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.
Updike?
Updike was mostly Pennsylvania. The Rabbit books were good, though I never cared for his other stuff.
Cheever also falls into that category, though he is vastly over-rated.
"When I was in ninth grade we read "Anna Karenina.""
I tried to read a Russian novel once. As far as I can tell, people with unpronounceable names talked to each other for 750 pages, and then someone's aunt died.
Also, Mailer is unreadable and he cut in line in front of me at a deli once.
I completely agree with your negative opinion of public schools in general. My brother and I went to "the best" schools in the area where we lived. And I have never gotten over what a sad commentary that is, having seen those schools from the inside. It may be true that other schools are worse, but it certainly isn't true that "the best schools" are worth sending your kids to.
No matter how you slice it, the high school and middle school I went to were indoctrination centers to advance the humanist manifesto and other wrong thinking agendas.
Whether or not students went on to do well in life had little to do with the schools, in my opinion. There are too many other factors to consider to even attempt to assign that credit to the schools. He completed a double major at UGA in three years and then earned a law degree along with a separate degree in International law from Georgetown. Academically, he did great. I don't give the public schools very much credit for those later academic successes. They were based more on his personality, brains and outside effort than on anything else. I truly believe he would have gone on to do just as well, no matter if our parents had been willing to live in the next county and send us to schools that garnered half the esteem or had been able to afford to send him to the best private school in Atlanta, (which he very much wanted to go to).
But getting to a more important point, my parents were both conservative. My father was very politically active, campaigning for good candidates and what not. My mother was a great reader who easily passed on her love of reading to both of us kids and was also very good at explaining her religious beliefs and political views. She was always willing to converse with us about any issue that we asked about. In spite of my parents' very good example and my mother's very good parenting, my brother is now just about the looniest barking moon bat that I know (and I know some doozies). He is so liberal that I need a new word for liberal. This is something that I do think the public schools bear some responsibility for. You cannot put your children into that environment for 6-8 hours a day, 180 or more days per year and refuse to acknowledge what type of influence the schools are trying to exert over the students.
Sometimes I wonder if my brother is the only kid who ever served as a page for a conservative republican in a state assembly and then went on years later to vote for the likes of Bill Clinton and John Kerry. But I doubt it. From what I know of the other children of conservatives that I grew up with, I'd say it’s just a crap shoot as to whether or not the parents can counteract the bad influence of the public schools. That is one of the bigger reasons why I have been becoming more and more committed to homeschooling. I’ve also heard very similar reasoning from friends that send their children to private schools.
Well, I went the private school route in Atlanta, as did my mom in Atlanta (and my dad also in Rome GA), and my kids are doing the same thing. Thank goodness I found a good private school placement for my son - he's very bright but ADHD.
I would be willing to make a FEW limited exceptions, but the hundred-year rule is a good basic guideline for works that have stood the test of time. If parents want their kids to read the new stuff, they can give it to them. Or they could be assigned on supplemental reading lists. But most English classes can only study a few books a year - they should not waste time on trendy modern best-sellers that will be in the remainder bin in a few years.
I am also suspicious of any music composed after 1803. But that's just me.
With 14 year olds you are better off sticking with the older stuff. Leave the moderns for older students.
Absolutely. Some of the books that are appropriate for my daughter to read as a senior would have been absolutely inappropriate for her as a 14 year old in 9th grade.
Off topic, but I think 9 grade as Junior High would be a good idea to reinstate. I'd rather 14 year old girls not be socialized around 17 and 18 year old boys. My church's teen group divides up ages every two years. 11-12 grade in one group, 9-10 in another, 7-8 in another, etc.
Exactly. If they can't be forced to leave their parents' home and support themselves, they're kids.
Death of Ivan Illych?
I agree. Ninth grade is too young for high school.
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