And so another educational opportunity goes down in flames in the name of political correctness.

Montgomery County educators are replacing a lesson that called for students to read about and discuss a racial epithet against African Americans as a precursor to reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" in ninth-grade English classes.

The lesson, called "Questionable Words," focused on two reading selections, an essay and a poem, each dealing with the epithet and how the author was hurt by its use. Curriculum officials reexamined the lesson after an African American student told the school board in the fall that the class had upset her.

"What we heard from enough community members and some teachers is that it's sensitive, it's emotionally charged," said Betsy Brown, curriculum director for Montgomery schools. "And if we have a lesson that could be misused and cause real hurt to a few or to a whole classroom of kids, then maybe we need to change it."

When I still taught English (I escaped the English Department six years ago), I taught just such a lesson that contextualized the use of the word in To Kill a Mockingbird. We discussed why the word was used, how it helped define the social structure of Macomb, and why the word and the issue of race were important in terms of when the book itself was written. I even intentionally scheduled my annual appraisal, by an African-American assistant principal, on the day I first taught the lesson, and was later told that she appreciated my sensitivity in handling the issue and my courage (as a first year teacher in the school) for asking to have her in my room that day. Not once did I ever have a student complain about it -- because they recognized that harper Lee was trying to make her characters talk the way that real people would have talked in such a situation, and that her goal was to paint the ugliness of racism.

Sadly, it looks like the children in this district are about to lose such a lesson -- one that seems vitally important as we have a national discussion about the propriety of ever using that word in art, literature, and daily conversation.

Posted by: Greg at 01:51 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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