Teacher's lesson on 'N' word angers parents

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ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) -- A teacher turned to a scholarly work to teach her seventh-grade students not to use a racial epithet. But the book -- which was featured in an episode of Fox television's "Boston Public" -- wound up angering some parents.

School officials are not disciplining the second-year teacher, Shannon Schumacher, but the book won't be part of the curriculum for seventh-graders.

Jennings School District Superintendent Terry Stewart said Schumacher had good intentions but bad judgment when she used a chapter from "Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word" by Randall Kennedy, a Harvard law professor and former Rhodes scholar. He's also written "Race, Crime and the Law," and, most recently, "Interracial Intimacies."

Schumacher teaches literature, and she thought it would be helpful to read about the many uses of the word, Stewart said. The material she chose incorporated jokes, prose and poetry, but it also contained offensive language, he said.

Stewart said Schumacher copied and distributed a chapter called "The Protean N Word." Twenty-seven students in two classes received it on Monday. He said calls started coming in the next day. Someone sent the chapter to the media, and the issue became the subject of at least one local radio talk show.

The chapter includes poignant anecdotes and samples of hate letters written to Hank Aaron when he was nearing Babe Ruth's home-run record, and a comedy sketch between Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase on "Saturday Night Live."

Gilkey said several people objected to distribution of the material.

On February 25, the book was featured in a similar classroom situation in an episode "Boston Public." Following that, it was the subject of a senior English class at a high school in Silver Spring, Maryland, in which both the book and the TV show occasioned a lively discussion that was covered by The Washington Post.

Stewart said Schumacher had talked to the parents of students involved and apologized to parents and teachers.

Schumacher declined to be interviewed, except to say, "It wasn't my purpose, all this trouble."

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