We had a classroom discussion about race, and it was good

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Ten years ago I was subbing for a middle-school teacher in the Twin Cities. The class was reading a play. I cannot recall the title, but it was a historic play about slavery in the South. I was shocked to find that the script for the slave trader included the forbidden "N-word."

Should I read that to these kids? I decided to proceed as written. We stopped frequently to discuss the use of language, aspects of the story and its setting. What did these students think? I let them drive the narrative. They all chimed in and seemed to grasp the historical perspective. They spoke freely. They listened to each other. The class went off without a hitch. The Black kids clearly felt part of the conversation. The white kids didn't express shame. They expressed the belief that the human race is capable of both atrocities and redemption. With the discussion punctuating the reading, we didn't finish the lesson plan. We did surpass all my expectations.

Later I spoke with the teacher. She applauded my inclusion of the original script. She trusted the ability of her students to absorb the story without injury. I'm not sure she'll be able to continue teaching with the confidence and trust she nurtured in that classroom. Nowadays, fear rules — the fear teachers have of crossing a line placed by those who fear that exposure to ideas and historical facts will harm their children, shame them or shape their sense of themselves and the world in ways that they as parents disapprove of.

Literature is there to challenge us, delight us and inspire us to expand our understanding. Unfortunately, curiosity and open-mindedness are becoming taboo concepts.

I was driven to write this after reading yet again an example of educational gagging ("Georgia teacher fired after reading book on gender ID," Aug. 20). Unless "normal" means ignorant, we are not raising "normal Americans" by shuttering children from "one-sided viewpoints." Neither the reality of our complex human makeup nor slavery are one-sided viewpoints. There are so many stories, songs and movies about heterosexual romance and life. By limiting our exposure to that reality, we are indeed getting a one-sided view.

Parents should be free to decide what their own children are exposed to. Without negating the value of either, there are parochial schools and home-schooling for that. But if you believe in a healthy society without bullying of the "other" and with the ability to conduct civil democratic debate, there is no room to inject our fears into teachers' efforts to create awareness and understanding in their students of the world around them — past and present.

Myra Spijer, of Shoreview, is a retiree.