Today I wrote about a teacher at Haverstraw Middle School who demonstrated slavery to her students by taping two girls’ hands and feet and asking them pretend to be in the hold of a slave ship.

Both of the girls are black; the teacher, Eileen Bernstein, is white.

Later the mother of one of the girls complained.

Her 13-year-old daughter, Gabrielle Shand, was upset by the exercise, Christine Shand said.

Bernstein was not available for an interview and the principal said she did not know whether the exercise had been done before.

Since the column appeared, I heard from Tom Talamini and his 12-year-old daughter, Nicole.

She was in another of Bernstein’s classes and she also was selected for the exercise. Like Gabrielle Shand, Nicole Talamini’s wrists and feet were taped and she sat on the floor to simulate a slave ship. But she is white.

“My daughter didn’t mind,” Tom Talamini said. For her it was a learning experience that succeeded.

In my column, I wrote that it was a mistake to recruit only black teenagers for the demonstration. And it appears that Christine Gabrielle Shand was one of two black girls used in that particular class.

But to be fair to the teacher, white children were chosen in other of her classes.

It’s a point readers have also made on the Web site.

“You’re thinking she only picked out the black students,” Tom Talamini said. “She didn’t…I don’t think it was racially motivated.”

Wednesday is Human Rights Day, a topic I wrote about last week in a column on the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights.

Closer to home, the day will be celebrated by the Westchester County Human Rights Commission with a breakfast in White Plains.

County Legislator Lois Bronz, a Democrat from Greenburgh and the former chairwoman of the Board of Legislators, is this year’s recipient of the Ossie Davis Human Rights Lifetime Achievement Award. She is being recognized for her advocacy for racial justice and affordable housing, according to the commission.

Also to be honored: Isabel Villar, the founder of Centro Hispano in White Plains and a champion of rights for Hispanic residents; and two teachers—Kathleen Connon of Scarsdale Middle School and Brooke McGeory of Port Chester Middle School—for their efforts to educate children about human rights.

Villar will received the Champion of Human Rights Award.

The breakfast will be held at the Crowne Plaza at 8 a.m. Cost: $25 a person. For reservations: 914-995-8287 or 995-7710.

PHOTO: ( Mark Vergari / The Journal News )

The United States lost 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years.

From Sen. Hillary Clinton: “I continue to advocate for a comprehensive stimulus package to invest in clean energy and infrastructure projects that will put hundreds of thousands of Americans back to work, to assist cash-strapped cities and states and prevent cuts to critical services, and to prevent foreclosures and keep families in their homes. And with nearly 98,000 auto-related jobs in New York, and millions more across the country threatened, we should also take steps to stabilize the automakers.”

From Sen. Charles Schumer: “The news keeps getting worse and the demand for action from Washington keeps getting greater. This jobs picture painted today is staggering, and it should be all the evidence Washington needs to act swiftly and decisively to shore up this economy.”

The announcement was made by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some other quick facts on the November jobs report, from Schumer’s office.
This is the 11th straight month of job losses and the largest monthly decline since 1974.
The unemployment rate jumped from 6.5 percent in October to 6.7 percent, hitting every major employment sector.
The number of jobs lost this year is 1,910,000.

PHOTOS: Hillary Clinton ( Ricky Flores / The Journal News ); Charles Schumer ( Mike Roy / The Journal News )

What happens to old Christmas trees? Here’s one answer.

NEW YORK (AP) — A Mississippi family who lost their home in Hurricane Katrina — and got a new house partly built with last year’s Rockefeller Center Christmas tree — will be among the throngs attending this year’s lighting ceremony.
An eight-ton, 72-foot Norway spruce will be illuminated at 8:58 p.m. Wednesday in the center’s plaza near the skating rink and the gilded statue depicting Prometheus bringing fire to mankind.
Tony Bennett, Harry Connick, Jr., Jamie Foxx and Beyonce are among the entertainers scheduled to perform.

The guests include Tracey Davison, 40, an assistant teacher from Pascagoula, Miss., and her four young daughters.
The family had moved into an apartment just two days before the storm ravaged their neighborhood near the Gulf Coast. Fleeing with just a few suitcases in tow, they lived temporarily with a friend, at her brother’s, in a docked cruise ship and a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer.
Davison and Ashunti, 10, Nylah, 9, Majsa, 8, and Karly, 4, were chosen to receive a new Habitat for Humanity home that former President Jimmy Carter, among others, helped build. The three-bedroom, baby blue home was finished in September and the family moved in a couple of weeks ago.
Lumber from last year’s tree was used to make two-by-fours that were placed in the walls and floors of their living room.
“It’s kinda like Christmas before Christmas,” said Davison. “It was a dream come true. We’re very, very excited to be in the house.”
This year’s tree, which is 40 feet round, has been decorated with 30,000 energy-efficient LED lights on 5 miles of wire, topped with a massive crystal star. It was donated by the Varanyak family in Hamilton Township, N.J.
While the first official lighting was in 1933, the first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was put up two years earlier during the Depression by workers building the Art Deco complex.

PHOTO: The 72-foot tall Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, center, is raised into place at Rockefeller Plaza in New York, Friday Nov. 14, 2008. (AP Photos/Bebeto Matthews)

It’s official: Hillary Clinton is tapped for secretary of state.

She would be the third woman in the job, after Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright.

Meanwhile Rep. Nita Lowey tells the Associated Press that she’s not interested in the Senate seat. Lowey, AP notes, already has a powerful post in the House Appropriations Committee that happens to give her say over the budget of the State Department.

“Even though it’s a great honor to be considered, for me, it makes more sense and I can accomplish more for my district, the state, and the country if I stay in the House of Reprensentatives,” Lowey told AP.

(AP Photo/Mark Duncan)