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Folks, Victoria, I in no way am likely to judge the Media Specialist of Apple Valley, I do think their board minutes give us an understanding of the depth of this battle for them and anytime you are in that type of battle it is a horrendous pressure on your life. You can hardly sleep or eat when you have to go through things like this. In fact I honor them for standing up to their convictions. And if you remember how I started this link, I started by leaning in their direction and afterward being called on by a student to reconsider. We face Censors every day, from within and without, and sometimes we need to stop and ask ourselves if we are censoring because of our ideologies. I might have done that without realizing it had a student not encouraged me to look deeper inside and out in order to find a more equitable answer. When I first started researching this issue, I did find their year long struggle on the web and it compelled me to look more deeply into the issue. It compelled me to ask the larger community of LM-Net. That is why I am referring to their struggle One other note: as our Native American friend pointed out the Dominant culture often suppress the sub culture. In fact, I think I would be hard pressed to find supportive reviews on the Sub-culture "Fundamentalist Christians" books about Creationism. They are not popular people right now and so I don't think I can rely heavily on reviews about their books from people in the main-stream of our society. If I were to think that the average reviewer could rise above a Dominate-Culture point of view and judge their books fairly then I would have to think they did they same when they mis-judged the literature of African, Hispanic or Native Americans. From what history has taught me, I would have to lie to myself about our own cultures racism. So I would have to ask Fundamentalist about what they feel most reflects their point of view, just like we should have asked Native Americans about material that supported their culture when it was not popular to have Native American Literature. Otherwise I would have been just another White Liberal pushing my idea of what Native American Literature should be. Now this works for inclusion, but we must we wiser than we were in the past when we handle exclusion. Here is an example of what could have gone wrong, but I think is turning out alright. One English teacher, our Teacher of the Year, is being challenged for using, "To Kill a Mocking Bird" because a distinguished African-American Pastor in our community feels it makes African-American people look bad. I don't understand why he feels that way about this book, but I understand his pain and I have an obligation to look deeper at my collection and my heart in order to keep it balanced, sensitive, yet responsible. There is something in almost every major Idea that people disagree with. If I just pull "To Kill a Mocking Bird." at his request though, I will have to clear my shelves, and my students would be confined to ignorance. The list of books that have ideas that are offensive to one group or another is overwhelming. We can't use that as our only criteria for selection. The measure is then much more complex and that is why we have a "reconsideration policy." Sometimes, we need to have more input on these complex issues. Our reconsideration committee decided to keep this book in our curriculum, but to encourage discussions about the very issues this pastor brought up. We chose to help our students think more deeply and with greater compassion to this African-American's point of view. So far-so good. If we operate in a vacuum, then we're going to get into trouble. That is one of the reasons I brought this issue up on LM-Net. I needed not to operate in a vacuum on this issue about Creationism. Together we can be much more effective than alone or even just within our district. This is the power of the "Global Community." Because I don't have all the answers, because I am not finished growing even after 21 years in this business, I can go to a place like LM-Net and get a broader perspective. Folks, this is the gift of a free society where freedom of speech abounds. Thanks again Tom Tom Ross Director of Library/Media Aitkin Public Schools 306 2nd St. NW Aitkin, MN 56431 218-927-2115 ext. 207 tross@aitkin.k12.mn.us Fax Wave 209-882-5565 "Another day, another reason to be thankful." :-) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-= All postings to LM_NET are protected under copyright law. To quit LM_NET (or set-reset NOMAIL or DIGEST), send email to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL or 3) SET LM_NET DIGEST 4) SET LM_NET MAIL * Please allow for confirmation from Listserv. 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