‘You’re not racist if you read a book’: Spokane teacher fired for reading slur in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

A Spanish teacher in Spokane is expected to be terminated after reading a passage from “To Kill A Mockingbird” to his class that included the n-word.

The teacher, Matthew Mastronardi, overheard students in his class at West Valley High School discussing the Harper Lee novel and how another teacher told them to skip over the controversial slur within the text. Mastronardi disagreed with that decision.

“I expressed my disagreement with having to skip over words, especially words that prevent a conversation there,” Mastronardi said on “The John Curley Show.” “We can confront history, even if it’s difficult, and we’re supposed to be helping kids learn how to think about the world and how to think critically. We do them a disservice when we just tell them to skip over their word.”

According to Mastronardi, a student asked him, “If you were reading the book, would you read the word?” He responded with, “If I were reading from the book, I would read every single word.” This conversation captured the attention of a few other classmates, including one of my favorite students who whipped out the book, turned to the page, and said, “OK, then do it.”

“I’m sure in your head, you’re thinking, I can’t be a hypocrite. I said I would read it,” KIRO host John Curley said. “It’s important to stand up for the word that you speak to these kids, because if you don’t, if you start to back up a little bit, they start to question your character, right?”

“Absolutely. These kids will not learn from somebody who they believe is a coward or a hypocrite,” Mastronardi replied. “I tried to make it a teaching moment about context, about history, about how intent matters, and it undermines the author’s intent when we don’t use historically accurate language. You’re not a racist if you read a book.”

Mastronardi’s dismissal

On April 28, Mastronardi was given a verbal warning, claiming the incident violated the district’s Civility and Professional Staff Student Boundaries policy. Approximately a week later, Mastronardi was called for a meeting with Human Resources and Principal Mulvey. During this meeting, he was informed he had two options: to voluntarily resign or to expect his contract not to be renewed once it expires.

“I really don’t think (the students) meant any harm. I think (they) were trying to be funny, because let’s be real, none of my students lost any sleep over this,” Mastronardi said. “Anybody who’s pretending that they are super offended, it’s just optics. The kids don’t care. I hear what type of music they listen to. I hear how they speak out in the hallways. We have to teach them how to think correctly about the world.”

You can listen to the full conversation here.

Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

Follow @https://twitter.com/jcurleyshow