Well, it finally happened. Even in a tiny SW Missouri town, they do ban a book every now and then. (Cue theme from "Footloose")
Well, it finally happened.
I live in SW Missouri, north of Springfield/Branson area, in happy little Stockton. The school here has persevered during Missouri's effort to raise standards in post-John Ashcroft-initiated salary hikes, SB380 testing requirements, and every legislators' "Accountability" mantra since 1985. In fact, the school has been recognized for meeting state standards throughout the 2000's and was lauded as the "Outstanding Rural School" by an organization called MARE, the state's guardian of rural education.
We've been through some adventures before in Stockton. The Board of Education forbade a trip by the high school band to Disney World in the late 90's, largely due to Disney's extension of benefits to same-sex partners. (Eventually, the band traveled to Corpus Christi and San Antonio. Whee!)
Like every other small town, we have a a BOE that is, collectively, a better coach than the football coach, knows more about rubber roofs than the maintenance staff, and most certainly knows more about school finance than the state teacher's organization or any superintendent that's tried to assemble a fair salary schedule. It comes with the territory in any of these little fiefdoms.
So, here we are in 2010. The BOE has banned a book, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie. In theory, the school district has a policy of accepting a book challenge from a concerned patron, reviewing the book by a selected committee, and making a recommendation to the Board. The BOE has to make the decision to retain the book, relegate it to the library with a cautionary sticker of "adult content", or remove the book altogether.
In reality, the committee, which was stacked with non-tenured teachers and relatives of the Board, recommended to pull the book from the teaching curriculum but not from the school's library. Bad enough...however, the committee was overruled by the Board. The BOE, in less than six minutes of presentation, motion, second, and discussion, moved to remove the book from the school district altogether. The BOE cited the book's adult language and sexual content. The BOE member making the motion emphasized the fact that he moved his family to a small town to get away from "big-city" problems and exposure to these kinds of books.
The book was a common reading for the communication arts department for the 2009-10 school year. All freshmen and sophomores have already read the book, and the juniors and seniors were halfway through when the ban went in place. All students had a syllabus of common readings and activities that parents signed off on at the beginning of the school year. Any parent that objected to a common reading had the opportunity to request an alternative reading assignment.
Your thoughts? (Link and poll attached)
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