A parent at a middle school in Virginia was angered that lyrics from a track from Slick Rick’s classic debut album, The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, were used in her son’s classroom. Ashley Ehrhardt said that her son’s substitute teacher used Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story” as part of his lesson plan, and is outraged by what she discovered.
Local outlet WVEC reported on the incident at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Suffolk, Va. Ms. Ehrhardt reached out to the news station to alert them of the teacher using the lyrics in question below in a class participation exercise:
“Escaped alive though the car was battered / Rat-a-tat-tatted and the cops scattered / Ran out of bullets and still he had static / Grabbed a pregnant lady and pulled out the automatic.”
Ehrhardt feels that the song was inappropriate for the sixth graders and wondered if school officials knew of or approved the teacher’s use of the lyrics. Suffolk Public Schools officials have since released a statement addressing the nature of the offense.
“A parent contacted the JFKMS principal on Friday (Dec 16) concerned about the passage some sixth-grade teacher had used earlier in the week. The principal met with those teachers to discuss how it was inappropriate, and they agreed it should not have been used during the lesson. School administrators will more closely monitor their lesson plans, supplemental materials, and assignments,” read the official statement from the school system.
The school’s information officer said the lesson was to illustrate the use of figurative language but urged that it wouldn’t have had school approval.
74% black 17% white 4 % Hispanic I wonder which one disagreed ?
Dam imagine if the teacher had used a song like Fuck D Trump or a Public Enemy track lol
I doubt she actually even listened to the song/read the lyrics in their entirety. The song serves as a cautionary tale to stay (gonna quote Rick The Ruler) “Straight and narrow or your soul gets cast”!
luckilly they all had their safe spaces prepared so all was well ,this fucking pussy ass world we living in makes me sick
why are they using an old ass song as an example anyway? they shoulda used some new shit with shakespearean level poetry, such as trap queen, panda, one night or even oooouuuu!
I never comment, but come on people ‘substitute’ teacher. It’s not a direct reflection of the school’s actual employed teachers.
I’m surprised the headline wasn’t “Parent ended up being triggered after teacher’s pulling out automatics speech”.
It is truly sad that only a couple of lyrics were isolated. Children’s Story is a cautionary tale. I guess she forgot to quote the ending lyrics:
“This ain’t funny so don’t ya dare laugh
Just another case ’bout the wrong path,
Straight ‘n narrow or yo’ soul gets cast”
There are legitimate lesson plans posted on the Internet supporting the use of this particular rap. Sadly, parents such as these complain about the content of a rap song, but let there kids watch action movies and play video games with violent and graphic content that does not provide a moral.