Thursday, February 23, 2017

Week 7 Prompt


Talk about a time when a book or author that made headlines affected you personally or your work.

            Four years ago, I was in my third year of teaching middle school language arts in a rural school in Oklahoma.  Here is a little background information, so you can understand the awkwardness and gravity of the situation I found myself.  Oklahoma is considered to be in the Bible Belt.  The Bible Belt is filled with very conservative evangelical Protestants.  As a language arts teacher I think book talks or book reports are important for students to give each month.  During this time, Fifty Shades of Grey was splattered all over the media.  I had read the book when it first became an Amazon #1 best seller before the media made it a big sensation.

I had an eighth grade girl bring the book to school to read for silent reading and I am assuming to eventually present to the class during her book talk.  Now, I love when kids read and my only limitation had ever been that the book had to fit the student’s reading ability.  The young lady who brought the book was very intelligent and was considered gifted and talented, obviously I couldn’t say the reading level was too difficult.  I was not sure how to deal with the situation because I had never been placed in this type of predicament, so I went to my principal hoping to get his advice.  His response was a laugh and he gave me his well wishes.  After a day of worrying about how to handle the situation, I decided to speak privately with the student.  I decided to tell her she was allowed to read the book, but it was not a school appropriate book for a book talk and that she was not to share or discuss the book with any of her peers and the book was to stay in her locker when she was not reading it.  The next day, the student returned and told me she thought the book was too adult for her.  I felt a huge relief!

9 comments:

  1. I don't envy the situation you were in. I'm not sure what I would have done, but it sounds like you did your best to handle the situation. I believe that people have the right to read what they choose and I think you were right not taking it away, but it may have caused parental or even legal issues if she had shared it with the class.

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    1. I'm thankful things didn't go far, but I do wonder how the school board would have handled it. There was nothing in the school handbook about books. We had a student bring a gun and ammo magazine and that was considered fine and another bring a page from Playboy and of course that was not. Fifty Shades of Grey is really not your run of the mill romance novel; it's erotica, so it should have been treated like the Playboy incident.

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  2. What a tricky situation! It is frustrating that you didn't get more support or advice from your administration. My feelings on that particular book are strong and not particularly positive, but I don't believe in censorship either. Age appropriateness, maybe, but not exactly censorship. I agree that it was not school appropriate and I am glad it ended well for you.

    I was in a much less difficult situation, though somewhat similar situation to yours, a couple of years ago. I was working in a middle school library and I had an eighth grade student request a Stephen King book. He knew that I could occasionally pull books from the high school if a student asked. We had duplicate copies of some things. After mentioning it to the high school/main librarian for the district, we decided not get the book for him. It turns out that his parents had not wanted him to read any Stephen King novels and he was trying to get around their wishes. Since it was not actually available at the middle school, we used that as a reason not to provide it.

    Do you think her parents knew that she was reading this book? It must have come from home. I don't see a school library carrying it.

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    1. The student said that her mom gave her the book because she knew she wouldn't like it. Who knows really if her mom gave it to her. Kids can be really deceptive when they want something.

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  3. It's really awful that you didn't receive more help from the principal, even worse that they laughed. I'm really glad that the situation ended well but it could have gone really bad if the student had decided to go against you. I would hope that if the situation had escalated you may have received more backup.

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    1. If I could go back in time, I would call the parent and ask if they were aware of the situation and then I would ask that she not return with the book. You live and learn I suppose.

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  4. I'm sorry the administration left you alone with that incident, I think you handled it really well though. Thanks for sharing and full points!

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  5. Many of my high school students have read this book and talk about how much they like the series and are going to see the movie. I started the book and did not finish it, it's not a book I discuss with my students. I am open to discussing other books though with them.

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  6. I have personally never read any of those books and I have no interests in doing so. I read 'romance' books at an early age and I didn't understand all of the sappy love stuff but I still kept reading them. Of course, I am not sure these books are like that but I am just stating my personal experience.

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