reading about slavery from a book is a form of teaching, but hands-on activities truly stick and reinforce the message,” Chiappetta said.

Catalina Corona, a freshman at Toms River East, said it was one of the best lessons in Cuneo’s class.

“No one felt uncomfortable or as if he was going to far because we all knew that the only purpose of the lesson was for us to understand the lives of a slave,” she said. “As a person of color, he never once singled me out, made me feel like I was being discriminated or anything to make me feel like I was being treated differently.”

Claudia Cosme, a freshman who had Cuneo last year, noted she is a person of color and echoed Corona’s comments.

“Mr. Cuneo never made me feel lower than others in class, or called me out, or in any sense was racist towards me,” Cosme said. “He was actually the complete opposite and was so against racism, and he expressed (that) during the lesson.”

“(I) really enjoyed this lesson and how he decided to portray it. It really helped us understand and take in everything about slavery,” she said. “We got to see how it really was back then. … even though it is a hard lesson to talk about nowadays, Mr. Cuneo had the best way to explain it to us.”

Maryanne VanDeventer noted two of her children are African American and remembered when her children, now high school students, had the lesson.

“(Cuneo) was sensitive to the kids, spoke about it with them at length and anyone who was uncomfortable did not have to participate,” she said. “I picked up my high schoolers today along with some friends. They had heard about this and had nothing but praise for him.”

Erin Gibson had Cuneo for English in 2006 and said he always used a number of methods to help students learn and understand the material.

“When we were reading ‘Huckleberry Finn,’ we would do projects and we’d have to play out scened from the book,” Gibson said. As a visual learner, it helped her comprehend what she was reading.

“He would put it in great detail and make you feel how they felt,” she said. “I’m more of a visual learner and he put it into a perspective (where) I would understand what I just read.”

DeBruycker said she had seen and downloaded copies of the Instagram post that stirred the controversy. It contained some black-and-white photos but there was no video or any photo evidence that supported the student’s claims about Cuneo.

“There was no visual evidence of anything happening in that class” in the post, she said. A second Instagram post that echoed the main one came from a student who wasn’t even in the class that day, she said.

“Everyone I have known who’s talked about the exercise was thrilled there was a teacher who was willing to make it known what was going on,” DeBruycker said. “His lessons, especially his hands-on lessons, influenced me. He explained the impact you can have on other people.”

“Thank god these kids never really had to know what slavery was like,” said Christine McEvoy Cabezas, whose daughter was one of Cuneo’s students. “A small classroom lesson couldn’t possibly depict the horrors.”

“I have known Mr. Cuneo for over 30 years,” Michele Barletto-Baldwin wrote. “He is one of the nicest, kindest, compassionate people I know. This whole thing is totally ridiculous.”

By Karen Wall, Patch Staff 
Feb 12, 2020 3:22 am ET | Updated Feb 12, 2020 3:26 am ET
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