Help with public school providing sexual content to students

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High school. It’s a vital time, as it’s when a person starts to form their mature opinions (I mean this as a broad statement) and the empathy and understanding of complex issues that can be introduced to an individual during these years can have a lifelong impact as to the formation of their understanding of the world.
 
Teek said:
So I could use advice.
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Speak to parents of other kids in her class. Ask there opinion on the suitability of the books (they may need to examine the books to know what’s in them).

An ally or two would be helpful.
 
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My question was is it off limits for your daughter because of the rapes, murders, etc.
 
Odd. My son attended 13 years of public school. Any time when he could select his own reading material it was fine to select the Bible.
 
Oh, in that case, no. The Old Testament is not off limits. However, she has not asked to read it. If and when she does, it will not be off limits because we can explore it together and put it in the context of the entirety of Salvation History, of man’s quest and definite need for God, and His coming to save us. I would not want her to read the Old Testament with someone who does not understand Salvation History. Or who does not believe in original sin, etc.
 
CoffeeAndDonuts said:
At some point she must confront these things if she wants to begin to comprehend how evil manifests into the world.
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This a thousand times.
Teek said:
No, she does not need to sell her soul to do so. She has the right to consciensciously object to themes and material in the books assigned to her, even in college.
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I disagree, to be intellectually challenged you need to—quite often—step outside your comfort zone. Universities are currently being made into a “safe haven” for everyone, where students are just given a worldview that they are comfortable with.

But the world isn’t comfortable, and many people in the world don’t live comfortable lives. Literature allows us to see into the lives of others, and do be able to deal with it.

I would recommend instead of changing books, to work with your daughter through it and explain it to her. Help her understand.

This will give her skills to deal with similar occurrences rationally and intellectually, instead of demonising works or the world we live in.
 
CoffeeAndDonuts said:
Out of curiosity, which book did you pick for her as an alternative?
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She was given these two options:

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

I have not read either one. When I looked it up, The Glass Castle seems ok. A Million Little Pieces is reported to have a scene in which a girl is gang raped by a drug dealer and fourteen of his friends.

Does anyone have an opinion of either of these books?
 
Million little pieces is a work of fiction.

Glass Castle is still quite disturbing when it talks about graphic childhood neglect.

Of the two, Glass Castle is probably preferable. But if she is a sensitive child it still will likely disturb her deeply.
 
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A Million Little Pieces is a literary hoax. The author fabricated parts of the book and passed them off as true. I have no idea why a teacher would be assigning a phony book for students to read. The fact that it was a giant fake would bug me more than the subject matter.

I thought The Glass Castle was a good book, but it deals with the true life experiences of a severely neglected and sometimes abused family of children. This teacher really wants her class to read dark subject matter. I wonder why?
 
LittleFlower said:
I disagree, to be intellectually challenged you need to—quite often—step outside your comfort zone. Universities are currently being made into a “safe haven” for everyone, where students are just given a worldview that they are comfortable with.

But the world isn’t comfortable, and many people in the world don’t live comfortable lives. Literature allows us to see into the lives of others, and do be able to deal with it.

I would recommend instead of changing books, to work with your daughter through it and explain it to her. Help her understand.

This will give her skills to deal with similar occurrences rationally and intellectually, instead of demonising works or the world we live in.
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That is, I think, the misunderstanding. Or disagreement.

Let me explain.

She has encountered many “evils of the world” in her own life. And is still healing. She has lost people she loves, dealt with a parent with chronic illness, witnessed and experienced domestic violence and therefor her parents separated. She underwent treatment for PTSD. She has Tourette’s syndrome. Her father has been over seas and she has faced that fear and has come to understand the results of the evils of war on good people. She has been on mission trips to see firsthand poverty and the hidden evils of our society. She has taken a course on St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body so that she can learn the beauty and dignity of human sexuality properly cherished. She visits the elderly in nursing homes to alleviate their loneliness and hear their stories. She is a remarkable person!

She does not need books with a callous disregard for human sexuality in order to see into other people’s lives. She has seen that side. She needs books that show her the dignity and beauty of mankind fulfilled.

And there are hundreds of books that can both explore evil and present beauty that don’t have those themes for high school kids. When she is 18-22 in college, she will BE an adult. She will explore all kinds of stuff.

And it is not her teacher’s place to explore sexuality with her. It is English class.
 
Teek said:
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LittleFlower:
I disagree, to be intellectually challenged you need to—quite often—step outside your comfort zone. Universities are currently being made into a “safe haven” for everyone, where students are just given a worldview that they are comfortable with.

But the world isn’t comfortable, and many people in the world don’t live comfortable lives. Literature allows us to see into the lives of others, and do be able to deal with it.

I would recommend instead of changing books, to work with your daughter through it and explain it to her. Help her understand.

This will give her skills to deal with similar occurrences rationally and intellectually, instead of demonising works or the world we live in.
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That is, I think, the misunderstanding. Or disagreement.

Let me explain.

She has encountered many “evils of the world” in her own life. And is still healing. She has lost people she loves, dealt with a parent with chronic illness, witnessed and experienced domestic violence and therefor her parents separated. She underwent treatment for PTSD. She has Tourette’s syndrome. Her father has been over seas and she has faced that fear and has come to understand the results of the evils of war on good people. She has been on mission trips to see firsthand poverty and the hidden evils of our society. She has taken a course on St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body so that she can learn the beauty and dignity of human sexuality properly cherished. She visits the elderly in nursing homes to alleviate their loneliness and hear their stories. She is a remarkable person!

She does not need books with a callous disregard for human sexuality in order to see into other people’s lives. She has seen that side. She needs books that show her the dignity and beauty of mankind fulfilled.

And there are hundreds of books that can both explore evil and present beauty that don’t have those themes for high school kids. When she is 18-22 in college, she will BE an adult. She will explore all kinds of stuff.

And it is not her teacher’s place to explore sexuality with her. It is English class.
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What state are you in? Many offer free cyber school that gives the same credits as a public high school.

The teacher seems hellbent on giving her graphically disturbing material.

I do agree with the idea of challenging children’s views, but at the same time, when the “opt out” options are nearly as bad as the “opt in” the teacher is simply trying to push an agenda.
 
I daresay all of this subjective thought reminds me why I majored and minored in math and science subjects. In this day and age you will never have an argument about calculus being dirty or physics being politically incorrect.
 
Teek said:
And there are hundreds of books that can both explore evil and present beauty that don’t have those themes for high school kids. When she is 18-22 in college, she will BE an adult. She will explore all kinds of stuff.
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You did say otherwise that even at university she should be able to not read things she deems are morally reprehensible.

School isn’t about reading the feel good stuff, heck we read “All quiet on the Western front”. Now that was not much fun, but important. Perhaps many of the other children in class do not have the same background as her, and would benefit from reading it?
 
AREN’T THERE THOUSANDS OF AMAZING BOOKS OUT THERE!?!?!

Why can’t she pick one of those?
 
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