A video has surfaced of a Brevard Public Schools Viera High American History teacher forcing his students to reenact conditions of living on a slave ship. In the video, the teacher has his students lay down next to each other on the concrete, and draw crime scene-like chalk outlines around their bodies. In his Facebook post memorializing the incident, he says it’s an “innovative hands on approach” and the kids “have fun” understanding the conditions related to slave ship voyages.
That teacher is none other than Brevard Public School Board Chair Matt Susin. We found the video after hearing comments made by Susin in another video just a few weeks ago where he was speaking to new teachers to Brevard. During that video, he instructs the new teachers to think outside the box, and “ask for permission after you do it” and he will support them. He encouraged them to ask for forgiveness instead of permission, and then went on to give several very questionable examples of him doing just that.
He brings up his slave ship reenactment, building an entire Vietnam Village out in front of the school without permission, and digging six 100 foot trenches reenacting battles of World War I. He says he got in trouble for all those things, and that police were even called at one point, but still encouraged the new teachers to follow suit.
During that same video, Susin goes on to explain how he was given the “dumb kids” to teach, and they were “idiots.” Susin knew that he was being videoed by Brevard Public Schools during this entire speech. It’s not clear if the students in this video are the ones he was referring to.
