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.
FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE...
Orono panel reinstates controversial class book
Thursday, February 09, 2006 - Bangor Daily News << Back
ORONO - A novel temporarily pulled from a freshman English class at Orono High School has been re-entered into the curriculum after a recommendation from the school's appointed review committee.
A parent complained Jan. 26 about strong language and vivid descriptions used in Susanna Kaysen's "Girl, Interrupted" and requested that it be removed from the curriculum.
Superintendent Kelly Clenchy examined excerpts from the book the parent provided and decided the issue required further consideration following the school's policy to review controversial material.
"The reviews that they've looked at largely support the book for high school students," Clenchy said Wednesday.
David Quimby of Brewer, the parent who made the initial complaint, disagrees. After reading several excerpts from the book that contained "vulgar" language, Quimby said Wednesday he was concerned that this was required reading for his son's class.
"To me, it's not an issue of censorship or not a political statement other than the fact that it's just good old-fashioned right and wrong," Quimby said.
"Girl, Interrupted" is Kaysen's memoir of being hospitalized at age 18 in a mental institution, where she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The book contains graphic descriptions of sexual acts, incest and suicide, according to the superintendent and Quimby.
Quimby's 15-year-old son, a tuition student at Orono High, showed him the book a couple of days after it was assigned as reading.
"He was very uncomfortable with it, and he said that lots of the kids were making comments about it in the hallway," Quimby said.
Quimby and his ex-wife, Sherry Williams of Veazie, both are concerned about the contents of the book, which he said is something he'd expect to find in the adult section of a bookstore.
"My feeling is that the majority of the parents of those kids are unaware of it, unaware of the contents of the book," Quimby said. "I talked to over 100 parents, and I've not got one response that that's acceptable, other than the principal and the teacher that assigned it."
Quimby said he also felt that the review committee - which is made up of the building principal, a teacher from the subject area of the material in question, the school librarian, and a community member - was hand-picked by the principal and that members had made up their minds before the review began.
"The book is an example of how situations, likely some of our students are aware of such as suicide, sexual activity, [and] drug use, are brought out in a way that they can be discussed in context with an adult," the superintendent read from the review committee's draft report.
Although the book has been cleared for use, the teacher has decided to wait until after Monday's school committee meeting, during which the issue is expected to be brought up again, Clenchy said.
"The [review] committee is recommending that there should be an active mechanism for informing parents ahead of time the titles of the books to be read by the class," he said.
Suggestions for informing parents included a course description booklet or a syllabus handed out at the start of class. Committee members also want to see a statement developed that describes how books and materials are selected for use in the curriculum.
"I will be making some more recommendations, but I need to hear this whole process out first," Clenchy said.
He explained that if the party who lodged the complaint isn't satisfied with the outcome, they can petition the school committee to conduct its own review.
"The committee can accept the recommendation of the review committee, or ask for further investigation," Clenchy said.
Quimby said he will attend the school committee meeting next week and plans to continue talking to other parents.
"There are other books that have won awards that don't use the 'F' word throughout, and don't use incest, and don't use the 'C' word, that I believe can better suit and serve the purpose than this vulgarness," Quimby said.
I know people will come out and say this guy is spinning, but his explanation makes sense. I havn't read the book, but I doubt it glorifies reckless behavior since the characters telling their stories are in a mental institution. The way I understand the book now is that it is narrated from the mental institution with flashbacks to when the girls were having sex and doing drugs on the outside. Is this accurate, or am I misrepresenting the book.
Well, I don't think I'm likely to reread Thoreau any time soon.
Back again, with my initial impressions (after reading several chapters). The perspective and topics of this book are such that I would imagine that the liberal groups within academia and the American Library Association would love it. It is definitely the kind of thing you would choose for the public schools if your agenda included early sexualization of students, using the schools to replace parental guidance and teach kids what they should think about controversial issues and guaranteeing that kids grow up well indoctrinated in the ideals of political correctness. I would definitely not let one of my kids participate in any classroom where this is what they are studying.
