An Arizona middle school teacher was sent home after parents complained that their 8th-grade children had been instructed to read profanity-laced lyrics for a “poetry” assignment.
These lyrics were from rapper Ice Cube’s 1990 song “Who’s the Mack?”and students were told to identify metaphors, similes and other literary elements. The unidentified teacher had allegedly shown the music video that accompanies the controversial song to his class of 13-year-old students.
Parents who spoke to the local media outlets were understandably upset by the lesson.
Parent Sam Washburn called 12 News to highlight the assignment he found in his daughter’s backpack because, although words like f*** were blacked out, other offensive language and themes of prostitution, drug use, domestic violence, sex acts in the song really made him mad.
“You just kind of take for granted your 13-year-old daughter’s got curriculum at school that’s appropriate for school and come to find out that’s not the case at all,” Washburn said.
Even the students were perturbed by the lesson.
His daughter, Spencer Washburn, told the news site she completed the worksheet to avoid a bad grade, but felt violated by the assignment.
“I am in student council, and I would not want to get kicked out,” she said.
District officials responded to the outrage on the district’s Facebook page:
“Florence K-8 was notified over the weekend of an alleged inappropriate song being used by a teacher as a class assignment. Our administrative team at Florence K-8 acted quickly to investigate the claim and found the song and assignment to be inappropriate.
The Florence Unified School District Office was notified and the teacher was reassigned to home pending a thorough investigation.
Appropriate action will be taken in accordance with district policy to ensure professional conduct in all our faculty and staff. We assure you that the safety and well-being of our students is our priority.”
The first-year teacher is awaiting his fate, but it’s pretty clear that he should be fired. Any other action should prompt a withdrawal of students by the parents. 13-year-old children should not be coming home to their parents and asking what a “pimp” is.
Found at The Federalists Papers