New Florida education standard regarding slave skills

The Florida Department of Eduction under Governor Ron DeSantis recently published a new education standard about the skills that slaves acquired as slaves.

The standard can be found in this PDF document and states:

SS.68.AA.2.3
Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).

Benchmark Clarifications:
Clarification 1: Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.

There is no doubt that slaves learned skills that were useful to them during their enslavement. Some examples:

• Don't speak unless spoken to.
• I have no doubt slave children learned a lot of new words from their masters.
• Don't complain if whipped or beat if you don't want more of it.
• Don't become too educated, especially if it makes you look smarter than your masters.
• Don't look at a white woman too closely if you know what's good for you.
• Don't ask for a sick day.
• Don't mention that you are too tired or hot to continue working.
• Don't ask to keep your children for your own when your master tries to sell them.

I'm sure there are a few other useful skills I missed. And I can only assume these are some of the skills that Mr. DeSantis wants to teach in the curriculum.

But seriously: Slaves certainly gained some "useful" skills. I would not deny that. However, the bigger question, to be academically honest, would be who benefited from the skills the slaves learned. The standard states the importance of emphasizing that there could be personal benefit to the slaves from these skills. This leads to several other thoughts about why this standard is worded this way.

• If a slave is trained as a blacksmith, for example, what personal benefit is supposed to be taught? Do they think this person got a 2nd job as a free man to make some pocket money?
• Do they think that after the slave was freed, his skill could be used for income? What percentage of slaves were freed during their lifetimes that this would have benefited?
• Do they think that the slave could use his skill to make the work of slaves more efficient? Do they think if the slaves became more efficient, they could shorten their workday?
• Do they think that the slave blacksmith is seeing such great benefit if he is allowed to make a new hinge for the door to his slave quarters?
• When 99% of the benefit of a slave's skills go to his owner, why is the benefit to the owner not the primary lesson being taught?

Do people not realize that without freedom, no matter what benefit or comfort is provided to a person, none of it has value? Are the people backing this standard not the same people who would cheer the word of the Founding Fathers, such as, "Give me liberty or give me death."?

In the light of these glaring holes in this standard, I can only conclude that the standard is driven by a very specific point of view with a very clear intention of making slavery sound, in some twisted moral sense, good.

This is not about the "leftist" media twisting the standard to their own agenda. This is about the value and intent of the standard itself.