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sexuality and books in the curriculum
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From: Rosanne Parry <rosanneparry_at_comcast.net>
Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 16:19:53 -0700
I've been traveling and a little slow in my response to this month's conversation. I believe it was KT Horning who invited a conversation about what to do about books in the school we find personally challenging. I thought I'd share an experience I had several years ago with my oldest girl in regard to an assigned book in her junior year.
It was an Allende title, my daughter was assigned it as summer reading and she found it deeply upsetting because every instance of sexual activity in the book was a violent encounter. My girl is well aware of the statistics on sexual assault for girls, the prevalence of dating violence, and the plight of many girls world-wide who are trafficked, enslaved or subjected to marriage in childhood. She felt that the book normalized sexual violence and she was particularly concerned that friends of hers who were in violent relationships would read the book as tacit approval of their situation and conclude they could hope for no better from the boys and men in their lives.
So I went to the school and asked why this particular title had been chosen for assigned reading. As I suspected they answered that it was in keeping with their goal of diversity in reading materials. I must say that I'm very grateful that my school district has assigned approximately 50% of their books by female authors and 50% by non-white authors. So we discussed whether there was another book by this same author that was less violent, or another writer in this genre that had a story less oppressive to girls, but still served the needs of the curriculum.
In addition, my daughter wanted the domestic violence hotline posted in a clearly visible spot in every English classroom. She wanted to make sure that at some point when the Allende novel was discussed that the English teachers made it abundantly clear that sexual violence is a crime and that there were resources in the community to help victims, and things a person could do to prevent the violence in the first place.
The English department responded very generously to our requests. The curriculum didn't really call for conversation about sexual violence but they added it to their classroom conversations and were surprised to hear from many boys who found the repeated sexual violence depressing because they didn't want to be violent themselves, but it seemed to be what was expected of men. The following year when the curriculum committee was doing their usual review of assigned books they took sexual violence into consideration with all the titles and ended up replacing the Allende book and one other with alternate titles which they felt better represented the range of healthy sexuality.
Rosanne Parry
Written in Stone, 2013 Second Fiddle, 2011 Heart of a Shepherd, 2009 www.rosanneparry.com
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Received on Sun 09 Mar 2014 06:20:32 PM CDT
Date: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 16:19:53 -0700
I've been traveling and a little slow in my response to this month's conversation. I believe it was KT Horning who invited a conversation about what to do about books in the school we find personally challenging. I thought I'd share an experience I had several years ago with my oldest girl in regard to an assigned book in her junior year.
It was an Allende title, my daughter was assigned it as summer reading and she found it deeply upsetting because every instance of sexual activity in the book was a violent encounter. My girl is well aware of the statistics on sexual assault for girls, the prevalence of dating violence, and the plight of many girls world-wide who are trafficked, enslaved or subjected to marriage in childhood. She felt that the book normalized sexual violence and she was particularly concerned that friends of hers who were in violent relationships would read the book as tacit approval of their situation and conclude they could hope for no better from the boys and men in their lives.
So I went to the school and asked why this particular title had been chosen for assigned reading. As I suspected they answered that it was in keeping with their goal of diversity in reading materials. I must say that I'm very grateful that my school district has assigned approximately 50% of their books by female authors and 50% by non-white authors. So we discussed whether there was another book by this same author that was less violent, or another writer in this genre that had a story less oppressive to girls, but still served the needs of the curriculum.
In addition, my daughter wanted the domestic violence hotline posted in a clearly visible spot in every English classroom. She wanted to make sure that at some point when the Allende novel was discussed that the English teachers made it abundantly clear that sexual violence is a crime and that there were resources in the community to help victims, and things a person could do to prevent the violence in the first place.
The English department responded very generously to our requests. The curriculum didn't really call for conversation about sexual violence but they added it to their classroom conversations and were surprised to hear from many boys who found the repeated sexual violence depressing because they didn't want to be violent themselves, but it seemed to be what was expected of men. The following year when the curriculum committee was doing their usual review of assigned books they took sexual violence into consideration with all the titles and ended up replacing the Allende book and one other with alternate titles which they felt better represented the range of healthy sexuality.
Rosanne Parry
Written in Stone, 2013 Second Fiddle, 2011 Heart of a Shepherd, 2009 www.rosanneparry.com
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Received on Sun 09 Mar 2014 06:20:32 PM CDT
