Murder -- Are Kids Already Clued In?

Not that they asked for my advice (no one ever does), but I hope Orange school district officials don’t overreact now that they’ve sat teacher Stephen Arcudi down and asked him what the heck he was thinking last week.

Arcudi let 20 to 30 seniors in two of his Villa Park High School English classes watch the recent beheading of American captive Nicholas Berg on a computer at his desk. None were required to watch, school officials said, who also reported that Arcudi provided the website address showing the beheading to at least one of his sophomore classes.

When reached by a Times reporter at home last week, Arcudi denied he’d provided the site to students. He said he’d come into class, found a student trying to access the site and tried to discourage the student.

Since then, school officials say, Arcudi has fessed up. My guess is that Arcudi, 46, may have hit the panic button when caught off guard by our reporter.

Now that we know he made the website available, let’s call for the question: Should it cost Arcudi his job? Arcudi was summoned to the principal’s office this week, but school officials aren’t saying what action -- if any -- they’ll take.

Website executions aren’t covered in the teaching manual, so a teacher’s judgment rules the moment. Society counts on teachers to use good judgment, and my impulse is to trust classroom teachers to know what their students can handle.

That said, my first reaction to the news was: “That was a really bad idea.”

Last year, I taught a college journalism class for upper-classmen and wouldn’t have directed them to a website showing someone’s decapitation. I can’t think of a compelling reason why a high school English teacher would want to take it upon himself to be an Internet guide for such a grisly sight.

But before we wax too outrageous, let’s stop for a reality check on what today’s high school students already have seen.

This is a generation that has cheered “Braveheart” and “Lord of the Rings” on the big screen. In both movies, not to mention who knows how many others of fact or fantasy, battlefield decapitations are as plentiful as mere flesh wounds.

Today’s teens are way beyond those of my generation, for example, who knew President Kennedy was shot in the head but likely never saw the fatal head wound on video until years later. Today’s students would see that footage on that evening’s news.

I’m not suggesting that the real-time murder of Nicholas Berg at the hands of hooded terrorists equates to cinematic death, but it’s quite possible that Arcudi -- being around teenagers most days of his life -- has a better feel for what they can handle than those of us on the outside.

That doesn’t mean he used good judgment last week; it just means we shouldn’t automatically conclude he’s done a horrible thing and is a loose cannon. Check out the range of reported comments made by high school students about the controversy -- they covered a broad range of reactions, so Arcudi can argue that students weren’t universally horrified by what he’d done.

I’m curious why Arcudi didn’t say all this himself. State your case, sir.

Maybe he did to administrators. Since last week, he hasn’t been returning our reporter’s phone calls. Nevertheless, the semester is about over. Grades are due. Here’s my report card for Arcudi: 10 points off for providing the website, on the grounds that it’s not his responsibility to do so. I’m deducting another 10 points for not being more forthcoming about his actions.

Final score: 80. That’s a C for his work, meaning there’s lots of room for improvement on his next assignment.

Dana Parsons’ column

appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.