This was a dead issue before it got started since in the early '70's (1971 or 1972) the Supreme Court ruled that no individual words can be outlawed. This small town mayor gained some notoriety in the past by outlawing registered sex offenders from being able to live within this city's limits. Guess he wanted a little more national pub.
I truly feel sorry for those educators who feel they have to run a lesson plan by an administrator. With mentalities like that, teachable moments can go by for fear of not having one's ass covered.
I also feel sorry for those who believe that they are the all-knowing sort and freely spew their judgmental drivel. Obviously I do not condone using offensive slurs in the classroom, but I was curious as to how this would come up in the classroom, that is, was it a teachable moment or was it a planned lesson as the original quote implied and many seem to believe. I found a different take on what happened with this teacher, a take from a father of a second grader at this school when this incident happened, than what was originally quoted. (Well-written essay and interesting principal reaction too)
Link
On August 30, Cheryl Mewborn, a white teacher at the predominantly black Bryant, broke up two girls in her class who reportedly called each other the N-word. She told them that kind of language should not be used in her classroom, and should also not be used in general. In illustrating her point, she reportedly said that calling each other by that name was denigrating and demeaning not only to themselves, but to everyone else in the classroom - with the exception of her and three Hispanic students.
This reads differently than the original posting. Was it something the teacher had planned on teaching her students? No. (That makes it kinda hard to ask an administrator if it would be okay to discuss, so as to CYA.) Does it justify what the teacher said? No. Was the teacher concerned about the language and showing care for her students? I think yes. Does that make her stupid and not worth much as an educator? No. Should she have taken the kids to the principal's office and maybe had a conference with the parents? In the ideal world, yes, and the parents would have been appreciative.
Again, I do not condone what the teacher said, but I wasn't about to wield my sword of supreme judgement on her based on some quote that was posted without any link.
Hopefully this teacher's students will have learned from her to look a little deeper into things, maybe do a little research to get more facts on a story rather than blindly believing whatever hits their emotional buttons, before they become part of the all-knowing.
I never get tired of the "If they weren't white..." argument. What next, more ridiculous (and baseless) complaints about white comedians not being allowed to make fun of other races?
