Hi Geneva,
I am not a librarian and generally write on internet use issues. But in my
role as "mom" I challenged the presentation of a play in our building.
My kids go to the neighborhood school in a building with two schools. The
other school is what our district calls an "alternative school" which is
supposed to provide a distinctive educational strategy -- but which merely
has inequitable student management privileges. They have far fewer poverty
and minority kids than does our more integrated neighborhood school.
The 4th grade teacher of this school was having his students present a play.
I was astounded to walk past the lunchroom one daywhen they were practicing
and hear him say to his students, "Come on you hillbillies, let's get on
stage." The play was a very old play, set in Appalachia. The scene was of a
mountain family house. The play directed that the stage be strewn with
clothes and trash. In the first scene of the play, a character comes in with
a dead chicken stating that this is the second dead chicken this week. All
of the characters then try to determine how many chickens they have left, as
they started the week with 3 chickens. Only one "intelligent" daughter is
able to get the answer correct all of the other characters are directed to
look at the audience with dumb expressions on their faces -- sure to get a
laugh.
I challenged the presentation of this play because it made use of a
derogatory term ("hillbilly") and depicted poor rural families as stupid and
slovenly.
I had further incentive to object to this play because it was going to be
shown to all of the students in both schools. At the time my youngest son
was in kindergarten. Bakul was adopted from India at 4 1/2 and came home
weighing 19 pounds. He has some substantial learning challenges and at that
time could not have answered the question"in I had 3 chickens and 2 died how
many would be left." I did not think it appropriate for students in this
school to learn that it was funny to laugh at someone who might not know the
answer to what to them was to them a simple question.
The principal handled the situation horribly. She set me up for a meeting
with the site council of the other school -- to which, unknown to me, all of
the parents of the students in this teacher's class had been invited. So
this was basically a lynch mob. I contacted the district and found out the
process the principal should have followed. But the district was not
inclined to cancel the play (in the time delay because the principal did not
handle the situation promptly the kids had been working on the play). Most
of the teachers in my kid's school refused to take their students to the
performance.
I appealed the decision to let the play proceed after the fact so as to
prevent it from being used another time -- and to prove my point. The
teacher who presented the play declined to participate in the appeal and
indicated he would not produce the play again, so in a sense I prevailed.
The principal and the teacher transferred to another school the following
year, thank goodness.
Sometimes there are very good reasons to challenge a book or other
curriculum. It is very important that processes be in place to deal with
such situations and for administrators to know what those processes are or
the situation could get more ugly than it should.
Nancy
> -----Original Message-----
> From: School Library Media & Network Communications
> [mailto:LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Geneva Johnson
> Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 9:47 AM
> To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Subject: Target: Ethics/Book Challenges
>
> I am new to LM_NET. I am a graduate student at NSU (Oklahoma). One of
> my assignments is to look for different opinions on library censorship
> and book challenges.
>
> My questions: Have you ever had an instance of censorship/attempted
> censorship or an ethics violation at your library? What happened? What
> book or materials were involved? What was the result? What are the
> polices at your site/district for book challenging?
>
> I realize that these are old questions and they have probably been
> addressed many times. I do appreciate any assistance you may be able to
> provide.
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
> Geneva Johnson
> 4th Grade Teacher
> Ator Heights Elementary
> Owasso Public Schools
> johnsong@owasso.k12.ok.us
***************************************************************
--
Nancy Willard, M.S., J.D.
Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use
http://csriu.org
nwillard@csriu.org
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