Nov 14 2008
Do parents have no say in what is taught in school?
Concerned parents took turns at the microphone recently during the Burke County Board of Education meeting to blast school officials for allowing certain books with mature content and profane language to be assigned reading.
Elaine Harmon said she moved to Burke County from New York to find moral comfort deep within the Southern Bible Belt. Harmon said it appalled her to find books with a variety of questionable themes – including homosexuality, rape and incest – are required reading for some students.
Harmon singled out “The Color Purple,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker. She said the main father figure in the book takes indecent liberties with his 11-year-old daughter.
“Why are such books being given to children?” Harmon asked the school board. “Such literature will warp the morals of our children.”
Carol Snow, dressed in 1960s-era hippy attire, said, “Isn’t it ironic that we have a bunch of parents today questioning the reverse of the ’60s’ mission and challenging the liberals? My 15-year-old daughter came to me on the evening of Jan. 28 to discuss the rape scene in ‘The Kite Runner.’ I had a tough time discussing what rectal bleeding is with her; she wanted to know what that meant. Why wasn’t I notified regarding the nature of this reading?”
Snow said excerpts from books such as “Beloved” and “The Kite Runner” couldn’t be read aloud in the boardroom.
“What does it tell us all here tonight, when excerpts from these books can’t even be read aloud in this public forum?” Snow asked.
This is not the first time “The Kite Runner” created controversy. In February, Vicki Dobson challenged the school board regarding the use of author Khaled Hosseini’s book in high school classrooms. School board Vice Chair Tracy Norman said vulgar language and graphic descriptions of a sodomy rape made the book inappropriate for a 10th-grade honors English class at Freedom High School. The school district’s Media and Technology Committee eventually voted not to ban use of “The Kite Runner.” Dobson dropped her challenge.
Speaking at this week’s board meeting, Mark Gordon said it upset him when his third-grade son asked about several curse words he had been exposed to in reading class.
Dewayne Riddle said, “We don’t ask any of our young people to go to war under the age of 18 or allow them to drink alcohol under the age of 21. So why are we subjecting our children to this kind of material without parental oversight? At least give parents the rights to oversee what their children are reading.”
Following the parents’ comments, school board Chairman Tim Buff said there is no policy in place regarding usage of written works in the classroom or requiring that parents be notified about reading lists. He said there are legal issues involving what can and can’t be done.
Read more here.
[From me]
I’m sure there are some who think those books are fine. Well, I’m not one. I don’t want my children reading explicit books about rape, incest, rectal bleeding, etc… How can books like that be considered classic literature? This link was sent to my wife by a friend who is at Prep school here in the Charlotte area. Their English teacher has these books as well as one we were sent an excerpt of that was just plain pornographic. The teacher won’t even apologize for making the students read it and her administrator is standing by her. Why? When do parents get to have a say? Why would a woman want kids to read graphic rape scenes?
Honestly, this and just no peace, made us re-examine our school choices and as you read this we are making a quick trip to Birmingham and back. God help us.
What do you think?
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}
14 responses so far
Books like The Color Purple and The Kite Runner (both of which I have read) are appropriate for high school students in my opinion. They don’t approve of or sanction the bad behavior. These are actions of the “bad guys” in the books.
If it is harmful for high school students to read literature that, for example, acknowledges sexual abuse and violence as horrible realities of life, then we are going to have to take away or censor their Bibles too.
Jonathan’s last blog post..Numbers Game
Jonathan,
The Bible has already been taken away from school. Why have books for hormone laden HS kids that describe rape in detail? I don’t want my children reading graphic sex & rape. That doesn’t honor God.
Jonathan - Whether or not this is appropriate for high school students is really not the question. The question is whether it is the job of the school to determine whether it is appropriate without parental involvement.
This is really a school board issue in most laws, as I understand it. Parents are not involved in that process. Modern books are much more graphic with descriptions of these things than they were when the laws were established, so the laws do not adequately cover this issue.
The problem lies in the fact that school boards are elected officials, and when the majority of folks in an area agree with Jonathan, officials which believe similarly will probably be elected. Thus, it’s a case of “majority rules”, not a case of “what is right”.
Kevin, many NEA leaders strongly believe - and are very public - that parents should not be allowed to have ANY input into the process of educating their children. HSLDA (the Homeschool Legal Defense Association) lists example upon example of social workers, principals, and teachers repeatedly violating the rights of homeschool parents and teachers based upon the mentality that homeschoolers are denying their children proper education, even abusing them by keeping them at home. The basic, God-given right of parents to determine how their children are raised and what they are taught is very gradually being taken away and replaced by a socialistic / communistic policy of “we will raise your children for you.”
