Huckleberries Online

Librarian Uses Profanity In Class

Posted by DFO

Dec. 9, 2009 10:35 a.m. • 10 comments

The parents complained that they were never asked or even told that their children’s librarian was going to write and use profanity as part of a lesson on controversial books. However, when they heard what happened afterwards, from their 8th grade children, the parents said they were furious and in disbelief. They said the teacher exposed their kids to more than a dozen curse words. “There was the “F-word” and another foul word written on the board. The teacher yelled them at the kids and then asked the kids to yell them back at him,” said parent Elizabeth Thiede. She also explained that her child was upset by the display that was apparently carried out as part of a language arts unit at Athey Creek Middle School/Scott Burton, KGW. More here.

Question: Anyone want to defend what happened in the West Linn, Ore., school?

10 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Lizard_People on December 09 at 10:43 a.m.
At least it wasn’t the N-word, right?
OrangeTV on December 09 at 10:46 a.m.
Fantastic. That’s my kinda f*@%ing school.
Eyes & Ears on December 09 at 10:50 a.m.
Its not like those kids heard that word for the first time. I’m sure in a lot of their homes its used by one of the parents to describe the other, or at the very least, another driver’s f-ing driving habbits while on highway 95 in CDA.
PatrickH on December 09 at 10:53 a.m.
Im with OTV, sounds like me kind of school. Its about time we taught kids how to fraking speak correctly and the frakling correct words to use.
Sisyphus on December 09 at 10:57 a.m.
In addition to what Orange said, I can’t really ascertain a more perfect union of engaging the class on the subject at which you’re an expert, words as tools of communication. I doubt very much that his purpose was to make it acceptable for everyday conversation.
Cabbage Boy on December 09 at 10:58 a.m.
Sounds like a bad teaching moment gone horribly wrong.

Stupid is as stupid does. Kids are supposed to learn to speak better in school. Profanity is for the lazy and uneducated.
Joker on December 09 at 11:03 a.m.
I am sure every one of those eighth graders knew those words and has said them multiple times.

Last time I cringed was when I heard the F-bomb being dropped was by a seven year old at Pizza Hut in Coeur d’Alene

Brat: “This pizza is (bleeping) awesome,” but the parents of this little potty mouth didn’t blink or correct him.
Cindy_H on December 09 at 11:25 a.m.
Am I the only one who finds this ironic: “that was apparently carried out as part of a language arts unit…”
Wow! Language arts sure has changed.
Teacher needs to sit in a corner with a bar of Irish Spring in his mouth.
Nobody swears at my kids, but me :-)
Cabbage Boy on December 09 at 1:55 p.m.
Just because a kid has already heard a word doesn’t make it appropriate for a teacher to use it in the class room.

Kids have heard some pretty offensive stuff. Sexist, racist and the like. Would that be okay too?
Smacky on December 09 at 2:17 p.m.
You’re right CB, the class should have been presented differently.

I recall a class in HS where the teacher omitted profanity and slur words from very well known jokes and asked whether the students thought the jokes were humorous. We didn’t. It was a good lesson on what was funny about the joke in the first place.

This teacher could have had more of an impact with much less disruption.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.