Principal of Campion College Grace Baston is today defending the institution’s education curriculum after a furore was sparked over the use of a book with racially charged language.

Baston, speaking with Our Today on Friday (March 5), said the lesson, taken from classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird, caused some discomfort for students and prompted an apology from teacher Danielle Gordon.

Excerpts of Gordon’s apology, which began trending on several social media platforms including Twitter and Instagram, contended that the teacher acknowledged the polarising nature of the novel.

“Pursuant to today’s class, I realize I had made a grave mistake in allowing some students to use the ‘N’ word albeit for learning purposes. Because sometimes I try to be liberal and objective in the dealings of learning and understanding, I ignored the fact that it is truly offensive to some people. That will never happen again and I am extremely sorry for the discomfort I have caused to some people,” she said.

Scores of comments by Jamaican social media users asked how the activity was allowed in the first place or why the specific book was used at all.

A few Twitter users have urged Education Minister Fayval Williams to send Campion College a directive on race, while many are calling on the teacher to be fired.

However, Baston, who argued that no parent has come forward voicing concern over the language in the Harper Lee novel, said that there was no intention to racially disparage in the lesson as its use was only for learning purposes.

“Just to be clear, it’s an English Literature class where they’re looking at these notions [of racism] and it wasn’t just the N-word, it was also ‘white trash’ and other things. There are no white people in the class, it wasn’t anybody calling anyone [the word] in the class; that wasn’t the context at all. The teacher set them on an assignment where they were discussing those terms,” she told Our Today.

“Another thing, I think in the end the teacher recognised that in the course of the conversation, she felt she needed to write back to [the students] to say ‘Look, I understand some of you might have felt offended by even looking at this term’ and so she wrote that email,” Baston explained.

“It is very unfortunate that someone would now put that online to say somehow, the teacher had allowed [the word], however it was framed,” she added.

Baston acknowledged that there was plenty of talk surrounding the content of the email, which she found surprising.

Notwithstanding, she stood by the curriculum, noting that the content of To Kill A Mockingbird and other racially charged literature was approved for educational purposes.

“Of course! Crick Crack Monkey has language people would consider foul, there are all kinds of books—it’s literature. The fact that you’re teaching a book, unless you’re going to go through and teach only texts that don’t contain scenes of race and racism as well as scenes of sex and sexuality, it seems inevitable,” she said.

“I don’t understand why what’s happening in a literature class, exploring the themes of racism, should become an item of news interest. It’s very curious to me,” Baston told Our Today.