the sound of a preacher man
today, my friend - the would-be preacher/teacher - stopped by my room with one of my books in his hand. see, i let my students borrow books from my room, and they're labelled so that if they find their way into another teacher's room, they can be returned. so, he holds up the book (which is a romance novel - one of about 10 in my room - 10 books out of maybe 300), and here's how the conversation goes from there:
he: i'm returning your book
she: okay
he (holding it so she can see the spine): it has your name on it
she: okay
he: i don't approve of this book
she: okay
he (holding it so she can see the cover): have you looked at the cover?
she: yes
he: well, i don't think it's appropriate. i don't think you should let them read these.
she: okay. i'm not taking them off my shelves
he (gives her a look indicating his displeasure): ....
she: i'm not telling them they can't read those books
he: well, i might take this to the principal
she (feeling as though she should be quivering in her boots - in his eyes): feel free to do that
he: i might have to
she: and if you do, i'll tell him the same thing i'm telling you. they can buy the books at walmart, and i'm not taking them off of my shelf. if he tells me that i have to pull them, then i probably will, but i don't think they're any worse than the stephen king books, or the dean koontz books, or any of the other books that have violence or sex in them.
he (still staring) ...
she: and if you decide to go to the principal, it won't affect our friendship, but you have to understand that just like you have your beliefs, i have mine, and i'm willing to stand up for them
both (awkwardly moving on to other subjects)...
GROWL. i won't censor the books that i have in my classroom. i don't force the students to read the smut, and i don't force them to read the bible. both are available. interestingly enough, both have been censored in english classrooms before. somehow, i think that the first is more likely to be censored here than the second. and i'm trying to build life-long readers who will pass the habit on to their children and their grandchildren, and he's worried about a little sex?? yeesh, man. they're teenagers. they don't want to read about elizabethan dining habits. however, if we start censoring books with sex, violence, drugs, and other things that our children deal with ON A DAILY BASIS, then all we'll have left is pride and prejudice (and other similar books), which the kids won't want to read - thus destroying whatever chance we had of getting them into books. we need to look at the big picture here, which i think i'm doing. if i have to pull these books, then i will be handing out "I read banned books" buttons to my students, and i'll find a way of getting the message across. there's a small chance that i'm blowing this out of proportion, but as an advocate for free speech, i really don't think so. if they can put "in god we trust" on the wall in my classroom, then i can put smut in my classroom library. despite the republican administration, we do not live under big brother's thumb quite yet.
student update
1. one of my favorite students dropped a note off in my box today. i'm concerned about her. i feel the need to give her a hug and tell her that i love her.
2. one of my other favorite students sent word for me to visit him in alternative school, which i did today. he turned in a major assignment, and he began working on his utopia to turn in by friday. he's the only person i've ever received work from during a sentence in alternative, which makes him pretty damn special. i asked the assistant principal about getting him some remediation, and she said that part of the punishment involved with being in alternative is the fact that the kids do fall behind their classes. so we apparently set them up for failure. doesn't anybody see anything wrong with this picture?
sigh. at least the hair was a hit. one of my (male) students called it cute, then blushed and said that, of course, he thought that it was always cute.