Posted on 12/07/2006 1:21:41 PM PST by bondjamesbond
Sixth-graders at a Queens school were getting quite an education - in homosexuality, French kissing and cursing - thanks to three books widely available in classroom libraries.
But after numerous complaints from parents at Public School 150 in Sunnyside, the books - a profanity-laced poetry book, short stories about homosexuality and a novel called "First French Kiss" - were pulled from the shelves last week.
Several parents learned of the racy books after overhearing their kids snickering about the sexual themes.
The poem "I Hate School" in a book called "You Hear Me?" includes the rhyme, "F--- this s---, up the a--. I don't think I'll ever pass."
Another poem compares eating an orange to having sex, while several passages repeatedly use vulgar slang for genitalia. And the book "Am I Blue?" is an anthology of stories about gay teenagers that parents found too adult-themed for 11- and 12-year-olds.
Parent Gladys Martinez wrote a letter to her son's teacher after hearing him talk about "First French Kiss," which chronicles a teen's bumbling first makeout session in a closet.
"I mean, he shouldn't be sheltered from the world, but if he's going to learn that stuff, it shouldn't be at school," Martinez said.
Parent and leadership team member Michael Novak said the books, which are labeled "young adult" by the New York Public Library, are "material that is totally inappropriate for sixth-graders."
Principal Carmen Parache said she had not reviewed the books until she received complaints but said they were "definitely inappropriate." She said classroom materials would be more carefully screened in the future.
"As soon as I saw them, I pulled them and they are no longer in the school," she said. "This is something that shouldn't have happened and it will not happen again."
"You Hear Me?" was suggested for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders by the Columbia University Teachers College's Reading and Writing Project because it is the only anthology with poems written by minority teenagers, said Lucy Calkins, its founding director.
"It's a tricky balance to walk so we are putting books in their hands that they'll want to read," said Calkins, who had not seen the language in the book.
Ava Myint, 11, said she heard some boys in her class laughing and talking about the books.
"Maybe they're okay for some kids, but some of the boys are really immature, so maybe they shouldn't be allowed to read them," she said.
The Jim Webb book club?
It's all about priorities...
I gotta motor. I'll check in later...
I was going to say...
Homeschooling your kids will not stop you from paying that $1,000 per.
We should have someone check to see if 'Lost Soldiers' is in the school library.
No, it's all about available funds.
"Needless to say, any parent who puts a child in public school deserves whatever they get. The children probably don't, though..."
I attended parochial school from nursery school until 9th grade. We read all sorts of trashy books at recess and slumber parties: stuff girls brought from home, from the library, etc. Public, private, or homeschooled, trash is widely available and kids are curious.
Sometimes it gets one very far indeed. The article is just one small example: the parents complained, the offensive books were pulled from the shelves.
Public schools are controlled by the political process, which has a nasty habit of coming up with really inappropriate stuff. This should come as a surprise to no-one.
In this country, politics is a game that everyone can play. Too many good people give up too easily.
Furthermore, public schools are staffed with union-member lifers, who seem to be almost universally liberal and in favor of this sort of nonsense.
They may seem to be universally "liberal" (I prefer the term "Leftist") but not all of them are. Nor have the schools always been controlled by the teacher's unions. That has come about gradually over in the past fifty years or so. There is no law that says the trends cannot be reversed. I am not saying that would be easy, but it can be done.
Public schools should be better, but they are not. When parents make the decision of where to send their children to school, they have to look at the local public school as it is, not as they wish it would be.
Again, if the public schools are not as we wish them to be, it is our right -- and responsibility -- to demand that they improve.
As others have pointed out on this thread, the option to school one's children at home or to send them to private schools is not open to all. Those children also deserve a good education.
Or to put it differently, we cannot afford to pour billions of dollars into schools that act as indoctrination ceners for the Left. That is true even if we take care of our own children at home or in the private schools.
I agree; now a taco would be a different story.
#12....You forget to put the sarcasm tag to that remark?
...or an Erector set...
The books were not in the school library, they were in classroom libraries.
This, IMO, is worse as this school had several teachers who thought these books were ok for kids to read, instead of just one wacko librarian.
The ALA (American Library Association) does not believe in a concept of "age appropriate materials" and seeks to thwart attempts to screen web content for minors (extending to instructing minors how to circumvent suct controls).
The ALA is not family friendly. They are a biased left institution "above criticism".
It might be that the teachers saw a list of recommended books and purchased a bunch of them. Many classroom libraries have several hundred (I am approximating) books. I wouldn't think teachers would feel the need to read them all, especially if they felt they could trust the list.
Somebody should tell homeboy that the Sixties are over.
Or is this poem some kind of weird parody?
We should all demand better public schools, whether we have children in them or not. We should demand that we get our money's worth and we should demand that they not teach inappropriate material. But that all has nothing to do with a parent's decision on where to send his child. The former is a public political problem. The latter is about choosing what is best for one's own family.
As far as the option of private or parochial education not being available to all, pretty much every private or parochial school has tuition assistance for for the indigent. If you have too much money to qualify for such programs, it's a matter of priorities. A lot of parents who "can't afford it" seem to be able to afford a lot of other nice things. They just choose these things over the well-being of their own children.
We should all demand better public schools, whether we have children in them or not. We should demand that we get our money's worth and we should demand that they not teach inappropriate material. But that all has nothing to do with a parent's decision on where to send his child. The former is a public political problem. The latter is about choosing what is best for one's own family.
As far as the option of private or parochial education not being available to all, pretty much every private or parochial school has tuition assistance for for the indigent. If you have too much money to qualify for such programs, it's a matter of priorities. A lot of parents who "can't afford it" seem to be able to afford a lot of other nice things. They just choose these things over the well-being of their own children.
Exactly who I was thinking of. :)
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