Bernard Shuford’s last blog post..Those People
I’m not trying to address school board politics. Obviously, the parents in a community should have some input about what materials are used for teaching in schools…but if your point of view is out of the norm you can’t expect the school system to cater to you. It’s the parents domain to decide exactly what is taught in the home and the school officials domain to decide what is taught at school.
What is more interesting to me is the assertion that this type of content disqualifies these books from being classic literature. How can the Bible be considered classic literature if it contains Judges 19?
Kevin, I read passages from the Bible in high school literature class. I assume that still happens today. Even if not, it’s not because of its explicit content. Exactly what book are you talking about that salaciously describes rape in graphic detail that is inappropriate for a high school student? I can’t speak for all books taught everywhere, but The Color Purple and the Kite Runner don’t fit that description.
Jonathan’s last blog post..Numbers Game
Jonathan, I tend to disagree with you about your comments.
Yes, parents teach at home, but I would disagree that school officials are the only ones who have domain to decide what to teach in school. After all, we are talking PUBLIC schools here…doesn’t the PUBLIC have a right to have a say in what is taught? Do you think the teachers, principals, administrators have a lock on what is best for students? I don’t think so! Just as parents don’t have a lock on knowledge and shouldn’t give up their rights to anyone…parents shouldn’t give up their rights in the school…
When we pay our tax dollars, government officials, including school officials need to learn that WE have a right of authority here!
M. Steve Heartsill’s last blog post..Hold the Bacon
Steve,
I agreed that “Obviously, the parents in a community should have some input about what materials are used for teaching in schools…” but ultimately it is the school officials who have the authority to make the decisions. Average citizens certainly should expect to be able to express their concerns (as they did in the example Kevin cited), but they shouldn’t expect to be able to dictate school policy. The board of education is elected to represent the community in setting educational policy. If the school board does a poor job of representing the views of the community, then they will have a hard time being elected again.
Again, though I realize school officials vs. parents was the main issue at stake in this post, that’s not the part that really grabs my interest. I really would like to know how parents handle explicit Biblical content with their kids. Do you just assume they’ll never read Judges 19? If so, what does that say? We’re thinking of reading the whole Bible together as a family in 2009 with our older kid doing much of the reading himself…but our kids are young (7 and 5), so I’m not sure what to do when we get to Judges 19, for example. Have an adult read and sanitize it I guess.
Jonathan’s last blog post..Numbers Game
This is a tough one. How do we decide what can and cannot be taught? Will we have a vote on all text books and other pieces of literature? What about movies or guest speakers?
As much as I hate to say it, I think the School Board is the one here who has to have control. If the parents don’t like this decision, they should push hard next election to vote them out of office and make sure the town knows why.
I am a strong believer that parents should have a say in education, but when you put hundreds, maybe thousands of students in a school, it makes it difficult to determine whose parents are right or whose parents are in the majority. The parents’ decision making ability stops with elected officials. Schools would be even more chaotic if parents had to approve of the day to day activities of their children in classes.
Michael’s last blog post..Career Suggestions
Kevin: Have you read The Color Purple or seen the movie?
I personally would not have a problem with my children reading it in High School. I think it’s important for both male and female High School age children to see the implications of violent acts toward women. The Color Purple was very well written and I do consider it a classic.
Debbie Kaufman’s last blog post..YouTube - The Trouble With Women 1959
To me, this seems to be one of those controversies where valid points are being made on both sides–it’s sort of one of those “where do you draw the line” situations. Obviously, the community and parents should have some say, but the question is when, if ever, the need to educate trumps the need to shelter. What if parents were offended teaching kids about slavery, the fact that women were not allowed to vote, or the way Columbus treated the Indians? If you take enough of life out of education, it is no longer education, it just becomes propaganda brainwashing.
The argument can go the other way, too, though, because Kevin would say that the school boards have a brainwashing-style agenda too. While I am not going to argue for the moral perfection of all school boards everywhere, I am going to weigh in on Debbie and Jonathan’s side about the appropriateness of books that inform high school students about some grim realities of sexual abuse.
Psalm 101 said to put before our eyes no vile thing. It means that as Christians, our hearts will be on God and doing righteousness, because if we are fascinated by the works of non Christians, such as if we keep Mein Kampf on our bookshelves, it is a sign that our passions and our efforts displease God.
