Posted on 02/20/2006 5:01:05 PM PST by wagglebee
(AgapePress) - A school district in Maine has reaffirmed its reinstatement of a sexually explicit book several parents want removed from the local high school's curriculum. The Orono School Committee recently voted to retain the controversial novel Girl Interrupted in the ninth grade English literature class at Orono High School.
Girl Interrupted, a novel written by Susanna Kaysen, was affirmed for use in the high school curriculum over the objections of parents and local residents who take exception to the profuse profanity and sexual content in the book. Michael Heath, head of the Christian Civic League of Maine (CCLM), says this graphic work of fiction has no place in schools where impressionable young people will be exposed to it.
"It's a book about an 18-year-old," Heath explains, "who ends up in a mental asylum and has a number of conversations with mentally disturbed people -- conversations of the most graphic sort, especially sexual. The f-word [appears] 30 times in one page, and this is being given to freshmen in high school as literature. It's absolutely horrifying."
School board members argue that using Girl Interrupted in the classroom honors free speech and that prohibiting it would amount to unconstitutional censorship. However, the CCLM spokesman feels the board members are making a spurious claim when they cite First Amendment freedom as a justification for obscenity.
The Civic League's representative at the board's meeting contested that idea from the floor, Heath points out. "When one of the school board members said to not have the book in the curriculum would be the practice of censorship," he notes, "our representative objected and said, 'Look, you censor Playboy. You don't allow people to read Playboy in the schools, so that's a non-issue. You're lying.'"
The Orono school board has the responsibility to make decisions about content and does in fact make such decisions all the time, Heath contends. He feels parents and pro-family citizens in the Maine community have every right to be outraged over the school committee's decision to retain a sexually explicit novel in Orono High School's ninth-grade English literature classes.
It was a movie...I'm sure they've all seen it...Yawn.
DISCUSSION ABOUT:
"Maine Parents, Advocates Upset Over Explicit Novel Approved for High Schoolers"
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certainly there's more interesting reading than "Girl Interrupted." I loved the movie, didn't read the book, but can think of other books more interesting and less offensive: The Red Tent, The Time Traveler's Wife, etc.
Your kids are going to read this and no, you don't ahve the right to stop it.
At least that the way the socialists want it.
Pull 'em out. Home school 'em. Or do a Co-op, bunch of Parents poll their funds and hire a teacher to home school the kids.
Girl Interrupted -- One of the few movies I walked out of. I could not stand it!
It was showing in one of those huge theaters with a dozen screens, showing different movies. Instead of asking for my money back -- I just went into another movie.
There is a huge difference between children being allowed to read a book and being required to read it.
Frankly, I'm more upset that they are wasting space and time on the cirriculum with forgettable junk like this when there's a whole canon of great Western literature that most kids aren't exposed to.
You know it is funny how schools are attempting to censor children for blogging offensive statements about the teachers and principal. Yet at the same time these same teachers and pricipals use free speech when they put offensive materials in school curriculum.
Only one solution for the town, dump the school board. For individuals they can homeschool, move or send kids to private school.
I studied Color Purple for my senior year. This was in an all girl's high school and the nun showing it was not a progressive enlightened dehabited sister. Anyone who has ever read that book knows it's not for young children but kids in high school have heard much worse in life already. Sounds like this needs an old,needlebutt geezer alert to me.
Yes there is. And in this instance, the children should be neither allowed nor required to read the book.
If the children get such books outside of schools, and their parents do not monitor it, there isn't anything the school needs to do about it.
But the book should not be in the school library, and it certainly should not be on the curriculum.
wasn't that the one were Angelina Jolie was still trying to be a blonde?
Maybe they want something that will interest the students. People have wanted to ban "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Huck Finn" from schools also. I doubt "Girl Interrupted" is on the same level as these books, but I still don't think people should complain every time their is language or sexual content in a book. What book doesn't have sexual content?
What disturbs me is that they are reading fifth-rate junk like this instead of the classics that used to be read in our schools.
When I was in ninth grade we read "Anna Karenina." It also has some disturbing ideas in it. But it's a great novel, with a serious moral point of view, revealing what the consequences of adultery are.
"Girl Interrupted" is just plain junk.
Oh, well, if it comes out of Hollywood, then I guess it's alright.
Wouldn't you feel more comfortable over on DU?
There must be some homosexual theme, too. The schools just don't care what the parents think.
Well, there again, "Catcher in the Rye" is a second-rate book. "Huck Finn" is one of the two greatest American novels. So, I could care less if my kids read the first, but I'd be very disappointed if they hadn't read the second.
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