Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.Obscenity: The English Lesson
In a suburban courtroom just north of Detroit last week, a high school teacher named Nancy Timbrook clutched a shredded Kleenex as she defended her actions before a judge. She admitted that she had, as charged, written a four-letter variant of the verb "to copulate" on her classroom blackboard.
Prosecutor: Didn't you know that it was an unfit word to use in front of children?
Mrs. Timbrook: That's what I was trying to teach — that it was indecent and immoral. It's always made me sick every time I've seen it. I've seen...
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