Inappropriate books for Children to read?

[Sir_Knight]

Over a month to talk to the principal?! It should not take that long to be able to discuss concerns with the principal or teacher.

I agree.

Yep.

but I would consider trying to talk to the teacher before the principal, unless you’ve already done that…

Problem is that the teachers will only talk to the parents of students. This summer reading assignment was given by the 5th grade teachers and which teacher she gets will not be determined until sometime in August. So technically, she has no teacher.

 

[Sir_Knight]

Wow, Sir Knight, that does sound like a great book for kids. I wish more books, movies & television would incorporate Catholic or Christian faith in them today. They are hard to find, as you said. I do also wish schools would teach the faith more & tie it into everything they do!

Yep. Me too. I think that is what is needed in the early years for the faith to take root and a good foundation to be laid.

 

[Sir_Knight]

Sir Knight,
Your hands are not all that tied. I used to believe as you. My child was asked to read trashy books at her “Catholic” school. I was appalled! Then I began to look even further into what she was learning at this school and was very angry to find out she really wasn’t learning her faith at all. The priest flat out said he would do nothing to help the school follow the teachings of the Catholic faith. I blew and pulled my child. I am now home-schooling all my children. I isn’t easy. We live on near nothing, but my children are learning their faith. In every subject they learn something about being Catholic. In the end I am learning more about the faith that I didn’t get the opportunity to know and we are learning together. It really amazed me who little I knew of Church history and how America was settle and influenced by the Catholic Faith.

I didn’t know that in the beginning Catholics were not given the right to vote in this country. I didn’t realize how profoundly science was influenced by the faith. I was always led to believe that Catholic history was barbaric and it needed to change. Now I realize Jesus Words were for all time and don’t require changing.

My daughter used to get frustrated when she would open her science book and it would tell how wonderfully designed God created… She kept demanding that God had nothing to do with science. Boy that Catholic school didn’t help her. She has finally come around, but it has taken three years to get rid of the relativism she learned while attending “Catholic” school.

Go talk to the teacher. Ask if your child could please read a different book. It is worth a try. You will sleep better if you do.

We’ve given serious consideration to home schooling but what has stopped us has been the loss of social interaction with children her own age which we also view as being important.

 

[Sr_Sally]

Problem is that the teachers will only talk to the parents of students. This summer reading assignment was given by the 5th grade teachers and which teacher she gets will not be determined until sometime in August. So technically, she has no teacher.

This and the fact that it has taken you a month to get an appointment with the principal are more concerning to me than the fact that they assigned this book. No school should make it this difficult for a parent to talk to a teacher or principal.

Any one of the 5th grade teachers should be happy to talk to you about your concerns and certainly the principal should have made time for you long before this!

My children have never attended Catholic schools, but I have never had a problem getting almost instant access to teachers or administrative staff at the various schools they have attended.

I would write a letter of your concerns to the principal. If you cannot get that meeting rescheduled in a very timely manner I would head straight to the school superintedent of your diocese. At least in our dioceee that is who the school principals reort to rather than to the Pastor of the parish. But consider contacting the pastor also.

 

[Sr_Sally]

We’ve given serious consideration to home schooling but what has stopped us has been the loss of social interaction with children her own age which we also view as being important.

There are likely to be homeschool support groups in your area–even one specifically for Catholics. Your children will get enough social interaction through something like that, seeing their neighborhood firends, being on sports teams, etc. If your parish has a children’s choir, Jr Legion of Mary group, or anything similar that can also be a fine source of interaction.

Homeschooling is a big change and will require adjustments from everyone in the family. We homeschooled for a time during the lower elementary ages and found that general interaction with neighborhood friends, cousins, and the children they met through sports and extracurricular activities was enough to keep the kids happy socially.

 

[dkoinzan]

I value proper socialization, but have you seen that in her school? I didn’t see it in my daughter’s. I don’t care for the snippy way the girls were speaking with one another or what the other girls valued. I want my kids to value people not things and I want them to strive for heaven not social statues. In the long run I believe the kind of socializing my children are getting at home will help them far more.

 

[DebChris]

Homeschooling is big in the city where I currently live. The social network is in place. I would be more concerned about lack of social interaction if you lived in a rural area.
One of the reasons my daughter wanted to home school was access to museums and other resources during what would be normal school hours. Sports and private music lessons need not be saved for after school and eat into homework time.
Her dreams of home schooling were dashed when she became a single parent.
I help her “home school” during the summer.
When her children were little, we used Jane Claire Lambert’s Five in a Row Series.
Common Sense Press puts out the Learning Language Arts Through Literature series.

The only time I attended a Catholic school was for a short period of time in 1st and 2nd grade. I went to 4 different schools in 1st grade.
What I remember is the academic rigor compared to the public school. I was required to write complete sentences in 1st grade and then went to a public school where they were still learning the alphabet. I also remember daily Mass as part of the parochial school.
My parents moved because of the military and a Catholic education was generally not available except through weekly catechism and what I learned from them.

Children do live in a difficult time now. Families do not have the social support they once enjoyed.
Would you be less upset if the book were included on the rising 6th grader list rather than the rising 5th grader list? Books on the list don’t need to be read in the order that they are listed. Hatchet could be saved for last.
There is also the idea of that by giving too much focus to the negatives of a book, you can overemphasize its impact. It comes back to what I have written before. Rather than censoring the book and taking it off the list, why not counterbalance its impact by (1) comparing it to other books on the list, and/or (2) adding a book, such as the one you mentioned in your last post to give a different perspective?
Students spend much time in 3rd and 4th grade comparing and contrasting different elements of what they read. This method will reinforce analytical higher order thinking skills.
The parochial school books and the public school books were almost identical when I was in elementary school. However, there would be added material in the parochial school books. For instance, science books in both schools taught evolution. The Catholic school book added how God was part of the plan. Otherwise the lessons were the same. We had a copy of the Catholic science book at home.

 

[Little_Katie]

My soon to be 5th grade daughter was given her summer reading assignments and one of the books on the list is “Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen.

The book is about a boy of divorced parents; who saw his mother kissing another man; does not believe in God; and does not know how to pray; consider suicide; survives in the wilderness not based on his faith or what his parents taught him or what his school has taught him but from what he watched on TV.

I, personally, do not think that this an appropriate book for 10-year old to be reading in a Catholic grammar school? I feel that there is enough negative influence in our children’s lives and something which stressed Catholic / Christian values would have been more appropriate.

I would be interested in the opinions of other folks here and if this should be brought up with the Principal or Pastor?

Wow- I had to read this book in third grade! Honestly? I can’t remember anything about it other than that it gave me a terrible phobia of heart attacks. I think there was a part where the boy fought a bear?

After reading your description I think I probably should not have been allowed to read something like that as young as 3rd grade. I’m kind of glad I didn’t pay attention enough to remember it!