A Florida teacher was recently fired because he had students write their own obituaries before his school participated in an active-shooter drill.
Jeffrey Keene, a psychology teacher at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, directed 11th and 12th graders in his first-period class to write their own obituaries last week as a part of their coursework.
In an interview with NBC News, Keene said, “It wasn’t to scare them or make them feel like they were going to die, but just to help them understand what’s important in their lives and how they want to move forward with their lives and how they want to pursue things in their journey,” Keene said.
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That did not matter to school officials. He was fired by the end of the day.
Orange County Public Schools said Keene was axed after “families were informed that a teacher gave an inappropriate assignment about school violence.”
Keene was hired in January and was still on probation. Thus, the school district did not have to butt heads with the teachers’ union to oust him from the classroom.
The incident occurred shortly after a transgender man shot up a school in Nashville, killing six people, including three children.
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“I don’t think I did anything incorrectly,” Keene told NBC. “I know hindsight is 20/20, but I honestly didn’t think a 16-, 17-, 18-year-old would be offended or upset by talking about something we’re already talking about.”
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