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.

As a person of color, I get very little out of reading the "classics."

We don’t care, sorry. This is a country based on western civilization.

Anonymous wrote:Leave out all the bs, we have to get kids ready for the real world not this fantasy reading bs. Literature can be done at home if parents choose to do so. We needs people to read and write technical and business documents not fantasy novels and made up writings.

Can’t tell if it’s sarcasm but it would actually be better than all the woke agenda books

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is truly going downhill.

Excerpts from The Poet X: the other girls call me conceited. Ho. Thot. Fast.
When your body takes up more room than your voice
you are always the target of well-aimed rumors,
which is why I let my knuckles talk for me.
Which is why I learned to shrug when my name was replaced
by insults.

And I get all this attention from guys 
but it’s like a sancocho of emotions.
This stew of mixed-up ingredients:
partly flattered they think I’m attractive,
partly scared they’re only interested in my ass and boobs,
and a good measure of Mami-will-kill-me fear sprinkled on top.

Good girls don’t wear tampones.
Are you still a virgin? Are you having relations?”
I didn’t know how to answer her, I could only cry.
She shook her head and told me to skip church that day.
Threw away the box of tampons, saying they were for cueros.
That she would buy me pads. Said eleven was too young.
That she would pray on my behalf.
I didn’t understand what she was saying.
But I stopped crying. I licked at my split lip.
I prayed for the bleeding to stop.

Yeah, no, my kid isn’t going to be reading this crap. This is so ridiculous.

So she is just a hooligan who fights other girls.
I don’t know why but in our middle and HS most fights are by Hispanic students.
I don’t think many white students can relate where I live.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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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.

DC’s 9th grade teacher is pushing the same woke stuff. The problem is that he is very expressive and funny and kids think he is the best thing ever.

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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?

yes

Can you share how your child handled that book? What are your thoughts as a parent?

She liked it. I don’t really care about the content, but I wish they would read actual literature and classics.

Yes same.

Why? They're not English majors. The goal is to get them to read and to think critically. In 9th and 10th grade they're 14 and 15; a books that can get them interested and relate to them is a good choice.

The class is English, not the classics. There are a lot of ways to approach it.


-Literature Professor. .

Yeah but they’re not really thinking cirtically about these modern, woke books, I’m sorry. The current curriculum is weak.

Because they’ll be cancelled in no time if they don’t toe the party line

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

yes

Can you share how your child handled that book? What are your thoughts as a parent?

She liked it. I don’t really care about the content, but I wish they would read actual literature and classics.

What do you think "actual literature" is? Are you stuck 40 years ago trying to defend a dead white guys only canon? The field has moved waaaaaay past that, both in terms of academic studies and teaching

I can tell you this, if your student takes a general critical thinking/composition/intro to lit course in college it will almost certainly be full of more (relatively) contemporary works. The "classics" - while showing up in those general courses sometimes - will largely be found in period specific courses for majors.

DP.
Dead white guys are qualify guaranteed, can’t deny that. They can read all the modern stuff on their own or in college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

yes

Can you share how your child handled that book? What are your thoughts as a parent?

She liked it. I don’t really care about the content, but I wish they would read actual literature and classics.

Yes same.

Why? They're not English majors. The goal is to get them to read and to think critically. In 9th and 10th grade they're 14 and 15; a books that can get them interested and relate to them is a good choice.

The class is English, not the classics. There are a lot of ways to approach it.


-Literature Professor. .

My kid is already hooked on reading. He doesn’t need social justice books to get him to read and think critically, because they discourage any critical thinking. All kids know how to analyze them - according to the party line.
It would be good to develop his critical thinking using actually good books, not some flavor of the day books where the only thing they got going for them is some social trendy topic.

New to this topic.
I am not afraid of sex drugs rock b roll themes in books.
What scares me is what doesn’t have any warnings in fact.
Stories like Super Human or Why I learned to Cook and their subliminal messages.

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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.

If you know the book, why don't you name it? So weird to be secretive.

It's probably something most people would consider a classic

For 9th grade, Romeo and Juliet AND The Odyssey both fall under this policy and we have to send this warning to parents. Most would probably say both of these texts have value and aren’t sexually explicit though. Nonetheless. Because Odysseus sleeps with Cersei and Calypso we have to send the warning.

Yes, and THAT is the problem.
Parents roll their eyes and go “oh—is that all?”
And then they assume it’s for Romeo and Hukiet and The Odyssey.
And they don’t actually read The Poet X, and its extremely detailed descriptions of masturbation and “feeling his hardness pressed against me” and the many other explicit sexual references that—without you having sent this notification, you’d be side-eyeing a teacher for introducing and discussing these pornographic passages with your fifteen year-old.

I’m a child of the 70s and 80s, and by the time I was in 9th grade I’d already read all about sex and masturbation in my harlequin and silhouette romance novels, the VC Andrews smut that was all the rage then, and Danielle Steele, Harold Robbins, and Sidney Sheldon novels too.