So far I have not seen anything particularly worthwhile, from my perspective of what public education should be teaching. I don't think many of you who have been discussing what your ideals of worthwhile literature are would be very interested in it.
While I have found several passages that are moderately offensive to me personally, I have not found enough (so far) to cause me to feel that I can't stomach continuing to read the book. So maybe I'll post again later about it. (If I finish it that is--I'm certainly not finding it entertaining, informative, or in any way enlightening-just slogging through it anyway)
Thanks for the extra article.
Oh it's horrible, degenerate literature. A cross between J.G. Ballard's Crash and Burroughs' Naked Lunch...
Actually, relatively mild. A lot of cussing and some vague references to sex. Nothing explicit. Mostly loving portraits of disturbed people.
And my son was good as gold - sat in the extra chair in my corner and did his schoolwork (he was so happy not to be in that mob scene at the horrible school). Every so often, I would check his work and send him down to the snack bar with a dollar for his reward!
de Pizan was in the unfortunate position of being a widow in Europe -- one of the wonderful things about England (that led directly to the greatness of the British Empire in my not so humble opinion) was the financial and social independence given to the yeoman class, the burgher class, and the widow. The Wife of Bath was able to hold her somewhat aggressive opinions precisely because she had social and economic standing.
I'm particularly impressed by his turn for the pithy phrase that summarizes a concept or gives you a "hook" to remember a writer by. He is very hard on the authors of the mid-sixteenth century (he calls it "The Drab Age") and he skewers them right and left. One poor soul has a work doubtfully attributed to him; Lewis comments that if it wasn't written by him it was written by someone just as bad. Ouch!
Jne word that makes everyone happy. Those who want to read the book; those who don't. Teachers who think it ought to be taught, and those who don't. Just one word -- VOUCHERS.
They're the panacea!
I like old Bronson Alcott better. Crazy as a hoot owl, but much less stuck on himself than Ralph Waldo. Still glad I didn't have to rely on him for my daily bread, though -- a slender reed. Poor Louisa!
I agree . . . vouchers are the answer. Then parents can send their kids wherever they like, and the market will determine whether stuff like this is a good idea.
I always smile when I see remarks like this. It reminds me of heavy handed moral-types who would come out from under their rocks about once every two years or so with some kind of report on porno videos.
"Every hour of porno we evaluated had six acts of oral sex, three acts of anal penetration, one threesome scene, etc etc"
I was always impressed that such devout types, ostensibly disgusted by it all, would take their analysis of it so thoroughly! A shame that they forced themselves to sit through 100s of hours of that stuff, huh? :-)
Today they've not only come out from under their rocks, but they're throwing them haphazard at whatever target seems convenient.
No kidding. I never understood those types.
Actually, I'm being a bit disingenuous. I think I do understand them. They should just buy a bottle of wine and check into a hotel with their honey once in a while and have an unapologetic, NC-17 good time.
It beats sitting in a dark room counting random sex acts on video porn for the very moral study. :-)
If you notice, the most moral types are always on the most disasteful threads on FR.
Ping!
The school is ASSIGNING this stuff to people's kids.
They want to put it in the library, o.k. They want to sell it on the open market, fine. Nobody's snooping around in bookstores or libraries bothering about this stuff.
Seems to me that parents have an inherent right to look over what their children are being REQUIRED to read . . . and to object if they believe it is inappropriate for their kids.
I might not have gone to the school board without first requesting an alternative book for my kids to read. I prefer to deal with problems directly with my kids' teachers.
But this would never be a problem in my family, because I would as soon throw my kids down a well as send them to ANY public school. The entire curriculum has been dumbed down to the point that any child of intelligence will be bored, and any parent who would prefer that their child be given proven quality literature to read, instead of trendy, trashy junk, is going to be angry. (I briefly tried what was supposed to be the best public school in this county. It was a disaster.)
They can only assign so many reading books. To neglect the classics for this low-class junk is ridiculous!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.