Grade Level the Art of Racing in the Rain
The Texas Tribune
Finish of Texas School'southward Volume Ban Doesn't Mark the Last Affiliate
HIGHLAND PARK, Tex. — In mid-September, about two weeks later on sophomores at Highland Park High School began reading "The Art of Racing in the Rain," by Garth Stein, in their English classes, they were told to stop.
That book and vi others were being pulled from the curriculum over parental complaints about sexual content and explicit passages, schoolhouse officials said. The suspensions, however, did non final long. An uproar prompted Highland Park's superintendent, Dawson Orr, to opposite the determination two weeks later.
The other books were "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," past Sherman Alexie; "Song of Solomon," by Toni Morrison; "Siddhartha," past Hermann Hesse; "An Abundance of Katherines," by John Light-green; "The Glass Castle," past Jeannette Walls; and "The Working Poor," past David Shipler.
"There are no banned or suspended books in the Highland Park Independent School District today," Dr. Orr said. "We are delivering curriculum to kids; nosotros are using instructional resources; we are working very hard to deliver a level of transparency."
The return of the books to classrooms has not ended the intense debate over who should determine what is read in public classrooms. Since September, two opposing groups of parents take mobilized.
Speak Upward for Standards wants parents to accept more control over removing literature they find offensive. Its leaders include Tavia Hunt, who is married to the grandson of the oil tycoon H. L. Chase.
HP Kids Read says decisions most reading materials should exist left to the teachers. The group's efforts have caught the attention of national anti-censorship advocates.
Scrutiny of the books began in response to concerns from parents equally early equally last May, Dr. Orr said. It continued over the summertime and at the start of the school twelvemonth, with some parents circulating emails that highlighted sex activity scenes and references to rape, incest, prostitution and abortion in selected books. In Mr. Stein'due south "The Art of Racing in the Rain," a 2008 novel that follows a racecar commuter's struggle to raise his daughter after his wife'south death and is told from the perspective of a dog, parents identified passages they found troublesome, like a scene in which a xv-year-old girl makes sexual advances toward the driver.
Dr. Orr said the district hoped the temporary interruption of the books would "de-escalate the situation."
Instead, the move shocked many other parents in this Dallas enclave.
"We've been in this school district for 14 years, and this is the first fourth dimension whatever of this has popped up," said John Spicer, who has two children in the Highland Park commune and i who has already graduated. "Kids had books figuratively pulled out of their hands."
At a November school board meeting, the event was still smoldering. Marie Briner, an elementary school parent, said she was alarmed to larn of the content of some books in the curriculum. Equally a former Dallas County prosecutor in the kid abuse division, she said that if she had establish the material in a constabulary investigation, she would take entered it as evidence that a defendant was trying to "groom" potential victims.
"How is this any different than my sex activity offenders that have a diary of their fantasies? And I have to tell yous, it'south not different at all," she said.
Other parents argued that a diverse reading list that reflected a diversity of socioeconomic, racial and political viewpoints was essential in the district, which serves students in one of the wealthiest ZIP codes in the state.
"I beloved Highland Park, and I've always had faith in the commune because the parents really insist on academic excellence," Lynn Dickinson, the parent of an 8th grader, said. "Simply one thing to me that has always been a drawback is its homogeneous nature."
On Wednesday, a commission of 12 parents, educators and administrators, which reviewed "The Fine art of Racing in the Rain," determined it was appropriate for students in grade x or college. Parents can nonetheless appeal that decision to administrators.
Ms. Hunt was the lone dissenter on the committee. In review documents provided by the district, she said students could take "apropos letters" from the volume on topics like "seduction, rape, child pedophilia, whether oral sex is sex, premarital sex as normative, reincarnation, or that those in dominance over them corroborate of foul language."
"This New York Times best seller would be a good volume for someone to choose to read at the beach in the summer," she wrote. "Not every bit required reading. Especially considering the opportunity costs of the literature they missed out on equally a effect of this assignment."
Highland Park officials are reviewing the district's procedures for selecting instructional materials, which Dr. Orr said lacked clarity, and the way those selections may be challenged. Updates will be presented to the board on Dec. nine.
Nether electric current commune policy, teachers and administrators cull the materials used. The decision of whether to request parental consent for assigned readings is besides made at the campus level, said Helen Williams, a district spokeswoman.
In an email, Ms. Hunt said she hoped the district would prefer changes proposed past Speak Up for Standards requiring teachers to inform parents earlier their children were exposed to potentially controversial materials.
Some experts fearfulness that approach, sometimes referred to as "red flagging," has the aforementioned effect as pulling books off library shelves or out of classrooms. They contend that it stigmatizes texts that take educational value.
"Information technology's a prescription for educational chaos," said Joan Bertin, the executive managing director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, which has followed the Highland Park situation since the school suspended use of the books in September. "It is an extremely problematic road for the school to take."
It can too put a brunt on teachers, who must place potentially inflammatory material and find alternatives for parents who object. In November, the schoolhouse's English section made a pre-emptive move, sending a letter asking parents to sign off on Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Ruby-red Letter" and Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms." The books stayed.
Millie Davis, who leads the Intellectual Liberty Eye at the National Council of Teachers of English language, chosen the Highland Park book suspensions "distressing."
Over the terminal five years, she said, her organization had most normally tackled challenges to modernistic literature and books with multicultural themes.
"Information technology'due south a culture war. I'yard non certain what's going to happen," Ms. Davis said. "But most every day I put myself in the shoes of the teachers in that location, and I don't know how they go to work."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/us/end-of-schools-book-ban-doesnt-mark-the-last-chapter.html
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