The point that Jonathan makes is valid. If we censored all violent books, for example, the Bible would have to go too. Now, the Bible is already not in schools, Kevin points out, but that is because of the First Amendment of the Constitution. Kevin, you agree that kids should be taught the Bible by their parents and by Church peeps on Sunday, of course. That is what Jonathan means, if kids can’t be exposed to violence, they can’t read the Bible, because it contains lots of bad things going on.
So why do we let children read the Bible, if it contains “vile” acts of violence that are displeasing to God? Because, even the parts of the Bible that contain violence are moral. In my opinion, the damaging tv shows and movies and books we should stay away from are the ones that promote and glamorize evil. Take Macbeth, for example, by William Shakespeare. It contains murder and evil scheming, but the ultimate moral is to be good, because it teaches how the murderers descend into madness and unhappiness (although they were already crazy when they decided to become murderers, it got worse), and they got justice in the end.
Similarly, if children do not leave school understanding the need to protect minorities and women and any oppressed group from harm, in my opinion, their education was incomplete. The Color Purple is all about the realities of slavery in the United States, and if we as Christians did not want our kids to learn about what happened, maybe we should have though about that before we enslaved another race of humanity. I mean, the Bible Belt is the part of the country that did the enslaving! It’s convenient that they would shy away from teaching kids about how awful their great great grandfathers were.
Similarly, Justice Scalia recently stated that domestic violence “was not that big a deal.” Perhaps he went to a school too where books like the Kite Runner and the Color Purple were censored.
My point is, children should be learning about the way the world really is, and unfortunately, that includes horrific acts against women, children, and any group that is not strong enough to defend themselves, or who do not merit the full protection of their community. The Color Purple and the Kite Runner does not glamorize acts of violence, it makes people morally outraged that such atrocities do occur, and that is a moral that a lot of people who are in denial need to learn.
So, let’s say that a teacher (high school, middle, or younger, you pick) decides to teach a book that says that the Holocaust never occured. The teacher tells the students that the history books are wrong, just stories put out by people of the Jewish faith. Make believe. Fake. False. No truth whatsoever.
Okay, according to several commentors on here, that would be fine, as long as it was approved by the teacher, administrators, and/or school board. They have the final say on what is taught in the school. Parents shouldn’t object–the board approved it.
So, would that be wrong? If so, how is that different than a parent disagreeing with violence being taught and studied?
Or, let’s say that a teacher wants to teach that evolution is the only way the world could have come into existence, and man evolved from apes…would we have a problem with a teacher saying that the Bible is a myth, fake, not scientific in nature?
Oh that’s right, we’ve already allowed that to happen in schools across America…What’s one more nail in our coffin?
Where do we as Christians draw the line? I’m not talking about dumbing down the educational process, I’m talking about keeping a fair and balanced view of the world. Is that asking too much?
M. Steve Heartsill’s last blog post..Hold the Bacon
Regarding the holocaust example, teaching that it never happened would be contrary to historical fact, so that would be wrong. Regarding the teacher who says, because of evolution, the Bible is invalid, that would be drawing a religious conclusion from a scientific theory, which is inappropriate in school (1st amendment again). We probably should not get drawn into the creationism/evolution thing out of respect for the scope of Kevin’s topic.
We are really talking about the violence example, I think, and where we draw the line. I totally agree with you that where we draw the line is tricky. We are talking here about the examples the Kite Runner and the Color Purple. I argued that they teach valuable morals and should be kept, but I totally agree with you if you say that there are valid arguments to be made that they cross a line in terms of graphic descriptions of violence that are either age-inappropriate, or else never uplifting in Christian life. This is a valuable debate to have and I totally agree with your concern about the difficulty of drawing the line.
P.S. I also agree there are interesting philosophical debates to be had about the creationism and holocaust examples, I just feel they are a bit off-topic here… maybe Kevin will address that stuff in the coming days, if he shares your interest in that sort of stuff, which he probably does, to some degree.
I have said it before- if you wish to control young people’s reading, then you MUST censor the graphic and disgusting stories of the Bible, which is chock full of rape, incest, murders, torture, enslavement, infanticide etc etc ad nauseam. At what age are Christian youngsters permitted to read these salacious tales, purportedly the Word of God?
I am guessing Francoise skipped over reading the previous comments…
Not really. Whenever the question of what youngsters are reading or are permitted to read, I always wonder why they don’t control the dissemination of Biblical stories to impressionable children.