Manda JO, one hits his personal subcultural “Ew Icky”/protect the children (and “children” they be until the magic occurs precisely on their 18th birthday) line and one does not. So it’s apples to oranges.
Of course your analogy is a valid one.
How so? I pointed out the cheers did not involve explicit sexual material.
Well your standard had been
And by “forced into” the situation you included signing up for an optional program that included the material that made the girl uncomfortable.
Manda JO’s hypothetical girl was “in the realm of age of emerging sexuality.” If she signed up for that extracurricular activity then participation would include doing something that she was sexually uncomfortable with. Being “explicit” crosses your particular “Ew” point but this girl’s “Ew” point was dancing in a provocative manner in a skimpy outfit. (Honestly hers makes more sense to me.) I thought that you believed in giving “the benefit of the doubt to the student.” Ah, but only if the student’s discomfort agrees with yours.
The function of a school is education. The advanced class is no more optional than any other class. You’re comparing this to an activity that has no educational purpose and can be eliminated (and often is) from school budgets when money is tight. THAT is an optional program. Beyond that, you think cheerleading is immune from the same standards of protection provided other students. Under no circumstances would a sexually explicit routine survive a student’s complaint or a complaint from the public at large. And completely aside from this reality, there is nothing skimpy about a cheerleader’s uniform. There is virtually no neckline at all and the skirts cover more than shorts do. There is no explicit sexuality to them and they are basically the same right down to the 2nd grade.
No one has to take an advanced class to graduate, and advanced academics can be–and often are–eliminated from school budgets when money is tight. How on earth is it not optional?
You haven’t been to a high school football game lately, have you? I was talking about Dance/drill teams, not cheer squads. And sexual routines are absolutely standard and would absolutely survive a student or teacher complaint–you can’t win a dance competition if you don’t shake your ass–trust me on this. Did you even look at the videos I linked to, especially the second one?
Here are some more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31jwvMnYRmk --This one is a little over the top even for “these days”, but it shows you how far you have to go to get to controversy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8wSyk_29gs This one is a VERY modest competition piece–you can’t see a sweet, “late-blooming” church girl uncomfortable with doing this, wearing this, in front of a crowd? I can.
Again, the purpose of school is education, not cheer/drill/squads. Advanced academics are subject to the same content standards as any other class.
None of the video’s you listed were anywhere near the explicit nature of the book yet the Jonesboro squad was suspended. This is exactly what I said would happen if they exceeded public standards. You’ve illustrated my point for me.
You’re argument seems to be that the dances are sexy therefore are the same as explicit sexual material. The girl in question may or may not like the routines you’ve listed but if she were on the Jonesboro Squad and raised concerns over the material the result would be the same.
Magiver you’ve said so many things that are just wrong that it is hard to even start or to persist with you.
Drill squads are often cut out of High Schools? Not that your point really has any point but still making shit up is intolerable. Really? You know I have about heard of lots of High School budget discussions. And I have heard about Arts being cut … often. PE being cut down. Teaching positions let go. Hell yes (as Manda JO points out) some advanced classes being cut. I’ve never heard that they are cutting out the cheerleaders or the drill squads.
The advanced class is not optional? Huh?!? Again making shit up. Any advanced class is optional. A student can be in the IB Diplomat program or not. A student can choose which classes in the IB program are at college level and which ones are not. My current High Schooler is not required to take Honors World History, but if he takes it and chooses not to read material that is critical of various religious beliefs, or describes others positively, as part of the wide variety of material of all sorts of perspectives that they read, then he will have to take the grade hit, even if he is reading something he is “totally against” - but he could have not taken the class if he desired to avoid challenges to his perspectives. The class is not required.
“Advanced academics are subject to the same content standards as any other class.”? Also an untrue statement. The friggin’ point is that they have different standards! Honors history covers different material, material more likely to challenge students, more controversial material, than does the regular class. It better have different content standards!
My current High Schooler is in Marching Band so I’ve seen some of our drill team’s routines. And Manda JO is dead on right. If you sign up for the team - open to 14 year olds - you are expected to get into a skimpy outfit and dance in a sexually provocative manner. It is not the same as a book with a few sexually explicit passages; it is much more past a reasonable “Ew” point. I can much more understand a 14 or 15 yo girl being uncomfortable with that than with a High School Senior in an advanced class being freaked out reading a book with a few sexually explicit sections in it, that she had the option of having her parents black out for her. Could have just quietly done so, without even making any fuss at all, and been able to participate in the class just fine, and still not had her delicate pristine mind scarred forever by a few racy passages, instead of being an attention whore.
But in any case if you sign up for the class/team and you refuse to participate in significant parts of what the class/team does, be it competitive dance routines or reading a book that is a third of the class time, you should not be surprised to be told that this class/team is “not for you”.
Most of my classes were optional in High School. I chose how far to take the class.
Again, the function of school is education. Math, English, and Science are not an extra curricular functions like dancing. The class she took was a choice just like all the other classes are. Nobody is forced to take calculus but it is part of the educational mix available to students. The “optional” comparison between an after school activity, and a scholastic class for credit is obvious. One supports the function of schools, the other does not. As a function of scholastic achievement, accredited classes would be held to that purpose. Students have every right to expect that a literature class be held within the bounds consistent with their age group. It’s not the mere mention of sex, it’s the explicit level of the text.
Again, the dancing in the video’s aren’t even close to the level of explicit sex in the book. The video posted shows what happens when they tried to bump (and grind) it up a notch. They were banned. Sexy is not the same as explicit sex. It’s the difference between kissing in a school play and masturbating. What part of this don’t you understand? Seriously.
Sexy in a non-curriculum class (having nothing to do with education) is not the same as explicit sex in an academic class (the function of school).
Ours is the first age in history which has asked the child what he would tolerate learning. . . . No one asks the student if algebra pleases him or if he finds it satisfactory that some French verbs are irregular, but he prefers Hersey to Hawthorne, his taste must prevail.
. . . . .
And if the student finds that this is not to his taste? Well, that is regrettable. Most regrettable. His taste should not be consulted; it is being formed.*
–Flannery O’Connor
*A contemporary best seller.
Taste is different than the explicitness of content. Taste was never in question. There are limits in material and it doesn’t stop at the 12th grade. Nobody would accept a math problem that asked the probability of getting AIDS if 12 men ass fuck you in prison. If a girl on the cheer team that was banned had objected to the material it would never have made it into public view.
When I was in HS, we would have begged to read something explicit in class. Instead, I had to check out Kathleen Woodiwiss from the library and loan it to all my friends.
I think that makes me a purveyor of smut.
But, on topic, damn. They make some delicate high schoolers nowadays.
It makes you an individual within a range of normal. I read the Naked Ape on the recommendation of my 7th grade science teacher. That was in a Catholic school.
Nah, kids are kids. I had a variety of friends in high school and they fit on both sides of the wallflower scale. They all grew up in time, and on their own schedule. We have always made allowances for age and acceptable material and this case was no different.
“Taste” is a big word that includes both the meaning you object to and the issue as you see it. That the novel is not “to [her] taste” is *exactly *the crux of the problem; whether the specifics of her objections are due to sexual explicitness or not is less relevant. The quote is still perfectly appropriate to the situation.
It’s a great quote, but disagree that it applies. She objected to the graphic, explicit nature of the text.
This is no different than the cheer team example except they weren’t explicitly portraying sex, they were merely suggestive in their routine.