How the heck did Paschal High teacher hear student using racist slur and let it slide?
There’s no excusing what happened in the Paschal High School classroom where a student repeatedly used the worst racial slur during a “Romeo and Juliet” presentation.
The kid never should have done it. The teacher should have immediately shut it down.
There’s a lot we don’t know yet about what’s on the video circulating online, including the nature of the assignment and what led the student to pepper it with vile words. But we know enough to know it was wrong and deserves condemnation and punishment.
Let’s be honest about what it is and what it’s not, though. First, it’s a significant failure by a teacher. That she didn’t step in shows such questionable judgment that it merits at least suspension, if not termination.
Even if she thought there was merit in the assignment, it’s clear the class wasn’t getting that. The distraction was overwhelming.
Second, the student’s provocation and transgression appear deliberate. Any sensible adult should recognize an attempt to push the boundaries and should step in and make an instant lesson of it.
Here’s what this incident is not, though. It’s not a sign that unchecked racism courses through Fort Worth ISD or Paschal. It’s not cause for a dramatic school meeting or for the Board of Trustees to swoop in.
And with due respect to a group of Fort Worth pastors who are raising concerns, it’s not remotely grounds for a federal investigation. Their demand for accountability is admirable, but it would be nice to see activists on any side of an issue like this try to defuse the situation rather than create a conflagration to fuel a cause.
Because this is something good people with character and fortitude know inherently how to handle.
Get the facts. Discipline the teacher. Give the young man in question a specific punishment that drives home why it was wrong.
He and the rest of the class need a refresher on the horrors of racism and the deep hurt that the word, in any context, causes.
They know it, however.
Teenagers push the envelope, especially when they find something that causes adults to recoil. And there’s no quicker way to disrupt or get attention or shock the grown-ups than racism.
By the way, it wouldn’t have worked if the school district were dominated by racism. It stuns us because we almost all agree that it’s vile.
Now, if administrators at Paschal or higher in the district’s chain don’t have the will or clarity to address this properly, there will be cause for more significant action. And it’s a great opportunity for principals everywhere to remind teachers to keep control of lessons and classrooms.
Plenty of teachers would probably say that this is a textbook example of the decline of discipline in schools. Many are frustrated at the constraints upon them in trying to control their classes.
Overwrought reaction to this kind of incident, though, can backfire. One of the reasons Southlake schools have seen so much agitation in recent years is that many good, non-racist people believe the district’s response to a similar video in 2018 went way too far.
What should the goals be here? For the people involved to be held accountable, for the other students — and young people broadly — to learn a lesson, and for those in a similar situation in the future to realize they should handle it differently.
You don’t accomplish that by foisting responsibility several levels up the org chart or vaguely attributing it to “the system.”
You don’t fix it by wringing hands and amping up the agita. And you don’t make a federal case out of a kid’s mistake and an inattentive teacher.
This story was originally published April 28, 2022 at 3:53 PM.
