Just got disturbing email regarding English class for my rising freshman

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do you. My kid isn’t reading it. Luckily they have alternatives.

As long as you are consistent with pulling them out when it is time to read Shakespeare and tons of other books.

Shakespeare has tremendous literary and historical value.

This book is the Teen Vogue version of school work.

So you'd be OK with Sabbath's Theater? It has 'tremendous literary' value.

It seems they are ok with violence and sexual content as long as it was published long enough ago to be considered a "classic" (nevermind if it was actually considered a classic at the time of publication). But if it is a new publication, then it cannot have violence or sexual content and they are offended.

[Anonymous]

My daughter read a book last year where the plot centered on a high schooler getting sexually assaulted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry OP, you are not going to get much sympathy here.

This is just another drop in mainstream culture becoming more openly sexual. Generally speaking the only groups of people who tend to oppose this trend are religious groups. Therefore, you will see a lot of pushback like the comments you see here.

Right wing religious groups. I don't hear the episcopalians or the methodists complaining. As every one has pointed out, the issue seems to be the newness of the books or the fact there are minorities. None of you express concern with the 'classics', which address similar themes. Of course, I probably give you too much credit. You don't oppose the classics because you never read them or you were too dense to understand what they were actually talking about.

Most of the book selections have nothing to do with literature or critical thinking. They are selected to prove how progressive a teacher or school is vs any really teaching objective.

I know well meaning white liberals want to appear to be so progressive, open minded, cool and these are the same parents who would not let there 10 yr old watch PG13 movies, would freak out if they found out their kid was viewing videos of sexual acts and masturbation and would take the kids phone, and don’t want their kids to date until senior year. And yet somehow they are a ok with reading sexually explicit passages and having them discuss them in class and no doubt telling their squeamish kid who doesn’t want to engage in that convo bc they are uncomfortable that they are being silly and they are lucky they are getting the chance to read these books and discuss

You can't possibly be arguing that a teenager reading a poem about two teenagers making out, deciding not to move on to sex, and stopping is the same as a 10 year old watching videos of people having sex.

If you actually don't get the difference between those two things, you probably shouldn't be raising children.

+1

WTH?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter read a book last year where the plot centered on a high schooler getting sexually assaulted.

Ugh. Was it Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter read a book last year where the plot centered on a high schooler getting sexually assaulted.

How did she handle the book?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately yes. Teachers are required to alert parents! However, parents can ask for specific titles, read them and opt their child out of any they feel are not appropriate. Teachers are required to provide an alternative assignment and to avoid any action or statement that would be critical of the child or parent.

But if my child is the only one doing the alternative assignment, they won’t be part of any class discussions. How would that work? Won’t it be harder?

It will make more work for the teacher, and your kid won't learn nearly enough, but you'll have saved your kid from the trauma of reading Romeo and Juliet. Plus, it's always fun to embarrass your kid!

It’s not a classic, unfortunately. I would totally be on board with a classic. It’s a woke novel with “masturbation, heavy naked petting,” etc.

+1
It’s odd that just the mere fact that they need to send out this letter is not the deterrent needed for the decision-makers to pause and ask “is this necessary reading for 14/15-year olds? Or is there maybe a book that can be used to teach the same literary concepts that isn’t sexually explicit?

At first we ordered a copy for our DD to have and fully intending for her to participate in reading it. (I naively thought that this letter must be the result of some ultra right wing conservative book-bit ing alarmist moms and surely it can’t really be that explicit or graphic…..but no. It turned out I was wrong.)

It’s very graphic, and as explicit as reading soft core pornography.
This is no “Judy Blume” moment. It’s extremely graphic description of erections, masturbation, and weird discussions of the characters mom talking about her conflation of tampon use and sexual promiscuity. Exceedingly strange topics for an English class discussion on mixed company.

But I guess that’s where we are now.

We had similar issues with an APS English / Literary HS teacher, where every book or article was a BLM or woke type book. The books and articles were used to express English class concepts, but they were just over the top and definitely not any traditional classics - and the discussions focused on the politics, and not the literary concept being taught. Teacher was not a very good teacher, and we realized that DC English skills had suffered when they took the PSAT. We had to get a tutor to catch our DC up to where they should be with English skills. Best of luck.

[Anonymous]

"This letter is to inform you that your student will encounter the following instructional materials that contain sexually explicit content as part of the course named below. "

But the list was blank, so....

[Anonymous]

Shakespeare was the MCU of his day.
Illiterate, uneducated people came to watch his shows.

This man wrote a joke about sticking a man's tongue in a woman's tail.

Yes it's cool that he could write in iambic pentameter, even though it made the lines awkward.

No him writing in unfamiliar language doesn't make it better literature, even if you have be smart
now to decide his writing.

Yes Claire Danes's entrance is the best thing about Romeo and Juliet.

People who exalt Shakespeare do it for embarrassingly wrong reasons.

[Anonymous]

If I want my child reading an attempt to justify raping and murdering girls, I'll read it in the Bible like motjer taught me, thank you very much

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait til ya’ll read the fun parts of the Bible 😂 ten bucks says all the Christian pearl clutchers kids know ALL those passages.

Weird that you assume the people who object to assigning 14-year-olds to collectively read descriptive passages about masturbation in class are Christian Pearl clutchers instead of parents who—as children—may have experienced similar grooming behaviors of adults (l sharing of sexual content in order to normalize) and are traumatized by that, and therefor don’t want their daughter thinking that having a read-aloud or discussion of graphic sexual passages with their 45-year-old male teacher is normal.
Nope, we aren’t all Pearl clutchers or Christian.
Just maybe had a bit more real life experience with this topic than you.

Mmm, yes, pass the shame and trauma on to your children to protect them from ever having the mental tools to understand sex and rape.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can thank Moms for Liberty and all the ridiculous book bans the far right is pushing on everyone else.
If you are actually concerned and not just trying to stir up some drama, call the school and ask what book required the notice.

The best thing about Moms For Liberty is that the whole thing was just an astroturf marketing campaign for some company trying to take over Scholastic's market and get in on the Book Fair profits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo.

That’s a hard no.

Anonymous wrote:
Why?

Sorry, typo. Should have written "on".

[Anonymous]

I'm impressed by the idea that parents think that the reason their kids screwing like rabbits is because they are.. reading books about it.

I saw a pretty strong inverse relationship between reading books and having sex when I was a teen .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm impressed by the idea that parents think that the reason their kids screwing like rabbits is because they are.. reading books about it.

I saw a pretty strong inverse relationship between reading books and having sex when I was a teen .

Where did you get that in this discussion at all?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm impressed by the idea that parents think that the reason their kids screwing like rabbits is because they are.. reading books about it.

I saw a pretty strong inverse relationship between reading books and having sex when I was a teen .

Except this is a book about a girl who says no to sex, so maybe PP’s are afraid that if it’s taught girls might say no to their sons?