SOUTH OGDEN — A history teacher who used a racial slur in a classroom discussion says he meant no harm, but was trying to educate students and prepare them to watch a movie about the Civil War.
Teacher Douglas Barker planned to show the film “Glory” to his history class at South Ogden Junior High. The movie includes the repeated use of the racial slur, and Barker discussed it with his students.
Parent Holly Frye, who is black, found Barker’s use and discussion of the word offensive, according to an Associated Press report about the incident, and wants the teacher fired.
Barker said he discussed the slur with students Friday, April 22. Frye complained to the school and district at the beginning of the following school week. Barker said he doesn’t know how Frye learned of the discussion, but assumed her son talked to her about it.
Weber School District spokesman Nate Taggart said the district launched an investigation immediately upon receiving the complaint, which concluded on April 29.
“We are ready to put this behind us and focus on educating students,” Taggart said.
Barker told the Standard-Examiner he didn’t mean to offend anyone.
“I did make reference that this — the n-word — does offend people, and that's why we don’t use it. So, I guess out of ignorance on my part, I said the word so they understood what I was saying.”
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South Ogden Junior High has 818 students. According to Taggart, there are 30 black students, 608 white students, 19 Asian students, 141 Hispanic students, 7 American Indian students, and 13 Pacific Islanders. He did not have a breakdown for the students in Barker’s class during the incident.
Barker, who is white, said he didn’t mean to be insensitive or to hurt feelings when he discussed the use of a racial slur with students in class.
“I just told them we don’t use it any more,” he said. “I told them what it meant, and it’s offensive in society today, and always has been to people.”
The character portrayed by actor Denzel Washington uses the word several times in the film, and Barker said he was was trying to prepare students.
“In historical context, I was explaining the word and why we don't use it,” he said.
Barker said he also discussed how far the country has come since the Civil War, using as examples the appointment of Colin Powell as the first African-American secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice as the first African-American woman in that role and the election of President Barack Obama.
According to the Associated Press report, Frye said her 14-year-old son, D.J., no longer feels safe in Barker’s class because of the discussion. Attempts by the Standard-Examiner Thursday to contact Frye were unsuccessful.
Taggart said the investigation conducted by the school district included having students who were in the class write statements about what they heard and how they felt about it. District officials felt the students’ statements about how they perceived the incident backed up Barker’s explanation of what he was trying to accomplish, according to Taggart.
The Standard-Examiner requested copies of the students’ statements, but the request was denied by the school district. Taggart said the request was denied because of FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), which protects students. The statements are student records and thus protected, he said.
Parent Gwynne Gomez, who is white, said her daughter was in the class during the discussion and backed up the explanation given by Barker. Gomez said her daughter is of mixed race, Mexican and white.
“I think he’s an amazing teacher,” Gomez said. “I don’t think he should be fired from the school district for showing a movie I saw in school.”
Barker has not been fired, but Taggart said use of the term is not appropriate in any classroom context.
“Appropriate disciplinary action has been taken,” Taggart said, but would not elaborate, citing employee privacy rights.
Barker said he was on leave during the investigation and returned to the classroom May 1.
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“Glory,” released in 1989, is about the struggles and treatment of African-American soldiers during the U.S. Civil War.
Gomez said the only time she saw the movie was during a history class, when she was a student in Nevada.
“I’m OK with my kids watching that kind of stuff,” she said. “It’s our history.”
Taggart confirmed Barker was in violation of district policy when he showed the film. Policy 8400, on video usage, states junior high schools may show PG-rated videos with approval of the building administrator and written approval from parents.
“Glory” is rated R, but Barker said the version made available to schools is edited to PG standards.
“We've had it approved in the district in the past,” Barker said.
The violation, he said, was related to a change in the parent permission process.
“I didn't know the policy had changed,” he said. “That's on me.”
On the district’s website, policy 8400 is marked with a date of January 1997. There is no note on the page stating whether or not a change has been made.
Barker said he sent home a disclosure at the beginning of the year for parents to sign, stating that some PG movies might be shown for educational purposes.
“I thought that covered it, but the policy now states that for any movie that is rated PG there needs to be a permission slip sent home to parents,” he said.
Barker, who is also a member of Ogden School District’s Board of Education, said he’s shown the film in classes for about 10 years and this is the first complaint he’s had.
“We didn't show the whole movie,” Barker said, explaining that he pulled this year’s screening when Frye complained. “I was being sensitive to the feelings of the parent.”
Frye wants Weber School District to provide sensitivity training for its educators, according to the AP report.
“Training is required for all employees yearly,” Taggart said in an email, but added he’s not aware of any formal training for history teachers regarding how to deal with offensive terms used during the Civil War era and other times in history.
Clay Rasmussen, an assistant professor of teacher education at Weber State University who has helped prepare future social studies teachers, said he doesn’t know if there is any direct training on how to handle the use of racial slurs in historical context.
“There’s always discussion of being considerate of others’ feelings,” he said. “The training is on how to address sensitive issues, remembering where we are today and also where we’re trying to go, trying to respect everyone and support everyone, and trying to learn from our past.”
