Just got disturbing email regarding English class for my rising freshman

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo.

That’s a hard no.

So you've read it?

Yes. When they tried making mine read that shit.

I found it anti-Christian and pornographic for a child to be reading.

Send your child to Catholic school if it's so anti-Christian! The world doesn't revolve around your religion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't have any issue with that book. My kid read it in middle school.

I also know how high school English teachers run book clubs, for they are trained. Knowing how book clubs are run, I have no problem with almost any book being used in a high school course.

Would you feel the same way if your daughter's English teacher last year was the Langley football coach?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo.

That’s a hard no.

So you've read it?

The Poet X should not be a class required book due to the desecration of the most sacred part of Catholicism, the Eucharist.

FCPS would not allow a book anywhere near a classroom that denigrated Mohammed in the same way that this book desecrates the Eucharist.

Leave it as a classroom book for kids to choose on their own, but remove it from the class reading lists.

Get over yourself. I am guessing you're against Harry Potter then?

[Anonymous]

This is so dumb. Why don't they just say they'll be teaching The Grapes of Wrath name.the text so people know not to worry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did none of you go to High School? I'm genuinely confused by these responses.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo.

That’s a hard no.

So you've read it?

The Poet X should not be a class required book due to the desecration of the most sacred part of Catholicism, the Eucharist.

FCPS would not allow a book anywhere near a classroom that denigrated Mohammed in the same way that this book desecrates the Eucharist.

Leave it as a classroom book for kids to choose on their own, but remove it from the class reading lists.

+1
Was waiting for someone to bring this up.
Puts a Catholic family in an extremely uncomfortable position and fcps would never dream of assigning a book where the main character has a crisis of Muslim faith based on the parents questionable interpretation of Islam.

[Anonymous]

This regulation was specifically written to make parents think their kids were being exposed to bestiality or weird fetishes as a political stunt. I love how the never comes up extreme sexual practices bookend the broad and purposely vague sexual excitement or nudity. It’s a MAGA stunt to get more book banners. Don’t fall for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have any issue with that book. My kid read it in middle school.

I also know how high school English teachers run book clubs, for they are trained. Knowing how book clubs are run, I have no problem with almost any book being used in a high school course.

Would you feel the same way if your daughter's English teacher last year was the Langley football coach?

+100
Disturbing the blind trust that parents give teachers just because of their title.

[Anonymous]

Poor teachers. I feel bad for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did none of you go to High School? I'm genuinely confused by these responses.

Confused by this question.
What explicit masturbation scenes did your teachers require you to read in high school?

I went to a small, academically advanced private school. We read a whole host of books, including many with explicit content (I can think of rape, bestiality, incest, and female sexual awakenings, among other content). We didn't read them for the sex - we read them for the complexity of themes and experiences to discuss, as well as the literary style - but the sex was there. Maybe less academic schools weren't focused on complex texts? I'm just shocked other people supposedly weren't reading great works, sex and all, in HS.

Or maybe I'm shocked that masturbation seems taboo to you for teens? I mean - your teen is *definitely* masturbating. And thinking about sex and watching about sex and talking about sex, if they're not already having sex.

+1

And to our rabble rouser, what do you think will happen if they read the book? If YOU are uncomfortable with the book, ask for an alternative title if that's your jam. But don't restrict my child's reading of the book in school. I am offended that you believe that bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ! WILD!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not a fan of book banning and would let my kid read whatever they wanted and/or was assigned. I read a different Elizabeth Acevedo book and can see where this author uses sexualized language that is worth warning parents about. Curious if it’s in curriculum or an extra the teacher chose?

I was part of a fcps book review committee last year. I did not review that particular book, but it was on the FCPS curriculum list for required 9th grade reading.

I am unsure if it was a "The class will now read and discuss chapter 5 of Poet X and explain how the sexual and anti Christian themes relate to our personal lives" or if it was used in a "Choose one of these 10 book options on identity, and write a paper explaining how the themes of your chosen book relates to identity."

There is a very big difference between the former and the latter. Given the subject matter and the age, one is completely unacceptable, and one is slightly more acceptable.

I am pretty open about reading any books, but I do think there is something really icky about the adults in FCPS trying to create situations that normalize our minor kids discussing books with graphic sex scenes with random adults. Our school pyramid has had multiple high school and junior teachers fired in the 12 years I have had teens enrolled in FCPS middle and high school for inappropriate behavior with teenagers and older elementary kids, including discussing sexual topics with the kids on social media, up to soliciting sex online from actual teens. Other pyramids have this happen too, most lately the Langley football coach, with enough regularity across the entire district, that makes it pretty clear that creating a curriculum that desensitizes our teens about appropriate boundaries and encourages them to discuss sexually explicit materials with teachers is probably not the direction FCPS should be moving in.

Well said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I might ask for an alternate book just to avoid reading a novel in verse, which my kid hates as much as I do.

I'm very left wing, but I'm actually a little disappointed that the schools are trending so hard away from reading the classics. I feel like kids will have lots of opportunities to read the controversial new lit-crit darling books. But when will they read The Grapes of Wrath, or The Crucible, Slaughterhouse Five, or Long Day's Journey Into Night, or anything by Hemingway or Wharton? (Seems like some of the classics, like Ray Bradbury, George Orwell and Toni Morrison continue to be popular among schools.) I subscribe to the "Make New Friends, But Keep the Old" theory of literature -- I feel like we are tossing out all the old friends. It would be easier to mix in the new ones if kids read 6 novels a year, but it seems like a lot of classes really only have 2-3, plus maybe some poems or short stories.

Have them read these classics on their own.
This summer, my ninth grade child read Scarlett Letter, As the Bell Tolls, and The Crucible. Last summer, she read Lord of the Flies, A Separate Peace, Old Man and the Sea, and Of Mice and Men. She likes to shop the bookshelves in our family room, and she found most of these on our shelves. We only had to download one.

List. If you had such books around you would know the actual titles. Such as For Whom the Bell Tolls. Not to mention your dislike of “The.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not a fan of book banning and would let my kid read whatever they wanted and/or was assigned. I read a different Elizabeth Acevedo book and can see where this author uses sexualized language that is worth warning parents about. Curious if it’s in curriculum or an extra the teacher chose?

In FCPS, each school has a wide selection of committee-approved titles from which teachers can choose for their class. The titles chosen generally revolve around a central theme, and teachers usually offer a handful of choices.

The curriculum does not dictate that any one title is used.

In my kids fcps high school, every 9th grade English class read it together.
3 of the 4 teachers were male. If you’re telling me they had the choice to select that or a different non-explicit book, and chose this one, it makes me view their judgment differently. I question why they thought it would be appropriate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did none of you go to High School? I'm genuinely confused by these responses.

Confused by this question.
What explicit masturbation scenes did your teachers require you to read in high school?

The scene you refer to is hardly explicit. No more than the scene in The Giver.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo.

That’s a hard no.

So you've read it?

The Poet X should not be a class required book due to the desecration of the most sacred part of Catholicism, the Eucharist.

FCPS would not allow a book anywhere near a classroom that denigrated Mohammed in the same way that this book desecrates the Eucharist.

Leave it as a classroom book for kids to choose on their own, but remove it from the class reading lists.

The book is required reading?