The high school students who filed into psychology teacher Jeffrey Keene’s first-period class on Tuesday were greeted with a striking assignment: “TODAY WAS YOUR ‘LAST DAY’ ALIVE,” Keene’s instructions read in capital letters. “WRITE YOUR OWN OBITUARY.”
The prompt was one of several reflections Keene asked his 10th-, 11th- and 12th-grade students to write on the topic of school shootings. They had been on Keene’s mind that morning, he told The Washington Post in an interview, between the recent Nashville school shooting and his school’s plans to hold an active-shooter drill that day.
“There are mass shootings everywhere, unfortunately,” Keene said. “So being the psychology teacher, I said, ‘I can tie this into a lesson plan.’”
Keene said the lesson, which he devised that morning, was meant to encourage his students in Orange County, Fla., to share their perceptions on the epidemic of gun violence in U.S. schools. Other questions asked students to write “what kind of ‘positive actions’” they could take to prevent mass shootings and how mass shootings “affected you as a person.” A note at the end of the assignment said it was “in no way intended to ‘upset/et al’ you!”
That afternoon, Keene was fired. A school administrator pulled him aside during the next period and told him that his assignment had caused several students to complain to their counselors, he said. He was asked to stop teaching his school shooting-inspired lesson plan. At the end of the day, Keene said school leadership asked that he either resign or be fired. Keene said he declined to resign, because he didn’t think he had done anything wrong.
Orange County Public Schools confirmed that Keene, a probationary employee at Dr. Phillips High School, was terminated after giving an “inappropriate assignment about school violence.”
Keene, who said he started teaching at Dr. Phillips in January, said the lesson fell in line with his usual philosophy of encouraging his students to “think for themselves” and to “find a positive solution” to issues. He said he had found success in previous lessons asking students to write reflections about their use of social media and thought he would take the same approach with his school shooting-inspired lesson plan.
“I said, ‘How can we fix this situation? How is it affecting you or isn’t affecting you?’” Keene said. “And that’s how I approached it. And I’m thinking to myself, ‘How in the world could that upset 16-, 17-, 18-year-old students?’”
Keene argued that his high school students should have been prepared to discuss the essay topics he presented, which he introduced at the top of the assignment by writing, “TODAY... WE HAVE AN ‘ACTIVE SHOOTER’ ON OUR CAMPUS.” Before introducing the prompts, he said he spoke to his students about the upcoming active-shooter drill and quizzed them about what to do in an active-shooter situation.
Keene also defended the wording of his assignment. He said after he showed his students the essay topics, he fielded questions from some students who were confused and explained to them that the prompt to write their own obituaries was intended to encourage them to evaluate their lives and accomplishments.
“It can be taken out of context, if you will,” Keene told The Post. “... I didn’t just say, ‘You’re going to die, so write your obituary, you’re going to die from an active shooter.’”
Keene said he was only aware of one student who expressed discomfort with the assignment in his first period. But the administrator who pulled Keene aside in the next period told him that his assignment had upset several students, he said. Keene said he apologized and taught a different lesson plan for the rest of the day. Near the end of the school day — just before Dr. Phillips High School carried out a brief active-shooter drill — Keene said he was called to the principal’s office and told his options.
In a social media post about his firing, Keene accused schools of putting “MORE EMPHASIS ON CENSORING & ENTITLEMENT” than preparing students for the world.
Orange County Public Schools investigated the incident and confirmed that Keene had violated school district standards, according to a letter from the school district that Keene shared on social media.
Keene maintains that he approached his lesson in an appropriate way.
“It’s unfortunate, but it is a world in which we live — we can’t ignore it,” Keene said. “So if you cannot speak to a young adult about it, what’s the best answer?”
He plans to appeal his termination, he said.
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2023-04-10 07:05:00Z
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