She said that she didn't anticipate becoming at the center of a debate over whether young children should be exposed to harmful language, or other sensitive material, in an educational setting.
Countee Cullen's 'Incident,' published in 1925, describes a narrator visiting Baltimore at eight years old to see a 'Balitmorean' boy sticking out his tongue and calling the narrator the N-word.
The narrator writes about the impact the interaction had and how, despite spending seven months in the city, that's the memory that stood out the most.
'On Tuesday, a teacher at High Tech Elementary read a poem to students that included language that was upsetting to some students. We take these matters very seriously,' High Tech spokesperson Anthony Millican told the
San Diego Union-Tribune in a statement,
Millican confirmed that Glancy was put on administrative leave following the incident and said the school 'is committed to making sure that school is a safe space for all of our students,' Millican added.
After seeing her students' reactions, Glancy apologized in an email to parents, seen by the San Diego Union-Tribune.
'I learned a tremendous lesson today while trying to teach your students about the mood and tone of poetry,' she wrote.
'The lesson was intended to demonstrate that the poet's words can evoke emotion — in this case, anger and sadness. Unfortunately, it triggered some very big emotions for the students that I did not anticipate,' she wrote.
High Tech Elementary School, in the San Diego Unified School District, is listed as having 64% minority enrolment by
U.S. News – 42.2% are Hispanic/Latino, 36% are white, 7.2% are Asian/Asian Pacific Islander, 6.7% are black or African American, 5.7% are of mixed ethnicities and 2.1% are Native American.