You can reach reporter Becky Wright at [email protected] or at 801-625-4274. Follow her on Twitter at @ReporterBWright or like her on Facebook.
Do we have any Germans here?
I would be curious for an objective view of how outlawing anything related to the Nazi party has been effective...it's the only place I can think that has attempted just outright squashing of historical unpleasantries.
German reporting in.
What exactly do you mean by squashing of historical unpleasantries?
There's a lot of stuff forbidden such as:
Use of Nazi Symbols.
Use of Nazi-greeting.
Denying the Holocaust.
And several other things.
However noone's going to bat an eye if there is a Nazi-Symbol somewhere in a picture of WW2 in a school-book, they just won't print the symbol right on a cover of a book about WW2.
If you discuss the Third Reich its also okayish to say they had to greet each other with the phrase "Heil Hitler" as long as you are clearly just discussing objectively not shouting it out or making the corresponding gesture.
From that standpoint, I'm okay with the idea that we Jews should "get over" the Holocaust. Twelve million people were murdered, and that's terrible, but they're not coming back. Ideally, Jews should not look at the Holocaust as a reason to be angry, or to dwell on the past, or to get caught up in hatred, but as a reminder that humans can do terrible things and we must remain vigilant so as to ensure that similar terrible acts never happen again.
Remembering the Holocaust isn't about recalling that time the Germans did something terrible to the Jews, but about that time humans did something terrible to themselves. Which is to say, I don't think we should concern ourselves all that much with Holocaust denial specifically or people aping Nazi symbols. We should concern ourselves with oppression and hatred and bigotry in all the forms they take.
oom-pa-pah music
I'd love to discuss this with a German - I intuit with my enormous buncle powers that a German would get it for some mysterious reason.
Well, being a German, I indeed do feel with you on this.
I don't want to Hijack this topic so I'll try to keep it short.
In Germany we almost have no patriotism at all. Everytime you say "I'm proud to be a German" outside of a debate around Soccer, you're instantly a nazi. And I don't mean that foreign people call us nazis if we show patriotism. We do this ourselves. The German people doesn't seem to be able to let go and move on. Ok, just yesterday they found and defused another unexploded aircraft bomb from WW2 only 2.15 kilometers from my home. If this happens several times a year in your city, its hard to not think about that war.
My Grandfather was very young during WW2. He had to join the army of Germany and got into captivity pretty quickly. So his whole Life was heavily influenced by this war. I know he probably fought in this war at some point, and he might have killed some of the good guys in this time.
So, the connection I have to WW2 is pretty close, my grandfather still lives and he told me a lot of stories when I was young. Since almost everything he experienced in his youth was connected to WW2 there were a lot of stories that revolved around this war. But I was a child and he didn't tell me any stories about actual gunfights or any other combat situation. Instead they were about how they managed their life in the army, how they tricked their officers if they didn't want to polish the officers boots and stuff like that. So all I know about him is only these things and what he did after the war. He is an awesome grandfather since he teached me a lot of skills and encouraged my curiosity about everything. He never tried to influence me into thinking jews or other ethnic groups were less worthy or that Nazi-Germany wasn't bad at all.
I have no Idea if I can be proud of what he did in WW2. But I know I can be proud of him being a good person afterwards. However, even if I'm proud of him, I never managed to feel something similar for Germany as a whole. Even though we really DID well since the end of WW2 I just can't identify with this nation without my own mind telling me I'm going to become a nazi if I follow this road (what is ridiculous but thats the way we are teached to think).
Back to BU's post: I honestly must admit I do know about these preconceptions of the southern states because of this war. And I can imagine how it is difficult to show any sign of affiliation to what and who you are without being afraid of blamed by someone for crimes you never commited. And yes, if I'd travel to the southern states I'd too expect to see more racism and all that then in the northern ones since I'm only human and can't shrug these preconseptions off that easily. However I'd never talk bad about an individual person because of these preconceptions or even insult him. I know how senseless they are and every person gets its chance to prove 'em wrong and I'm quite happy if they're proven wrong often, this way I finally might get rid of them totally.
I had the luck to grow up in Bavaria since I was 3 years old. If you say you're proud of being a Bavarian noone calls you a nazi. And even though Germany surely has accomplished things I could be proud of too, I can only feel good about being a Bavarian (even though I wasn't born here). Bavaria might be best known for the beer, and cars but there's even something in WW2 you can be proud of as a Bavarian what suprised me very much when I learned about it (its a minor thing though):
In whole nazi-Germany you had to greet Hitler all the time and not doing so was punished. With one Exception. The Bavarians were very religious people and always used the greeting "Grüß Gott" wich means "greet God" and they refused to change this during the reign of Hitler. Finally it was allowed in whole Bavaria to say "Grüß Gott" instead of the usual nazi-greeting.
I really hope you too found something you can identify with and be proud of. If I had to guess Buster is someone you're proud of but I don't know you well enough to make any more educated guesses.
That wasn't short at all. I apologize.