You people are ridiculously uptight. Your 15 year old probably already knows all about sex from talking with friends or engaging with the internet encyclopedia; or if not, will not be traumatized by learning about it. It’s a normal part of being a mammal. It’s okay to talk about and it’s negligent not to talk about it with a girl who is maybe only one year or at most 3 years from the legal age of consent. Y’all should be talking about sex abundantly, and helping her to know all the reasons it’s good to wait and oh by the way, it’s okay to masturbate and here’s a copy of Our Bodies Ourselves and another of The Joy of Sex and you should spend lots of time in self exploration but wait until you really know a boy before remotely considering it.

We were assigned to read Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews in 8th grade at my parochial school. On my own I openly read the series that included the Blue and the Grey and the Crystal Cave and its sequels plus many classics. teachers were impressed. I remember them positively commenting on the Crystal Cave.

I swear public schools are way more conservative when it comes to being able to discuss topics and read books during school.

Every time I reread this post I wonder how a parochial school teacher could assign Flowers in the Attic. That just seems daft.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

If you know the book, why don't you name it? So weird to be secretive.

It's probably something most people would consider a classic

For 9th grade, Romeo and Juliet AND The Odyssey both fall under this policy and we have to send this warning to parents. Most would probably say both of these texts have value and aren’t sexually explicit though. Nonetheless. Because Odysseus sleeps with Cersei and Calypso we have to send the warning.

Yes, and THAT is the problem.
Parents roll their eyes and go “oh—is that all?”
And then they assume it’s for Romeo and Hukiet and The Odyssey.
And they don’t actually read The Poet X, and its extremely detailed descriptions of masturbation and “feeling his hardness pressed against me” and the many other explicit sexual references that—without you having sent this notification, you’d be side-eyeing a teacher for introducing and discussing these pornographic passages with your fifteen year-old.

I’m a child of the 70s and 80s, and by the time I was in 9th grade I’d already read all about sex and masturbation in my harlequin and silhouette romance novels, the VC Andrews smut that was all the rage then, and Danielle Steele, Harold Robbins, and Sidney Sheldon novels too.

You people are ridiculously uptight. Your 15 year old probably already knows all about sex from talking with friends or engaging with the internet encyclopedia; or if not, will not be traumatized by learning about it. It’s a normal part of being a mammal. It’s okay to talk about and it’s negligent not to talk about it with a girl who is maybe only one year or at most 3 years from the legal age of consent. Y’all should be talking about sex abundantly, and helping her to know all the reasons it’s good to wait and oh by the way, it’s okay to masturbate and here’s a copy of Our Bodies Ourselves and another of The Joy of Sex and you should spend lots of time in self exploration but wait until you really know a boy before remotely considering it.

SAME. My mother, a former English teacher who doesn't come within a country mile of being "progressive" let me read VC Andrews in elementary school - My Sweet Audrina is even more yikes than Flowers in the Attic. (Frankly, I found Pet Semetary more traumatizing.) I lived off of Judy Blume. She felt it was better to have an open discussion rather than create situation that involved sneaking around.

Our school sent one of those notices to all kids in my younger one's grade level with a list of books that they may be reading - and it turns out my child's class is not reading any of the books that were on the list. I am, because I'm always looking to expand my reading list and they sounded pretty good. (My biggest gripe thus far has been that my child has now had two books they read in middle school on their HS reading lists.) The branding of some of the books/passages listed here as "pornography" or "erotica" is absurd. Sex and desire is part of the human condition, and pretending like your high schoolers don't know a thing about it or that teachers are engaging in detailed discussions about sex in the classroom (except I guess some Langley football coach - so one teacher at one school in one of the largest school systems in the country, maybe?) is ridiculous and, in some cases, displaying an unfortunately poor understanding of literately analysis. And your precious classics have references to sex, some in language that was scandalous when they first came out but is staid now.

I also find it hard to believe that there are school that are not at least reading some classic literature, whether excerpts or in full. Mine are reading a mix of things that were classics when I was in school and more modern books - 50/50 or 60/40 leaning toward books I read in HS/college (and I'm old). One assignment last year was to choose your own classic to read. I read the books they read in class either in advance or along with them. Having read quite a bit of it, much of classic literature is not very representative (and *gasp* includes all sorts of references to sex and other mature topics), and reading is a great way to see the perspectives of others and broaden horizons. Reading things that you don't like or that you don't agree with is part of getting an education. I think Thomas Hardy blows chunks, yet somehow I survived both Tess of the D'Urbervilles (rape and the death of the resulting child) and Return of the Native (premarital sex, adultery, and the most boring book I've ever read - 50 pages on the description of the heath alone). Art, sometimes, will make you uncomfortable or to have differing opinions on it's merit, interpretation, and value.

