The first rule about having an edgy English teacher is don’t talk about your edgy English teacher.
A beloved city schoolteacher has been suspended by the Department of Education after giving his 11th-grade students a copy of a graphic short story about masturbation written by “Fight Club” author Chuck Palahniuk.
Greg Van Voorhis, 30, handed out copies of Palahniuk’s “Guts” late last month to about 100 students studying for the English Regents exam at The Bronx School of Law and Finance in Marble Hill.
The story — written for Playboy magazine — discusses a teenage boy’s use of a carrot in a sex act on himself and autoerotic asphyxiation.
While Van Voorhis took the copies back at the end of class, students blabbed about the ribald tale, and school officials soon caught wind of the lesson in self-love.
“We found out about it kind of through the grapevine,” said the school’s principal, Evan Schwartz. “It’s a small school. It’s hard to keep a secret.”
Van Voorhis, who has taught at the school for seven years and has a reputation for pushing the envelope, was immediately reassigned out of the classroom while the Department of Education investigates.
The suspension has the student body up in arms, leading to a letter-writing campaign to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and the creation of a “Save Mr. V” page on Facebook.
Students last week said they were appalled that school officials had acted so prudishly.
“We’re not little kids. We are in high school,” said 15-year-old junior Omar Caminero. “It’s not like we’ve never read anything like that — we have.”
“He didn’t mean it to be anything other than something we could learn from,” said junior Frankchesca Jimenez, 16.
A spokeswoman for the DOE declined to comment.
Schwartz stopped short of calling the story inappropriate but said he was required to act.
“I deemed for someone else to decide whether it was inappropriate,” he said. “I had to report it.”
Although the school did not send a letter out to parents, Schwartz said they had “been made aware of it.”
Van Voorhis did not respond to messages for comment. Palahniuk’s agent said the author was unavailable for comment.