Sarahfeena,
I’m not really disagreeing with you, just using your post as a jumping off point to express my opinions. I’m going to err on the side of terseness rather than nit-pickery (or hair-splittery) this morning and stop here.
Right on time.
It was depressing when I opened the article in question, “round rock… wait, but, that’s… that’s where i live! Aaaarg they’re at it again!!!”
Walking to places isn’t really possible here. For instance, I went to the major high school in town. I live a few miles, maybe 5 at most, away from it. In theory, I could have ridden my bike, except this town is not designed for such hippy type activity. To do so, I would have had to ride a few miles on a very busy 4 lane road with a tiny shoulder and none of those crazy side walk things.
Also not surprised that the school got caught up in something this pointless that doesn’t relate to educating kids at all. When I was in high school there, they had a policy of giving saturday detentions for being late to class. At all late, like 1 minute late. But skipping class didn’t bring that kind of punishment. So if I was late to class, it was better for me to skip than be late. Brilliant guys.
Oh, and this is off topic completely, but OP, please don’t rely on the school to teach sex education of any sort to your kids. If I had relied on what I learned from them, my friends or myself would have likely ended up having abortions at 18 or with some disease. Luckily, I did a year of high school in another state, and what I learned there was eye opening.
Its about six for us, but its moot anyway as middle schoolers aren’t permitted to leave the middle school campus - so even if it were next door, they couldn’t walk over to the high school to get a book - that would be leaving the middle school campus. And there are no non-school library hours. There are no interlibrary loans within the school district (that’s what public libraries are for - we barely have librarians anymore - we don’t in the elementary school - to administer such things). So no, that book, in our district, would now be inaccessible to middle schoolers through the school libraries - which is the only library most of these kids ever get the opportunity to visit (and bookstores - hah!).
Did you miss this part of the story:
I had a friend who now has a kid who is a sophomore in college. When the kid was eight or nine, he got into comic books. My friend said “well, it isn’t great literature, but he is READING - and I’ve never been able to really get him to read before.”
It would be great if I could get my kids to read Robert Louis Stevenson or Madeline L’Engle. You know what…they don’t. If they are going to read, they read popcorn. I can get them to read popcorn. And by reading popcorn, they become better readers. Maybe, eventually, they’ll discover the difference between crap and worthwhile reading - and I’ll have little literature snobs like myself … and maybe they’ll read pulp romances and whatever the 2020 equalvent of Tom Clancy is. But they’ll be readers.
I don’t think it matters if the book is available elsewhere, or if it’s a good book for the curriculum or whatever.
The school librarian chose this book for the collection. That’s the job. That’s why they pay the librarian, what he was trained for.
Then two panels, the first made up of school officials and parents, the second chosen from district officials and parents, were convened. BOTH of them decided the book was appropriate.
If you’re not going to listen to your employee, who is trained, chosen and paid to do the job of choosing what books are appropriate for the students, and you’re not going to listen to TWO different committees chosen from the parents and school officials, and you’re just going to strike out on your own, you are an asshat and not fit to be a school superintendent. It’s that simple.
When I was a kid, there was a series of literary classics in comic book format…little digest-sized adaptations of things like Jane Eyre and Treasure Island and Billy Budd. I don’t know if they’re still around or even what the series was called at this point, though.
Other parents did get their say and, along with school officials, decided the book should stay:
So what you have here is one weasely administrator prioritizing one parent’s objection over the recommendations of other parents and school officials with differing opinions. How does that sound reasonable?
Sounds to me like the process was circumvented.
No, these weren’t full-sized staple-bound comic books. They were digest-sized perfect-bound paperbacks.
Depends on the area-some are pretty safe-some I wouldn’t let them walk two BLOCKS, let alone two miles. It isn’t so HOW LONG, but WHERE they are walking is safe. And besides, as said, I highly doubt the HS library would let said MS-er check said book out. :rolleyes:
Hell, I wouldn’t even have been able to walk to the MIDDLE SCHOOL (had I gone there, anyways, which I didn’t-I went to Catholic school). Not all kids are capable of doing so.
Fuck, too late to edit. Never mind-others have said what I did-that’ll learn me to read the whole thread before replying to one damned post. Fuck it.
:smack::smack::smack:
In response to the talk that TTYL isn’t literary material, I’d like to point out that it wasn’t banned for not being literary material. If the librarian chose not to purchase TTYL because it had no literary merit, there would be no pit thread and no outrage. The outrage comes from a book being banned because one parent found it offensive, and the spineless superintendent ignoring the multitudes who thought the book was fine. TTFL, from it’s name and premise seems to be geared toward middle school girls, so I suspect that it wasn’t too out of line. The outrage is a bit tempered for me by the fact that the book was retained by the school system, but still seems to be a bad thing to me.
You can buy that book right now on Amazon for 1 cent (plus S&H, of course!). You have every right to buy a copy for your kids.
But the problem isn’t that the book is completely unavailable–it’s that one parent making a big enough fuss got a book removed that the rest of the parents and the library staff thought was acceptable reading material. The issue is that just because Susie Steamroller gets her panties in a twist about objectionable language (or whatever), that doesn’t give her the right to determine the reading material available for the rest of the families at that school.
The school had guidelines in place to deal with parent complaints, she followed them and the decision didn’t go her way, so she complained loudly enough that the superintendent caved in to her demands. How is that right or fair?
Well instead of arguing on an internet message board, hold that pent up frustration and take it to a rally in front of the superintendents office. Make him know that it’s not going to be easier to ban the book than to not ban it.
Even though I’m a librarian, I think the school made the right call in this case.
First, the book wasn’t “banned”, it was moved to the high school library, a more age appropriate place for it. Why is the HS more age appropriate?
Well…
I just picked the book up off the shelf (we keep it in the teen area, which is aimed at kids 13-18, though 10-12 like to read these books as well) and read through the first few pages, which is mentioned as being particularly vulgar.
The book is about a trio of tenth graders (15-16) and in the first couple of pages they discuss wanting to touch the penis of a male classmate. One of the girls also asks another one, “Was he staring at your boobs in class?” Then I put the book and started writing this post, so who knows where it goes from there.
The point it, the book is more appropriate for the HS library and while I hate censorship, they did right.
I agree. My once 12 year old daughters don’t need to learn about female ejaculation at this point in their lives. TMI
How would they feel if they don’t ejaculate ? Not normal ?
For the record - she.
What I object to is that another parent took it upon themselves to determine what is right or wrong for my child.
The book may not have been appropriate for her child and I totally support her right to not allow her child to read it. However, the book was deemed appropriate for 11-13 year olds by the middle school librarian, the middle school principal and not one, but two panels of parents. I trust the middle school librarians to be able to adequately assess what is and isn’t appropriate reading material for that age group. Additionally, if there were books on the shelves that I did not feel my child was ready to read, then I believe it is MY obligation to make sure that my kid doesn’t read it.