Anonymous wrote:Hi OP

This became SOP due to VA law last year

You will likely see one from social studies teacher as well

So now you know the books might have some sex in them, or sexual acts, or drugs, or alcohol, or bad stuff

So now you know social studies they might teach your student about the rape of Nanking and can you believe people were raped

And that slaves were raped and beaten

And that Indians were attached to the front of cannons by British as retribution

Or that nazis put Jews and others in concentration camps

If any of the above and more bother you honestly just put your kid in private school cause everything I mentioned is just literature and history and what happens in the world

But anyway law passed last year so now teachers have to send that note

And no the teachers aren’t handing your kid the Kama sutra and saying go practice in the bathroom (frankly some kids are already doing that without the Kama sutra)

Anonymous wrote:Dear Parent/Guardian,

FCPS Policy 3290 requires parental notification when students may encounter instructional materials that contain sexually explicit content. According to the Policy, “sexually explicit content means (i) any description of or (ii) any picture, photograph, drawing, motion picture film, digital image or similar visual representation depicting sexual bestiality, a lewd exhibition of nudity, as nudity is defined in Section 18.2-390, sexual excitement, sexual conduct or sadomasochistic abuse, as also defined in Section 18.2-390, coprophilia, urophilia, or fetishism.”

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.

Course: English 9 and English 9 Honors


Omg. WTAF? Is this normal??

You’re comparing history to fiction? That’s just nutty.

Hi OP

This became SOP due to VA law last year

You will likely see one from social studies teacher as well

So now you know the books might have some sex in them, or sexual acts, or drugs, or alcohol, or bad stuff

So now you know social studies they might teach your student about the rape of Nanking and can you believe people were raped

And that slaves were raped and beaten

And that Indians were attached to the front of cannons by British as retribution

Or that nazis put Jews and others in concentration camps

If any of the above and more bother you honestly just put your kid in private school cause everything I mentioned is just literature and history and what happens in the world

But anyway law passed last year so now teachers have to send that note

And no the teachers aren’t handing your kid the Kama sutra and saying go practice in the bathroom (frankly some kids are already doing that without the Kama sutra)

Anonymous wrote:Dear Parent/Guardian,

FCPS Policy 3290 requires parental notification when students may encounter instructional materials that contain sexually explicit content. According to the Policy, “sexually explicit content means (i) any description of or (ii) any picture, photograph, drawing, motion picture film, digital image or similar visual representation depicting sexual bestiality, a lewd exhibition of nudity, as nudity is defined in Section 18.2-390, sexual excitement, sexual conduct or sadomasochistic abuse, as also defined in Section 18.2-390, coprophilia, urophilia, or fetishism.”

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.

Course: English 9 and English 9 Honors


Omg. WTAF? Is this normal??

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

If you know the book, why don't you name it? So weird to be secretive.

It's probably something most people would consider a classic

For 9th grade, Romeo and Juliet AND The Odyssey both fall under this policy and we have to send this warning to parents. Most would probably say both of these texts have value and aren’t sexually explicit though. Nonetheless. Because Odysseus sleeps with Cersei and Calypso we have to send the warning.

Yes, and THAT is the problem.
Parents roll their eyes and go “oh—is that all?”
And then they assume it’s for Romeo and Hukiet and The Odyssey.
And they don’t actually read The Poet X, and its extremely detailed descriptions of masturbation and “feeling his hardness pressed against me” and the many other explicit sexual references that—without you having sent this notification, you’d be side-eyeing a teacher for introducing and discussing these pornographic passages with your fifteen year-old.

I’m a child of the 70s and 80s, and by the time I was in 9th grade I’d already read all about sex and masturbation in my harlequin and silhouette romance novels, the VC Andrews smut that was all the rage then, and Danielle Steele, Harold Robbins, and Sidney Sheldon novels too.

You people are ridiculously uptight. Your 15 year old probably already knows all about sex from talking with friends or engaging with the internet encyclopedia; or if not, will not be traumatized by learning about it. It’s a normal part of being a mammal. It’s okay to talk about and it’s negligent not to talk about it with a girl who is maybe only one year or at most 3 years from the legal age of consent. Y’all should be talking about sex abundantly, and helping her to know all the reasons it’s good to wait and oh by the way, it’s okay to masturbate and here’s a copy of Our Bodies Ourselves and another of The Joy of Sex and you should spend lots of time in self exploration but wait until you really know a boy before remotely considering it.

We were assigned to read Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews in 8th grade at my parochial school. On my own I openly read the series that included the Blue and the Grey and the Crystal Cave and its sequels plus many classics. teachers were impressed. I remember them positively commenting on the Crystal Cave.

I swear public schools are way more conservative when it comes to being able to discuss topics and read books during school.

Anonymous wrote:I’m just glad parents have the option to opt out of some of the modern crap.

+1

I’m just glad parents have the option to opt out of some of the modern crap.